We always seem to hear about those dancers who are successful, but how do you cope when you don’t get what you want? It’s called "resilience", explains psychologist Gene Moyle.
When we don’t achieve the goals we desire, it is natural to feel disappointment. The challenge is not to allow that disappointment to turn into anger or sadness or, worse, send you into a negative spiral that saps your confidence, destroys your motivation, and even has you questioning whether you should bother at all.
Even the most successful of performing artists are not immune from disappointment: they have just learnt how to more effectively manage their response. This is called resilience.
Example 1
Christopher Lam,
dance teacher,
QLD National Ballet
DA: What has been a recent experience of missing out on something you tried for?
CL: I auditioned in “cattle call” style format for a very northern European dance company, with no response received on the day. After two months had passed I finally wrote to the artistic director. I received quite a positive response. I was the only dancer she had been considering for a contract [but] there were two other male dancers doing private auditions in the city where the company was based and she was quite insistent that I should fly there to do company classes and see how I’d fit in with the other dancers. (I was to pay the flight and the company would pay for accommodation.) By this stage I was on holiday in Australia and not about to fly to Iceland without much of a guarantee of employment. I put together a show reel of my recent contemporary shows and sent it off express post. A week or so later I found out that I wasn’t to be offered a contract and immediately started lamenting my decision not to go. I now had no job for the following season.
DA: How did you deal with the disappointment?
CL: In terms of not having many options for a contract for the next season, the most shocking was the realisation that at the age of 32 I was less marketable to companies. I had experienced steady employment since leaving Australia where my first round of auditions had 100% success . . . and I was now somewhat disillusioned with what seemed like a constant barrage of rejection.
In a lot of cattle-call type auditions you can rationalise that it’s harder to even be noticed, but to make it all the way through and know that the panel did get a good look at your work, it’s harder not to take it personally. Having felt somewhat deflated I turned my attention towards teaching and after two years of not dancing, I found my inspiration again and decided give the “circuit” one last chance.
This time I was successful again.
This is an excerpt from "Bouncing Back", in the April/May issue of Dance Australia. Read the full article, with contributions from Lucinda Dunn, Jason Duff and Emily Amisano. OUT SOON!