Photo: Ferdinand Thomas
Young dancers who are nurtured to become promising talent are let down by lack of provision to help them find work in the region, a leading agency has said.
Jenni Sutherland, director of Riven Productions, a commercial dance agency which helps dancers from London and the West Midlands find work, said the region needs to do more to showcase the dance talent available to clients, which would in turn bring more work back to the area.
Sutherland set up the agency in 1998 to help organise work for dancers in night clubs and music videos. Now the dancers on her books do more fashion and corporate events, alongside teaching and running classes.
Frustrated by the lack of support from local authorities, Sutherland feels more could be done to make sure young dancers are not left feeling like they cannot make their passion a profession. She said:
“People do their dance classes and dance GCSEs and then their Mums and Dads tell them they should study to get a proper job. What we’re saying is, yes study, but if you love dancing there is work there you just need to know where and how to find it.
“In London it’s known where you go to get work, but there’s no such system here in Birmingham – it’s all just word of mouth and you need the contacts. It’s the young ones who don’t know where to go.”
Compared to the capital there are few purely commercial dance agencies in the region. Which means those who want to pursue a career often move to London, or give up their aspirations altogether. Sutherland believes a group effort is needed among companies to make sure local dance stays in the Birmingham area.
“If we all pull together to say to the next generation ‘Stay here’ and at the same time we try to pull more clients into the region, then things will get better,” she said. “It is a constant battle to show dancers why to stay and attract the clientelle as well.”
Her Birmingham-based company helps between 20-30 dancers from the West Midlands, and she takes on dancers based on auditions, showreels and CVs. But Sutherland says many of those in the area are migrating to London because that’s where they think the work is – she is keen to point out that in this competative atmosphere they are less likely to get work, and often have to take up a part time jobs just to survive. She said:
“Birmingham is the second city, but everyone is moving out of it.
“There are more opportunities in London and more agencies there, so it attracts more dancers. But in my eyes they should stay away from there because there will be more dancers fighting for the same jobs.
“We need to let dancers know that they do not necessarily need to go to London to get assistance.”
But Julie Kavanagh, founder and creative director of JK Dance Productions, says dancers need to go to London to get the experience of what working in the industry is actually like. She said:
“When you’re cocooned in the region, you don’t realise the calibre and the pace you’re working at is so much slower than those in London. I find the regional dancers take a lot longer to pick up routines for television and camera – which means they fall flat on their face at big auditions.”
Kavanagh believes training facilities in the Birmingham area are not suited to commercial dance – with more of a focus on hip hop and theatre styles instead of producing all-rounders who can quickly learn any choreography. She said West Midlands-based dancers in the agency had moved to London because the bigger jobs are there, but they are always eager to work back home when they can. Kavanagh thinks if the dance schools in the region were training the right thing, dancers could make a lot more money.
“The experience of working in the commercial industry isn’t being offered in Birmingham,” she said. “But if you know what you are doing you can make thousands of pounds from commercial dance.”
Both Kavanagh and Sutherland cite the NEC as a lucrative venue for commercial work. But Sutherland says if dancers move away from the regions, there is less incentive for clients to seek out dancers from the area. As a former professional dancer, Sutherland also says dancers need help finding teaching work to sustain them inbetween jobs.
“There are two types of dancer: the ones who want to be famous and on TV who think it is easy,” she said. “And the ones who love dancing and will do anything for it. Dance has become a lot bigger because of reality TV and some people think it’s glitz and glamour. But those dancers won’t last long. There are plenty of strong and talented dancers in the area who just need someone to help them get on the ladder.”
Photo: Ferdinand Thomas
Birmingham has a wealth of dance activity and the tripartite dance house on Hurst Street – Birmingham Royal Ballet, Birmingham Hippodrome and DanceXchange – provides world class dance performances, classes and workshops. DanceXchange also has a professional development programme which allows dancers to contact them with questions and to find out information about how to be a successful freelance dance artist. The organisation will also deal with companies looking to employ dance artists – but has no particular focus on helping commercial dancers.
