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  Dancers' Career Development

 Issue 3 -  June/July 2011
 
 

 

  

 

  

 

 

Support DCD
        
Why your Help Matters

Dancers' professional lives are intense, insecure and often short. With your kind help, DCD can help dancers to:

 

  • Overcome stress and fear by obtaining one-to-one emotional counselling support
  • Consider and plan for the future
  • Look forward to a successful post-performance career utilising their strength, self-discipline and creativity in a new way
  • Obtain meaningful grants to enable them to retrain and make the transition as smoothly as possible into a new career
  • Network with other retrained dancers to find the contacts and confidence for a life after performing.

How can you help?
Donate
DCD needs your generous support if it is to continue its work. Every contribution towards what we do will make a difference, helping us to provide this vital service to professional dancers in the UK. To find out more please email us or contact us on 020 2831 1449. 

Join
our Facebook group, follow us on LinkedIn, regularly visit our website and Forward this email to friends. This will help us to raise our profile amongst those in the sector.

 

DCD retrained dancer?
Send us your news
exam results, graduations, businesses growth and success or change of career, we love hearing from you and rely on
your news to up-date others.

Images 
We are in urgent need of up-to-date images of DCD retrained dancers that can be used in marketing and communication materials. Please send us them along with a consent form found on the DCD website. 

Give back
As a retrained dancer you can help us to help other dancers thinking about and/or going through the transition process. You can:

  1. complete a Case Study that can be added to our website
  2. fill in grant feedback forms once your award has been completed
  3. get in touch and offer to network with dancers thinking about retraining in a similar profession
  4. offer to be a Mentor, a more formalised way to pass on advice and knowledge

Spread the word 
Forward this email to friends and family, check our website regularly and follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn.     

 

Tell us your views
Do you think the e-newsletter could be improved? Can you suggest another service DCD could provide?
What you think is important so please get in touch and tell us what you think.


            

DCD Computer Facilities

DCD can offer some help to professinal dancers who may be struggling to obtain the computer access necessary to develop their plans for a career change. We can facilitate limited computer and internet access from our offices, without charge, between 10am and 4pm on most weekdays. Confirmed bookings are essential so please email admin@thedcd.org.uk or call us on 020 7831 1449 if you would like to use this service.
                                     



Richard Alston Dance Company (photo Chris Nash)

         Winners of the DCD Grand Prize Draw

DCD would like to congratulate the five winners,
 who, having been chosen at random from
all those who completed the DCD Survey,
 will now receive an exclusive prize from a
DCD retrained dancer. The winners and prizes are:

Charlotte Farrant 
a voucher for the The Terrier Leather Company
Heather Robbins  
a massage from Henry St Clair
Tim Cross 
a signed copy of 'Flower Arranging' by Mark Welford and Stephen Wicks
Dincer Soloman
a framed portrait by Paul Liburd
Joanne Dockery 
a ballet class with Isabel McMeekan

Congratulations to the lucky winners and thank you
to all the DCD retrained dancers who very
generously offered prizes.

    
 

 Dates for your Diary



16th September 2011
Independent Trust Business Application deadline

19th September 2011
Independent Trust Application deadline

26th September 2011
Company Fund Business application deadline


3rd October 2011
Company Fund
 application deadline

Application forms, guidelines and deadlines for the rest of 2011 can be found on our website. 


DCD Bursaries could help you in your next stage

What Would You Do? 
 
Dancers' Career Development are delighted to announce that we are now inviting applications
for the DCD 2011 Bursaries:

Maude Lloyd & Rudolf Nureyev Bursary (£3,000.00)

Wallace Potts Bursary (£3,000.00)

 Acting for Others Bursaries (2 at £3,000.00)

 This year there will also be a special
Wendy Toye CBE Bursary (£5,000.00)

                                                                                                                                                                                       
For more eligibility criteria, application guidelines and an application form please visit our website.

 To view previous Bursary recipient profiles please click here.
Please note that DCD wil be advertising more Bursaries in 2012.

Deadline date: before 5pm on Monday 19th September 2011

                                
 ‘Be passionate in your
application and find out
 as much as you can
about the world you
want to become a part of’

Spencer Soloman
Maude Lloyd &
Rudolf Nureyev Bursary
 Recipient 2008

 
 

 Richard Alston Dance Company (photo Chris Nash)




Want to find out more about DCD and how we can help you?

There are two things you can do to keep in touch with DCD...

Visit our website and take a look at our latest news section to find out what our retrained dancers are up to, read our Bursary Recipient Profiles and Case Studies to find out what a diverse range of career move into both in and outside dance and find out more about how DCD could help you in the future.  


Why not 'like' us on Facebook? Join the hundreds of people connected to DCD; be kept up-to-date on what retrained dancers are doing, their amazing achievements, join debates and discussions on topical issues and find out what others think!    


 -Trustee Talk-



Janet 'Mop' Eager MBE 
 Trustee and Richard Alston Dance Company Representative

In 1963 I assisted Robin Howard CBE the founder of The Place, supposedly for two weeks, to arrange an Elizabethan Exhibition. Little did I know that the rest of my working life was to be swallowed up by the
world of contemporary dance.

Together with the help of Martha Graham, Robin planned to introduce contemporary Dance to the UK, as he felt there was a gap in the dance scene.  In 1964 there I was in the middle of it all and found myself arranging evening classes around London.
 
