Dance into Business
A how-to guide for dance students, teachers and professionals

July 2019: Dance Matters!

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Engaging Minds, Informing Practice, a six-day programme of courses, workshops and seminars designed specifically for dance teachers was held between 23-26 July 2019 at the University of Roehampton, and 27-28 July 2019 at the Royal Academy of Dance ®, in London.

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Dance Matters! was one of four 1-hour presentations held over 4 evenings, the others being Top Tips for GDPR (presented by Charlotte Levy); Embracing Social Media (co-presented by Celia Moran and Alice White MA BA(Hons)); and Mental Health and Wellbeing (co-presented by Dr Siobhan Mitchell, Nico Kolokythas, ASCC, MSc and Terry Hyde, MA, MBACP).

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The aim of the presentation was to provide attendees with an overview of some of the legal, planning, financial and operational issues important as a freelancer or a business owner.  24 teachers registered for Dance Matters! representing 11 Studio owners, 6 Freelancers, 4 Portfolio careers and 3 Professional dancers.

 

The challenge was how best to present to this group of dance teachers who had different reasons for attending - 11 instances of expanding a business, 4 starting a business, 11 to acquire knowledge, and 9 to refresh themselves.

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The lecture was presented as an A-Z of Dance Matters! with attendees calling out a letter from the alphabet, from a card handed out at the beginning. This provided an element of surprise, kept their interest and personal involvement.

We discussed 8 legal, 8 planning, 6 operational and 4 financial matters, all generally interlinked, which provided the attendees with following learning outcomes:

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• An introduction to business terminology and contractual language ​

• An introduction to business planning, tools and concepts

• An awareness of some of the business issues they might face​

• An awareness of what challenges they might encounter

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