Task 3a) Current Networks

The ballet world is a very small one so in many ways I see it as many small networks which make up one large one. For instance as a pre-vocational student I was a part of a network of dancers auditioning for schools, taking supplementary training and open classes. I remember all too well continuing to bump into the same people. We learned from each other's experiences and this helped us to develop our training and ultimately gain places for further training.

Then within the environment of English National Ballet School I became a part of a network, both within the school and across the other leading vocational schools in the UK. There were students from many different countries in the school, so I automatically learned a great deal about the profession around the world and discovered some of the differences of how dancers train and work in different places. Then in my graduation year, I auditioned for many companies, further developing this network by meeting different dancers in different places and hearing their experiences. Also getting advice from students who had graduated before me. After my graduation, my year group has found work all over the world and I am able to keep up to date with how everyone is doing and learn about the networks they are becoming a part of. Whilst at school., I also worked on the ENBS juniors programme (ballet classes for children) as a teaching assistant. This was a great opportunity for me to get into contact with teachers and young students.

Now I am part of a network within my company Ballet Cymru. We are a small company with 10 dancers, 2 technicians, 1 administrator, an education officer, development officer and a Director and Assistant director. Never the less, the company also has guest choreographers which broaden this network and the dancers themselves have further developed my network by putting me in touch with other dancers they know.

My apprenticeship for this year has been partly funded by The London Ballet Circle, a society of dancers and dance enthusiasts. Through being given this funding, I have become known to the circle and had the opportunity to meet a number of them. This has broadened my professional network too.

In the summer of this year I was asked to perform The Dying Swan at a congress dinner dance for The National Association of Teachers of Dancing, here I met a number of teachers and important people who I now have contact with.

In my family town of Chirk in North Wales I would say that I am part of a network. It is a small community and I have done a lot of work within it, both through teaching ballet and through doing performances with The Ballet Pod company there. Whenever I return there in holiday periods, I once again engage in this network and this enables me to continue my work as a professional even during holiday periods. Through my teacher Richard Slaughter and The Ballet Pod, my network has extended, as many events that I have performed at have put me into contact with musicians, photographers, dance teachers and other dancers.

I think one of the most important tools for developing my professional network has been facebook. I tend to use it as a forum for professional promotion and I feel it has broadened my network so much. I can keep up to date with how my friends are doing in different companies and broaden my circle of friends even further through the acquaintances they make. This is useful if I want to attend company class in one of these companies. However, I still feel that at times I lack a bit of confidence when it comes to self promotion, I feel a bit exhibitionist! However, I know that all of the experienced professionals who I admire always engage with social media for this reason.

I am a part of the network 'networkdance'. This is a really useful site because it allows you to have all of your details readily available to directors and employers who are looking for dancers. You can upload your c.v and details and view all the up and coming auditions. I really need to develop my profile on this site though and am hoping to make it of more use to me.

I would very much like to develop my network to include more high profile individuals so that I might be able to experience more opportunities to seek advice from them and attend classes and so on. One way of doing this might be to develop my contacts in other companies so that I can talk to them about their experiences. The more experienced professionals who I have come into contact with all have these contacts and I have noticed that they find it easier to get company classes and work with other companies. I think that I can start to broaden this aspect of my professional network through the use of social media and also getting in touch with more friends of friends.

Now that I am on the BAPP course I am part of another network. This is a particularly useful one as although we are all on the same course, everyone is in different areas of work and so I feel that I have the opportunity to connect with people who I might other wise not get the chance to. It is great to be able to share experiences and learn about other people's views.

I created the diagram below to try and make sense of my current professional networks visually.

When looking at such a broad network it is evident that many people will have different reasons being involved in that network. For instance with Ballet Cymru, all the dancers are here because they want to dance but these dancers provide opportunities for artists who want to paint them, then they provide work for the stage crew, choreographers who want to work with them and so it goes on.

I feel that for me, what often stands in the way of professional networking is confidence to connect with others. This is what I intend to work on, but also I think that through the process of learning about what others have done to build their networks this confidence will build naturally.