The classes continued throughout 1965 and were so successful that in 1966 we found our own studio in Berners Place off Oxford Street.  For the first year I opened and shut the door and did most things in between except teach the all important classes. 1967 saw the formation of the London School of Contemporary Dance and the formation of the Contemporary Dance Touring Group. Richard Alston, CBE, was one of our first full time students.


I opted to be the Administrator of the touring group and for the first year, apart from arranging the endless one night stands throughout the UK, I drove the bus, washed the costumes and stood in the corner introducing the lecture demonstration.


In 1969, bursting at the seams, we moved to The Place where London Contemporary Dance Theatre was formed. The company became my family and as Executive Director I toured the UK and the world. In 1994 sadly LCDT was closed but all was not lost with the birth of the Richard Alston Dance Company who are still my family, if not smaller, with whom I remained until I retired in 1997.


As a Trustee I am delighted to be able to remain close to the dance world and in some small way assist the dancers to develop their careers or to find a new way forward at what is often a very dramatic and difficult time in their lives.





Janet (Mop) MBE

Trustee, Dancers' Careeer Development

 
DCD Case Studies

Have you completed your retraining with the help of a DCD grant?

If so, please fill out a Case Study Template which can be found here.  The Case Studies are a vital tool for DCD to showcase the achievements of the dancers we have helped to retrain.

Thank you, your help is much appreciated. 

                     

 What do you think?

Now that you have received the first three copies of the new DCD   e-newsletter we would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions as to how we can improve it. Please email us and let us know!

                                              

    DCD Featured Business
of the Month

WebRightNow

Glauco Di Lieto started his web design business while still dancing with Scottish Ballet. He is now retired from performing and runs WebRightNow full time, offering bespoke web design, open source CMS and                    e-commerce systems.


Since launching in 2009, WebRightNow has built an extensive portfolio of websites, ranging from personal blogs to community portals, from property lets to furniture shops, but especially focusing on small to medium businesses on a budget.


 

 

 
Are you a DCD retrained dancer?

Would you like your business to feature as a business of the month? 

Email for more information.
        

                 DCD Retrained dancer of the month

                                 Conor O'Brien  

 

My dancing days seem a very long time ago now. But without the Dancers Resettlement Fund (DCD) I really don’t think the change over from Dancer to Plumber would have been so trouble free.

What career should I choose? Do I stay in the arts or do I make the break and do something totally different?  The decision to break away from dance and retrain as a plumber was not an easy one but was finally made after spending a week of my summer holidays working for the company I now work for full time in London. Finding a company to take me on was incredibly hard. I sent lots of letters out to various companies but to no avail. You just have to persist and keep banging on doors and eventually one of them will open.

Following the weeks' work in the summer holidays  the company agreed to take me on as an apprentice. I was over the moon. I now had a chance to learn another skill totally different from the one I was used to and have another career that would support my family and I for the rest of my working life.

A dancers career is not financially very rewarding so supporting my wife and children at that time was a big worry for me.  My girls were only 7yrs and 4yrs and the support DCD gave me through the whole transition was fantastic. I finished my last tour with Rambert in China at the end of January 2004 and started my apprenticeship with my present employer at the start of February 2004.  My level of income hardly changed. Luckily what I was lacking in my apprenticeship wage was made up by DCD.

I do think the one thing I would change about my transition was that I did not do enough research in to which course was best. The college and teaching I received from the establishment in Berkshire was not the best, so I thank my lucky stars it was only a day release course so most of what I have learned was from a fantastic plumber whose wing I was under for the first few years.

Most importantly I believe you have to be ready to change from one career to another whatever it may be. I certainly was satisfied in my career as a dancer, taking on roles I never would have imagined doing such as the victim in Swansong and Pierot Lunaire. I really enjoy my job now and the different challenges that present themselves everyday. A big thank you to all at DCD for all your support and advice - long may it continue.

 

 


Conor worked as a Professional Dancer for 17 years for companies including Rambert Dance Company, London City Ballet and Birmingham Royal Ballet.

Conor received a retraining award from DCD to undertake a three year Plumbing apprenticeship and Plumbing Course.

  
                                

 
 

With thanks to Richard Alston Dance Company  a DCD Contributing Company, for the images featured in this month's issue.
 
If you are a retrained dancer and would like your images featured in an issue of the e-newsletter please email us. 




And Finally.....

All DCD staff and Trustees would like to say a big thank you and Good Luck to Sian Myers, who has undertaken an internship with DCD for the past five months. Sian leaves us at the end of June and will be missed by all. She has worked extremely hard on projects such as the DCD Website and Facebook, Grants administration, a DCD Time line and other office duties.

We wish Sian every success in what is sure to be a very bright future!

Richard Alston Dance Company (photo Chris Nash) 
                                                                                                                                                        

Support 
Dancers’ Career Development is kindly supported by:  Combined Theatrical Charities/Acting for Others, Equity Charitable Trust, Society of London Theatre, Rudolf Nureyev Foundation, Cameron Mackintosh Limited.The DCD Fund is kindly funded by the following Contributing companies: Birmingham Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, Northern Ballet, Phoenix Dance Theatre, Rambert Dance Company, Richard Alston Dance Company, Scottish Ballet, Siobhan Davies, The Royal Ballet.

There are many ways that you can help DCD to continue its work. If you, or you know anybody who would like to know more then please do get in touch.


Dancers’ Career Development
Plouviez House
19-20 Hatton Place
London EC1N 8RU
T: 020 7831 1449
admin@thedcd.org.uk
www.thedcd.org.uk 
Registered Charity Number: 327747

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