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Jobs for graduates in Europe - the future?


Goldenlily17

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Just had a look at this list. How can the government possibly recommend that we have a shortage of skilled classical and contemporary dancers and must thus recruit migrants? Who is advising this body?

Advice and representation is provided the industries involved. I can't find it now but I can remember reading the actual transcript of the evidence provided and all the major ballet companies were represented. It means that they can hire foreign dancers and provide them with visas without too much red tape. We may have a lot of ballet dancers, but not necessarily at the elite standards required for companies such as RB, BRB etc. which is very niche.

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Just had a look at this list. How can the government possibly recommend that we have a shortage of skilled classical and contemporary dancers and must thus recruit migrants? Who is advising this body?

Perhaps you could ask your local MP if they might be able to find out?

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Just had a look at this list. How can the government possibly recommend that we have a shortage of skilled classical and contemporary dancers and must thus recruit migrants? Who is advising this body?

Presumably they want to make sure the UK is available to the top international stars who are looking at moving from where they're currently working. Since it's probably not easy, or advisable, to specify that they want to make it easy to attract the Rudolph Nureyevs and Sylvie Guillems of this world but not the lower grades of dancer, they have to list the profession as a whole.

Edited by Melody
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Who was, of course, born in Canada, raised in Spain and now a British citizen.

 

So Ms Rojo is British.

 

This thread is amusing (or deeply deeply worrying) - on the parallel US-based board, Ballet Talk for Dancers, there is a regular very similar conversation about "American dance jobs for Americans" - because all those pesky foreigners are taking "our" jobs in our national companies (ABT, NYCB etc etc). Or winning prizes in the Youth America Grand Prix. And so on.

 

I think we all have to understand that in historical terms, ballet is an international art & industry or profession, and always has been. The training seen as "English" is a local variation of an amalgam of the Italian, French, and then Russian schools of ballet. What we see as the classic ballets are from the Russian Imperial court. And so on - you're all very knowledgeable and all know this background.

 

I lived in Australia for a several decades - Australian ballet was founded by the Ballets Russe tours and then Madame Borovansky & the Borovansky ballet. We are all migrants and travellers in one way or another, no matter how British we also are (my family traces back around 600 years to a very specific place we're named for). Britain has always been an international centre for trading and commerce, and along with this goes exchange at a cultural level.

 

Once you start demanding British ballet dancers for British audiences where do you stop?

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What is the situation for ballet dancers entering Australia? I know when I worked in Australia (not as a dancer!!) The requirements to obtain a visa were very specific.

 

As a tax payer (and parent of MDS) I feel dissatisfied with the cost of the scheme compared to the likely career progression of many recipients under the current circumstances. If you think how various public services are being cut to the bone it is hard to justify IMO.

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I believe that Australia, NZ and Canada have many overseas dancers as well. I think that POB and the Russian companies are the exception to the rule. The German companies, Dutch National Ballet and Royal Ballet of Flanders all have many overseas dancers. The associated schools are a pulling factor; overseas dancers come to train and then decide to stay in the country. We've already discussed POB School's training system. Until recently, Russia wasn't a particularly appealing place to train and work for Western dancers but that's beginning to change and there are now overseas dancers in the Russian companies, Zander Parish being one.

 

Actually, I don't get the impression that everything in the garden is rosy at POB. There is a view that whilst it excels in contemporary work it is losing its edge on the classical side. It may well be in a state of transition but twice in the last few months it has had to bring in dancers from the UK (Hernandez and Muntagirov) to plug the gaps left by dancers who were injured or unavailable and significantly this was to dance the classical repertoire. And POB is a huge company, with around 150 dancers. One of the company's rising stars is Hannah O'Neill, a New Zealander who joined the corps. There's obviously a fine balance between preserving a company's heritage and style and stultifying because the company is always looking backward and inwards and is not open to new influences or people.

 

I don't think that there is a huge number of EU dancers in the UK companies overall although I think that ENB is an exception; I can think of eight off the top of my head (at ENB). I think that the number of Europeans is outweighed by the number of American (North and South) and East Asian dancers. The UK vocational schools are not the only pull factor. The UK, Germany, Canada and Australia are attractive places to live for many migrants, dancers and non-dancers alike.

