Career Transition for Dancers

Career Transition for Dancers

Whether you’re an actor, dancer or any type of performer, we all face similar situations in our careers. With the economic climate in a constant state of flux, Career Transitions For Dancers: The connection to your future, hosted its first ever career development conference called “Stepping Into Hope and Change”. It was held at the SAG Building on May 14. There was a great turn out.

Organizers encouraged attendees to take control of their future and begin exploring and planning the next steps both on and off stage.

There were guest speakers and breakout sessions that offered advice in areas of money management, setting career goals, writing mission statements, networking strategies and even exploring facebook, linkedin and twitter as new ways to promote their talents.

Speaker Jeri Gaile entertained the crowd with her personal story. She shared her struggle of leaving behind her acting and dancing career. However, she empowered herself taking the skills and abilities she gained as a dancer and actress and used them to transition into her new career. Gaile starred in TV shows such as Dallas and appeared in hundreds of commercials. She said she was tired of waiting for the phone to ring for the next opportunity to come so she decided to take control of her life at the age 35. Thanks to individual sessions with counselors at Career Transition For Dancers, Gaile discovered she could do more with her life. She loves helping young ones discover their talent and guiding them into their future careers. Since 1995, she’s produced numerous events including the Music Center’s Dorothy B. Chandler Children’s Festival. For the last 10 years, she’s been the director of The Los Angeles Music Center’s Spotlight Awards Program.

One breakout session entitled “Developing your online profiles” peaked the interests of dozens of stage performers. LA actor, director and writer Ben Blair explained how to market ones’ self with twitter, facebook and blogs, “Be yourself, authentic and have genuine 2-way communication.” Paul Hardister, a career counselor at Claremont Graduate University and an independent filmmaker, discussed what content to put on individual profiles as well as how to improve the chances of landing a job through LinkedIn.

So many benefited from the resources of the day. Both retired professional dancers and dancers who left the business and are transitioning to get back into it reignited their passions and celebrated with a day of learning new information. The conference for some was just the first step in their transition. You can imagine they’ll be exploring more.

Since 1985… Career Transitions For Dancers has been helping thousands of dancers express their potential. For more information visit their website www.Careertransition.org