A Day in the Life of a Male Dancer

“SHALL WE DANCE?”

One day I found myself in a college provided for people with behavioural problems, attendance issues, mental health, a lack of great life experience and responsibility. I, at the time, was sat at a computer day in, day out studying business administration... BORING, I know! I thought to myself, this can’t be all my life has in store for me.

At that young age I was confused about life in general, and had a huge lack of self-confidence and an issue with judgement due to wanting something so different from what my family or so-called friends thought of my desired career path. The dreaded line's as follows... “There’s no money to make in performing arts,” “Dance is not a job,” “You won’t last five minutes,” blah blah blah. Due to being quite strong minded, I decided I wanted to prove them all wrong. SHALL WE DANCE? Yes, we shall.

As a male who used to be rather self-conscious, it’s important to brave the plunge, bite the bullet, and go for what you want in life regardless of critics and irrelevant opinions because at the end of the day, irrelevant is all it is, as it’s your life and you're more than entitled to live it exactly the way you want to, right? I have struggled my whole life with my decisions as I’ve been brought up in rather a rough area with your typical stereotyped individuals stuck in their old fashioned ways who believe there way is the only way; but fortunately, this never stopped me. Dance to me means that much now that I let the majority of comments go over my head, but should I really have to put up with this hatred and judgement all because I’m a male dancer? I think not. The moral of my story is do it anyway as you're not going to get old and remember how you followed the crowd and blended in your whole life.

Is dance and performance art a valid career path?

Yes it is! I’ve always known I’ve wanted to dance; it was being brave enough to admit it to myself and others before diving in at the deep end with no clue what the next few years would bring. At first I was also quite unsure as to how I was going to make my dream a reality and become successful in the performance industry; it all seemed pretty far fetched, but luckily some of my amazing tutors and teachers taught me otherwise, which is why I’m still pursuing my career today six years later and I’m finally getting somewhere. I’ve never had a back up plan, THANK GOD; if I did I’d have fallen back on it by now and I’d end up in a dead end job purely earning a basic wage! I’m sorry, but there’s more to life. I’m putting this out there because I think it’s important that if your child wants to dance and then goes on to wanting to study performance art and pursue it as a career, LET THEM!! (It’s not always about how much money you're earning, it all boils down to loving the life you live.) In my eyes, if you love your job, you’ll never work a day in your life. If you're dedicated and motivated enough, you will do it and you will become successful!