Josie Slaymaker, choreographer for Impact dance group – a company of commercial dancers – says it is easier now more than ever for her dancers to find out where the work is and when auditions are. She said:
“It used to be that you’d just wait to see when auditions were in the Stage newspaper. But now with the web dancers can look for auditions online”
Slaymaker said the two best websites to search for commercial dance work were EntsWeb and DancersPro, although these are both nationwide sites, and do not give easy access to region-based jobs and auditions. But Slaymaker said Impact dance group members often find work in pantomimes and cruise ships, and Julie Kavanagh said dancers should realise the amount and variety of commercial work on offer. She said:
“Dancers can make thousands of pounds for one days work doing commercial work, but they are not getting the right provision in the West Midlands and that is a shame.”
Jennie sutherland says, she completely agrees with Julie Kavanagh with the fact that many dancers should try for auditions and training in many areas including London, but it would be more practical for them to be able to still live in their home town and still receive the type of commercial work that London and manchester has to offer, in more locally based areas around the city. There are still large assignments being offered in the region but obviously not as many as the other cities and also the performers being chosen are more often than not, from other cities.
jennie also agrees with Julie that some dancers who attend auditions from the midlands area, are not as well prepared and are not as strong in the commercial field because not enough information and training/ classes are available.
There definately needs to be more emphasis on commercial dance along side all of the other dance styles already on offer.
Its great to see other dance companies taking this issue on board and maybe there is something that can be done to improve the opportunities for dancers in the midlands and also support to help agencies like ourselves, be able to offer substantial and local assignments to the dancers.
If Birmingham can boost its reputation, attract more industry clients to the area, and help to promote Birminghams commercial services to them, our agencies will be able
to provide the correct dance services and dancers to these clients, saving time, money and energy on assignments.
Clients would save money on fee’s using local dancers, and less travel expense costs,
and the agencies would be able to offer the dancers work for decent fee’s.
London isn’t and shouldn’t be a rival of Birmingham regarding the dance industry, but our city and the council should support the talent within itself and help boost reputation for all.
The more successful the agencies and dance companies are up here, the more jobs will be created within the companies, not just for the freelance dancers but also for admin staff, bookers, Pa’s, studio managers and even cleaners.
People are desperate for work at the moment and any company that can offer a temporary or permanent place for somebody is like gold dust.
Its all relative. Birmingham needs to update its knowledge on the dance industry, know that it plays a huge part in peoples lives and can be very lucrative to the city, attracting business to hotels, and other amenities which industry and corporate clients would also use.
This city is in need of a revamp and with the ‘Big city plan’ idea, surely this is the best time to take action.
It’s just now a matter of how? i would be happy to chat to any other agency to see how we can help to rectify this issue for the good of the city.
J Sutherland
Riven Productions
I agree with all parties, there needs to be more opportunities within the Midlands in the commercial dance industry without always having move to London but local dancers do need to experience London’s dance industry and as unfortunate as it is most of the high profile commercial work takes place in London so understandable that a dancer from Birmingham or elsewhere feels they need to move to London if they want to be a backing dancer or a music video dancer for a high profile music artist. That is why agencies like ourselves must pull together to bring this type of work to the Midlands. The council needs to offer more in the education sector also, London has so many dance colleges that focus solely on dance such as The Laban Center or Italia Conti, Leeds has Northern School of Contemporary Dance what does Birmingham as the second city have.
As a whole we need to create the same type of auditons and castings here that you see happening in London, of course as an agency i’m going to send my dancers to castings taking place in London whether they are based in London or the Midlands but if they are not based in London they should have the opportunity to go to that same audition locally. It’s ashame the industry doesn’t really look outside of London to often as i see alot of dancers capable of work of this calibre.
A dancer should not feel they have to move to London to have a prosperous career in the commercial dance industry. I didn’t!
T. Anderson
Fierce Productionz