Last week, Broadway World announced New York City’s newest mentor program that I’ll be coaching from, Off the Lane. I’ll spend 12 weeks with a college senior or young professional coaching them at the beginning of their career in NYC.
As someone who started a dancing at a late age, made a career out of it and moved to New York, the place famously known for “if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere”, it will be nice to have a protégé to pass off my knowledge to. The city of New York and it’s industry was A LOT to take on all by myself. I see myself as someone who will smooth out the cavernous transition between a rural college town and the be all end all city of dreams.
No pressure…
You may already know that I teach dance, so for me this is an exciting opportunity to branch outside of the dance studio. Even before this program, I’ve been SO HAPPY with the people who have reached out to tell me that I inspired their financial goals after telling my story in the New York Times Bestseller“I Will Teach You to be Rich”.
From building credit scores, learning about retirement and amassing loads of airline miles, I know plenty about the financial steps I took to make sure I could support myself as a dancer and actor, through the good times and the bad.
When I changed my major in college to music education to dance, I had NO idea what it would mean for me to try and get a dance job. Those real-world experiences really only come from the real-world. After my crash course dance training in three years I was desperate to make myself into a marketable dancer.
Looking back, I really created urgency. It made me act without hesitation when it came time to sink or swim. I was hungry for a job, even though I didn’t have a concept of what living on my own meant.
From that moment, I somehow made it work. Despite all the let-downs, rejection, and imperfections, I danced. And I got paid to do it. I was set with my first job before I graduated college and I had made it happen!
That said, there were many people involved in that along the way, whether they were for or AGAINST my career choices, they played a role. So that’s what I hope to do with my future aspiring student.
Now the hard part…!
….what I hadn’t considered was an industry crippling pandemic!
It’s a Coronavirus-world this year and Broadway, Hollywood and all related industries are closed for the foreseeable future (and likely much longer than we all would hope).
I’ve signed up to coach a new graduate, hoping for a successful career, but *I* don’t even know what potential the industry holds anymore…Teaching can make someone nervous, it’s public speaking, after all, but trying to teach for the post-pandemic world feels almost like ripping kids off as palm reader in a lawn chair on 9th Av!
Do you see the problem?
When all of this is said and done, I’m hoping things will return to *A* normal, not *THE* normal. I trust my worldly experience will still translate.
Some things will never change. I’m confident that in 12 weeks of mentoring there will be plenty of “school of hard knocks” advice to give. This pandemic has at the very least proven the point of saving for a rainy day, because it sure as hell happened! My spring gigs are cancelled and employment in the industry looks bleak...the best thing I can do for my mentor will be to provide sound financial advice with the present moment being “EXHIBIT A”.
If only I had known I’d be covering my face when I got back to America…
It goes without saying that the lucky young professional will be savvy with airline miles, assuming the travel industry survives this too!
Give our current situation, I fully expect to be able to grow from this myself. It’s an opportunity to stay on my toes and change with the times. Staying tuned in to the latest findings and trends will probably be crucial, so it’s going to be my job to do that for this young hopeful.
Like Rupaul says, “When I’m giving advice to the queens, I’m really giving it to myself.”
Do you know a young, graduating artist looking to move to New York City? Share this post with them and they can apply for the program here.