Author: Nat Cowx

Today athlete Samantha Murray, the London 2012 silver medallist, announced her retirement from modern pentathlon, at the age of 29.

Murray told BBC Sport “it’s been really hard and taken me over a year to make my mind up”.

For both professional athletes and dance artists, the transition to a new career is paved with physical, emotional and financial challenges. It is a shared experience almost unique to elite performers.

Throughout her training and early career, Murray was encouraged to pursue a degree, studying French and politics whilst also working as a waitress.

We actively encourage performers to broaden their horizons during their career. To be curious and explore their other passions, beyond dance.

This is why DCD are excited to be launching ‘Beyond Dance’ a new scheme of world-class mentoring opportunities for dancers, connecting the world of dance and business. The first of its kind in our sector, this scheme is delivered in partnership with Moving Ahead, experts in mentoring for elite athletes.

We’re also proud to support the LEAP initiative (Leading Edge After Performance) – an innovative and collaborative partnership exploring career and life transition issues amongst dancers and athletes.

Murray told BBC Sport that it will “take some time” to find her “next passion” after retirement.

Dancers don’t need to wait until that final performance to begin exploring what could come next. Start now and know that DCD are here to help you evolve into a career beyond performing, whenever the time comes.

 

See the story on BBC.

Attending DCD’s EVOLVE workshop can be a really powerful experience, wherever you are in your dance career.

“You’re not alone in this transition – that is what EVOLVE is all about.” EVOLVE Participant

Meeting dancers from different backgrounds and at different stages, together you’ll hear the Transition Tales from one or two dancers who’ve moved on from their performance careers.  At times emotional, at others humorous, these tales paint very different pictures about the range of routes and approaches dancers take, and their diverse personal experiences of handling the transition.  You’ll get the chance to ask our guests questions too, to deepen your understanding and get fresh perspectives.

Just some of the themes we’ve identified in talks like this in the past have been:  joy; self determination; asking the question ‘Who Am I?’; fear; purpose; instincts; and connections.

And that’s just to start the session.

Most dancers are used to focusing on what they haven’t yet perfected, or what they need to do differently, rather than taking time and space to appraise themselves in a more positive light, and understanding both their strengths and transferable skills.

“It was a great moment to reflect.” EVOLVE Participant

With the expert facilitation of one our DCD coaches, in a confidential and safe space, we take a look back at your careers, personal lives and strengths – identifying some of your proudest moments and what those have taught you.  Our experience tells us that this can be a really powerful (and challenging) exercise for dancers, and can help form the foundations of future CVs and even self confidence.

For those who haven’t yet experienced the power of coaching, during the workshop there’s an opportunity to work individually on an area of your life that you’d like to move forward.  You can keep it 100% confidential, and yet still benefit from our coach’s powerful questions to get you thinking in new ways.

We share some tools and models that help you to understand a bit more about the emotions, reactions and mindsets that can occur during transition – and really importantly, we’ll show you how normal those are.   This is a real eye opening moment for many dancers during this session. Understanding ourselves better can really help navigate the change that’s coming or has even arrived.

You’ll make connections with other dancers and discover the mutual support available to you from them.

And you’ll leave having made a commitment to yourself about one step you can take to move forward.

“Incredible day surrounded by inspiring people, a great experience I will hold on to.” EVOLVE Participant

Some dancers attend EVOLVE more than once in their career or post performance career – life is always changing and evolving and it’s so useful to take time out to reflect, reset and then move forward again. So you’re welcome to come along whether you’re in your first professional job, nearing transition or even several years into a new career.

“All dancers at some stage must transition. It’s tough but DCD offers amazing support and EVOLVE is a fantastic day to realise your capabilities as a dancer and beyond!”  Iain Mackay, DCD supported dancer and former Birmingham Royal Ballet Principal dancer

 

Click here to register for our next EVOLVE workshop today!

 

Photo credit: DCD Supported Dancer Rebecca Le Brun @TalbotLeePhotography http://www.talbotleephotography.com/ 

“My transition from a performance career into a non-performance career is a continuous transition, perhaps for another few years until I completely stop performing on stage.”

Akram Khan is preparing to present Xenos at the Edinburgh Festival.

As Xenos marks Akram’s final performances as a dancer in a full-length piece, he recently spoke to DCD reflecting on this final performance, his own transition from a performance career and his thoughts on dancer transition and retraining.

Akram spoke honestly of his awareness of time impacting the body and the importance for dancers to “remain dancers, even when we retire from the stage”. “If I was pushed to give advice”, he told us, “I would say ‘don’t stop moving’.”

So often, dancers dealing with the transition from a professional performance career can feel pressure to go in a certain direction, to find the perfect next career. Akram reflected on this – “it’s very important for dancers to be aware of the choice they make in what they do after a stage career, and I feel it has to be very organic. It’s making the most organic and right choice for you rather than the logical choice, which is sometimes pushed upon you from the way the world works.”

At DCD, we often encourage dancers to think about what else excites you, outside of dance? What gives you joy and energy? Broadening your horizons, pursuing a hobby outside of the studio, can help to deal with the challenges of career transition. “It’s very useful to have something over that timeline, that deadline, where you know that that’s the next journey that you want to step into – that is somehow helping me” Akram explained. “I’m interested in anthropology, in working with film. I’m looking into other areas, which in the past I didn’t because all that I cared about was my body. As I step away from the body I’m becoming more outward looking.”

 

Hear more of Akram Khan’s reflections in this beautiful film, created by DCD supported dancer and now professional film maker Robert Gravenor:

 

Share using https://vimeo.com/277263920

Photo credit: Jean-Louis Fernandez for Akram Khan Company

I started working for DCD in March 2018. I had spent the previous 7 years, all my working life in fact, working for the Church of England. I was a verger, a rather unique role in the Church which acts as a sort of stage manager. Much like dance this sort of job is often called vocational – it’s something you are called to do. I would go to work in a 17^th century grade 1 listed building, put on my black wool cassock and spend my days whizzing around lofty churches.

Before coming to London and starting work as a verger I did an internship with Communitas, the learning arm of Community Union, a successor to the Steel Workers Trade Union. Communitas was established to retrain the huge numbers of people made redundant from the various steel works across Rotherham, Sheffield and Scunthorpe in the early 1990s. Steel workers faced challenges unique to their circumstances – many of them had walked into jobs from leaving school with no qualifications, all of their neighbours worked in the same factory and their whole social lives revolved around the steel industry in one way or another.

However as workers much of their needs were the same as dancers; they drew their identity from their work, it was the only thing that they knew, many had been forced into early retirement through injury and fundamentally when they were made redundant they were left feeling confused and disorientated.

It wasn’t until starting work at DCD that I reflected on both these experiences, my own ongoing transition and those of steel workers in South Yorkshire. The change for me personally was both practical, like not being on my feet all day or no longer having a ‘uniform’ and less tangible, like leaving behind a piece of who I was.

Each person’s individual transition is different but much of the above will be relatable to dancers reaching the end of their performing lives. It can be unsettling and scary at times but DCD is here every step of the way to help dancers undertake one of the biggest changes in their life. All workers, especially those who have dedicated their lives to a vocation, struggle with adjustment and go through a transition at one time or another. However hard changing careers might seem, the thing that I took away from the above is that transition is achievable, rewarding and a shared experience. The one unique thing about dancers is they have DCD at their disposal.