What happens when you have to stop doing something you love, and try to replace it with something else?
How do you know when it is time to stop dancing?How do you prepare for the second career of your life?
These are all questions that pass through the mind of a professional dancer at some time. And, when you make the first noises about becoming a dancer, at a tender idealistic age, they are often the first questions asked - by other people.
Very few of us have parents who danced professionally. Most of us will have undergone a grilling at some stage trying to prise out the alternative plan. The inevitable “what if you don’t make it?” will be followed closely by the other inevitable “what will you do when you reach the end of your dance career?” Few of us have ready answers. The realisation of what you might do next creeps up on you like a slow dawn. At best it is carefully planned in advance, at second best you pray for a happy accidental discovery of your next professional guise.
Lots of dancers leave school early. I left at fifteen. I avoided most of my last year at school, staying home to play the guitar and teach myself French. However I attended every single dance class available. I was in dance class every evening and all day Saturday. In retrospect, my poor parents!
In today’s world many vocational dance courses are aligned with a degree. This is excellent news because after dance, degrees can come in handy. Dance is also very much a thinking person’s profession and deserves to be recognized as such. It requires great presence of mind, powers of lateral thinkingand a honed ability to understand and fully embody subject matter. Dancers need to be able to tune in to the creative thought trains of theiremployers. Long gone are the days when a studio full of limber legs stood about waiting for the choreographer to make up stuff.
When I was in my early thirties I had a career pause between one company and another. During this timeI returned to Australia for three months to teach at AC Arts in Adelaide. I was concerned that it might be time to think about what came next. I was also worried because I had no other training whatsoever. But what worried me more than anythingwas how I would know.
How would I know when I wanted to stop? An ex-dancer spoke these wise words, “its like falling in love” she said. “When you know, you know”. In hind site I can tell you that she was absolutely correct. When the time came, around seven years later, for me to retire, I just knew. By then, as a show ended, I couldn’t wait to get off-stage. Class was an ordeal best endured on painkillers and rehearsal directors were suddenly all my age and a pain in the aspect. Dancers are constantly told what to do and I had had enough!
- ELIZABETH OLD
See the rest of this article on Elizabeth's blog: dancecite.com.
Read about more dancers' experiences of life after dance in the Feb/Mar issue of Dance Australia, including Benazir Hussein, Robyn Forsythe and Glyn Scott.