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Which are the 'big five companies' please?

 

 

 

Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, Northern Ballet, Scottish Ballet

 

Then you also have BTUK, Rambert (contemporary) and Matthew Bourne (not strictly a company as the company is raised per production)

 

Or smaller companies such as Ballet Cymru and Ballet Black.  Or smaller contemporary companies such as Phoenix, National Dance Company Wales, Scottish Dance Theatre.

 

Vienna Festival Ballet is also based in this country.

Edited by Janet McNulty
edited to add in missing company and hide my mortification!
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I don't think that there is a huge number of EU dancers in the UK companies overall although I think that ENB is an exception; I can think of eight off the top of my head (at ENB). I think that the number of Europeans is outweighed by the number of American (North and South) and East Asian dancers. The UK vocational schools are not the only pull factor. The UK, Germany, Canada and Australia are attractive places to live for many migrants, dancers and non-dancers alike.

The majority of ENB dancers are not British, Aileen, and the same goes for the students at ENBS.

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There's no conspiracy against British students/dancers, taxi. Any British student/dancer can apply to ENBS and to ENB. About a third of ENB is British. I don't know how that compares with the other companies. London is a draw and that may account for there being more overseas dancers at the company than at the companies outside London. Plus, there is no lower school acting as a feeder for the upper school. I'm not sure why ENB gets so much vitriol about its hiring practices. Is it really because it has the word 'english' in its name?

 

To those on the forum hoping that a Brexit will help British dancers: unless the UK leaves the Single Market it will almost certainly have to agree to free movement (as Norway and Switzerland have had to) if it wants to benefit from tariff free trade. I very much doubt that the UK can have its cake and eat it ie restrict immigration from the EU but trade freely with that same EU. It's not long until we find out.

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The current Northern Ballet (45, including apprentices) shows 7 EU dancers and around 15 international dancers.  The rest (23) are from the UK.

 

Without having a huge knowledge of the dancers at ENB a quick perusal would indicate that more non-British dancers are international than EU.

 

The current BRB roster shows 62 dancers of whom approximately 30 are from the UK, 25 are international and 7 are EU.

 

On those sort of figures perhaps UK-born dancers benefit more from the opportunity to work in Europe than EU-born dancers coming to the UK?

 

 

With BRB and NB it is around a 50% split between UK-born and others.

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There's no conspiracy against British students/dancers, taxi. Any British student/dancer can apply to ENBS and to ENB. About a third of ENB is British. I don't know how that compares with the other companies. 

I wasn't suggesting there was some sort of 'conspiracy' Aileen, however it is more difficult for British students to get a place at ENBS, particularly when you bear in mind that they hold the majority of their auditions abroad. I will have to hunt through my old copies of DT to check the advert for their auditions last time but from memory I seem to remember all but 2 of their preliminary auditions were held overseas.

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That may be so but the School will take whoever it regards as the most promising candidates, wherever they come from. There won't be an allocation of students per audition. If the School doesn't like any of the candidates auditioning in, say, Rome it won't take any of them but it might take four exceptional candidates auditioning in, say, Madrid the same year.

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Do other countries have such a poor success rate for their dance school graduates? If not then I would support a degree of protectionism. It's a bit analogous with football - our young players not getting a chance as overseas players are bought in. Does the quality of dance in the USA suffer for protectionism?

Is it really a poor success rate if the graduates are finding work as dancers? I don't personally consider it 'poor' if graduates are able to find employment and I think our graduates actually have quite a wide region in which to do so.  We are currently part of the EU and our dancers can search for work within the whole of the EU. Protectionism is mentioned - I would suggest that it already exists to a degree.  There are no end of companies within the EU - ballet, contemporary and more general dance where you will see alongside the details of the audition that the person auditioning must hold an EU passport or already have a work visa to enable them to take up the position.  It may be for the 'big names' and more established dancers that a company will assist with getting visas but I doubt for those starting out.

