Dance Advice | Dance FAQ’s | Should I work for free to gain experience?
Should I work for free to gain experience?
This is an incredible question and a difficult one to answer but my gut instinct is to advise you not to ever work for free and to value your work. Why should you work for free? There is something which feels disrespectful about asking somebody to work for free unless it is for charity or another good cause. I do believe that many people and companies play on dancers’ fears about not getting work by offering “free” work that they should be paying for. They find dancers that are essentially willing to do the work for free. So they are not incentivized to offer payments when there are dancers who would do it for free. Some of those dancers don’t know that they deserve to be paid. I remember dancing with five other backing dancers at a restaurant bar opening and they promised us very little money and didn’t even pay us that! In fact, they didn’t even give us the drinks that they promised us. This happened when I was starting out as a dancer and it has given me a different perspective which is that some people will take advantage of you if they feel that they can and if I’m being really honest many people do not consider an artist’s efforts as legitimate work so will often take advantage of the artist, because they don’t consider what they do as work and have no respect for what the artist does. I would also add that I am in a slightly different position in that I had professional experience from such a young age that I did not value offers of “experience” given to me because I did not need it. Now the question is, what if you do not have experience? What I would say is that you can get the experience and be paid too! At the beginning of your career, as a compromise, you might be paid your expenses or to be paid something for your work because at the very least it is a sign of respect. Never allow people to control you and disrespect your talent by making you do something that you are not comfortable doing. When somebody asks you do something, the first question should be “How much are you paying?” A very good way of asking this, if you are shy is to ask, “What is your budget?” That will usually sort them out and put certain people off, because they will see that they can’t take advantage of you. There are many people who will try and take advantage of you and your talent in the entertainment industry… enforce your boundaries and never be afraid or ashamed to do so!