 

USA has been mentioned several times in this thread.  Well I think it is perhaps worth remembering the sheer size of the place and that a UK dancer working in Germany or elsewhere in the EU may well be closer to home than an American still within the USA. Also, it can be very difficult for them to obtain visas to come to this country to dance or even train as an American friend has discovered.  And yet I do know of several British dancers, trained in this country who have been able to go to American ballet companies albeit often only for 6 months - as graduates or with only a few years experience.  So I don't think either 'side' has the upper hand actually.

 

I think we are in lucky in this country that excellent training for dancers exists and yes we train more dancers than there are jobs for but to me it does seem wrong to think that just because a child aged 11 goes to vocational school that they have some sort of inherent right to a position in a British company at the end of training.  It would rather write off all those that enter the vocational system at a later date as well.  It does not matter if you are talking ballet or business, our world is based on the fact that the job goes to the person who is most suited to it - its highly competitive whatever you do.  Plenty of university graduates fail to find employment in their chosen fields - perhaps because they are searching in a more restricted workplace ie within the UK and not internationally.  I think we are rather lucky that dancers in this country are trained well and can compete for work internationally because ballet is global.  Giving priority to British dancers in British companies could be a bit restrictive for the growth of our companies as a whole and to be honest the idea of discrimination on nationality does make me a little uncomfortable, as have several comments on this thread

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I think that Brits (and I'm not just talking about dancers) do themselves no favours with their generally poor attitude to leaning foreign languages, which makes working in a non English speaking country more daunting. Many Brits would prefer to work in Canada, the US and Australia but this is far more difficult to do than getting a job in the EU (unless, of course, you have dual nationality via one of your parents). If you train to become a dancer then you have to accept that you may have to go abroad to find work. If you don't know that then the schools aren't doing their job properly (or you haven't been listening to what you've been told). Referring to a much earlier post, no girl should be thinking that she's going to become the next Darcey. Darcey was a one off, benefitting from a fortuitous set of circumstances, including a very effective agent, and there will be very few future 'Darceys'.

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So Ms Rojo is British.

 

This thread is amusing (or deeply deeply worrying) - on the parallel US-based board, Ballet Talk for Dancers, there is a regular very similar conversation about "American dance jobs for Americans" - because all those pesky foreigners are taking "our" jobs in our national companies (ABT, NYCB etc etc). Or winning prizes in the Youth America Grand Prix. And so on.

 

I think we all have to understand that in historical terms, ballet is an international art & industry or profession, and always has been. The training seen as "English" is a local variation of an amalgam of the Italian, French, and then Russian schools of ballet. What we see as the classic ballets are from the Russian Imperial court. And so on - you're all very knowledgeable and all know this background.

 

I lived in Australia for a several decades - Australian ballet was founded by the Ballets Russe tours and then Madame Borovansky & the Borovansky ballet. We are all migrants and travellers in one way or another, no matter how British we also are (my family traces back around 600 years to a very specific place we're named for). Britain has always been an international centre for trading and commerce, and along with this goes exchange at a cultural level.

 

Once you start demanding British ballet dancers for British audiences where do you stop?

Well, this is the dilemma we've been talking about for ages. For me, part of the problem isn't just the business of taxpayer funding of the arts and arts education (which seems to be getting cut every time you turn around anyway), it's the standardisation of styles among countries so that graduates of ballet schools around the world can fit interchangeably into companies from Europe to Asia to America. I suppose in this day and age of globalisation it's getting hard to avoid worldwide homogeneity in any field, but those of us old enough to remember when British, French, Russian, and American ballet styles were identifiably different are maybe having a hard time seeing those identities getting submerged in a tide of global sameness.

Edited by Melody
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Aileen, you are so right when you say that the insular British attitude to foreign languages restricts young people's choice of job - not only in dance. Frequently a prospective employer, faced with two equal candidates, will go for the native speaker of a useful foreign language who also has excellent English, rather than a Brit without the additional language.

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Can I suggest a possibly harsh answer (but a logical one) to the question about why some British-born & trained dancers aren't getting into the RBS Upper School, and then the company, or the ENBS School & then the company?

 

That they're just not good enough? And that it's not about who was born where - there'll be aspiring dancers in every affluent country in the world who will also never be good enough. 

 

As with ANY training in a highly sought after but terrifically hard area (and actually, I can think of a few universities and other areas of training exactly the same or even more demanding than ballet) many will try & few will succeed. That doesn't mean that the training is a waste, at whatever level it starts & finishes. I'm a firm believer in education for its own sake - or rather, in the von Humboldt tradition, for its ability to help each individual become the best person they can be. 

 

But sometimes, despite all the desire & ambition in the world, people just aren't good enough to succeed at the very top of their profession. I think it gets all muddled up in ballet/dance, because a lot of young people start the training as a hobby, an extra-curricular activity, despite whatever innate talent or bodily aptitude that they have. They then get the ballet bug, and if they show a modicum of talent, they're spurred on. Which is as it should be. But in the national & international scheme of things, they may be mediocre in relation to the very highest standards of excellence.

 

The parallel might be that not everyone who plays 5-a-side kick around is going to win the FA Cup final; weekend runners will never win an Olympic medal. Having those goals as ways of spurring you on might help you to become the best footballer you can be; but that might not be a striker for ManU.

 

Not being good enough may be only part of the answer, but it's a logical part of the answer  ...

Edited by Kate_N
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I think 'good enough' needs unpicking. Young dancers are told that these days choreographers want versatility. But do they really? Being versatile inevitably means compromising on time spent in hard core classical training. I think graduate dancers need to spend more time researching the repertoire of prospective companies to see what the artistic director/choreographer is looking for in dancers.

It is not good thinking that your contemporary skills, or your ability as a dance actress will propel your career if at the end of the day directors just want 32 totally reliable fouettes, so to speak,no matter what you have been led to believe.

There is still the debate - does it all boil down to technique and body shape in the end?

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Those students that have jumped through numerous hoops and somehow managed to survive 8 years training (not easy) are definitely good enough and certainly deserve to find corps de ballet jobs in this country. The shortage occupation list is a joke. Certainly the kids at the RBS (can't speak personally for anywhere else) work their arses off, but are not being given the training and tools needed to shine amongst their foreign counterparts. Somebody has to decide a proper training plan because right now it is all over the place. Seems to me that both school and company directors have no clue what they want/need and are scared to stick by their own students (or training), feeling more comfortable with those that have trained elsewhere and have already been given the thumbs up from an international jury.

English schools also need to start educating students about foreign schools and companies both in Europe and worldwide. Our RBS students literally have no clue what goes on outside the RB and are given no help when it comes to auditions for foreign companies or schools. Our forward planning talk at the RBS consisted of an out of date list of British schools, no European schools where mentioned at all. Any parent with no Dance background would have no idea that, there are some fantastic European schools, and Companies out there, that are accessible to our kids. Many of the WL RBS kids still think that there is no dancing life outside the RBS / RB and when the inevitable happens and the school places and company jobs are given to those from abroad, the students are left with no clue where to turn. It is a very sad state of affairs.

Edited by Sadielou
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A few points/questions for you, Sadielou:

 

1 The RBS has an excellent graduate employment rate with virtually every graduate gaining a contract.

 

2 The RBS graduates take most of the new graduate jobs in the UK companies.

 

3 Unless you excluded every overseas student from employment in the UK there would never be enough jobs for British graduates of the UK schools. Is that what you think should happen?

 

4 Why are the companies wanting to take these overseas graduates rather than the British graduates?

 

5 Why are these WL students so insular and uninformed? Has the reality of professional life not been made clear to them?

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In answer to Aileen

 

1 Are you sure about that ? I think if you look closer you will see that this simply isn't true

2 Look where most of these "Graduates" have really been trained.

3 Of course not 

4 Because they are better trained in both stage / competition / audition technique and know what companies and schools are looking for.

5 The reality of professional life has been made clear. But life outside the RBS institution has not. 

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