Last month, the dance community lost one of their most dedicated transition experts.
Alexander J. Dubé, born in Massachusetts, started out as a tap dancer and completed his dance education at the Robert Joffrey School of Ballett. After a successful career as a dancer, model and actor he launched the first agency for dancers in the USA. He represented dancers such as Margot Fonteyn, Cynthia Gregory, Patricia McBride and Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux. In 1985, he left his agency to commit himself to campaigning for the interests of dancers in the American Guild of Musical Artists.
With this background, it is not surprising that he was an advocate for further education for dancers after their professional careers and acted as President of the CTFD since 2001.
He passed away from cancer last week at the age of 67 and the United States lost a pioneer of the transition movement. We will all miss him dearly.
Text source: dancemagazine.com/new… from 19th of May 16, retrieved on 29th of May 16
In May, John Neumeier, the curatorship chairman of the foundation DANCE, received the “Oscar of the Dance world“ for his lifetime achievement during the Prix de Benois Gala ceremony on the historic stage of the Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow.
In 1992, John Neumeier already won the Prix Benois for his choreography “Fenster zu Mozart“, the first time a choreographer was honored. The lifetime achievement award he has received recently had already been announced in 2013 on the occasion of his 40th anniversary as director and chief choreographer of the Hamburg Ballet and now, he finally was presented with the trophy.
Congratulations on this most prestigious distinction!
Source of information adapted from the press office of the Hamburg Ballet on 18.5.2016:http://www.hamburgballett.de/presse/160518_prix_benois_de_la_danse.pdf
This years Dance Congress, now for the 4th time, will take place this year in
Hannover from 16-19th of June.
During the Dance Congress, Heike Scharpff, Psychologist and Project Leader of the Dance Foundation will offer dancers the chance to have a one on one counselling session about their future career prospects. You can ask questions about bureaucracy, your individual competences or the next steps on your personal career path. Counselling can be continued after the congress – in person, via phone or Skype. Counselling is free of charge and confidential.
Personal registration of the 45-minute counselling sessions on
Friday 17th of June 2016, 11:00 a.m. – 06:00 p.m. here: info@stiftung-tanz.com.
The same email address will be used for further information once you’ve successfully registered.
Further information: www.tanzkongress.de/
Registration for the congress is open until 19th of May, tickets will be € 30.00.
Our basic workshop to deal with the transition time performed 16 times for this summer. More than 130 dancers have benefited in the last 5 years of this workshop format.
What happens after your dance career? What can you do besides dance to survive financially? This workshop helps you develop a new career idea. What competencies do I already have? What do I want to develop with them? What can excite and challenge me in a future career?
This workshop offers all necessary information for a transition to a new career. All freelance or permanently employed dancers are welcome.
Topics: researching your own competencies & interests, developing visions for the future & planning concrete steps, profiting from others’ experience & networking.
Individual counseling is available that can be continued after the workshop.
Workshop directors: Katrin Kolo, Dipl. Economist, dancer, choreographer and executive consultant, founder of arts-in-business, co-founder of Transition-in-Dance in Munich.
Heike Scharpff, project director Stiftung TANZ-Transition Center Germany, Dipl. Psychologist, theater director, co-founder Waggonhalle Marburg, drama therapist.
Own share/cost: 50,- € per participant (Stiftung-TANZ covers travel costs with the train (Bahncard 50/ early booking/ Bahncard 25).
Sunday, July, 3th 2016 & Monday, July, 4th 2016
Uferstudios, Uferstraße 8 / Badstraße 41a, Berlin-Wedding (U8 Pankstraße)
Further information and registration for the workshop: info@stiftung-tanz.com
In cooperation with the Uferstudios!
The end of the season is close for many theatres and performance sites. How can you use the free time during the summer – apart from a well-deserved rest? How about further career development? It doesn’t always have to be academic studies.
All over Germany and even worldwide, there is a huge choice of further education on offer that is worth considering. For dancers who are transitioning, a summer course during the months of July/August can offer many advantages over a short period of time:
– Plenty of opportunities for networking (outside the usual professional field),
– Broadening the horizon with plenty of interdisciplinary offers and
– Opening up new professional options
Looking into this may take some time but it’s worth it! A first point of contact could be universities and academies that often offer summer courses for external candidates. Naturally, there are also plenty of private providers such as educational institutions or companies, who are using this option to recruit potential employees. Very importantly: dancers who are envisioning their future in Germany but are not native German speakers would be advised to invest in a certified “German as Foreign Language” course. Please refer to a similarly themed article in our August-Newsletter 2015 about the
Integration courses of the BAMF: stiftung-tanz.com/new…
By the way: expenses for further education can be claimed back in your yearly tax return as advertising costs, so they could be partially or completely refunded!
A collection of exemplary further education offers for this summer can be found in our Facebook post from 20th of May 2016: “Using the summer break for career advancement!“
www.facebook.com/Sti…
The program “Robert Bosch Cultural Manager in the Arabian world” has been running since 2005 in a corporation between the Robert Bosch Foundation and the Goethe-Institute. Funded by a scholarship (including travel expenses and insurance) of the Robert Bosch Foundation you can get hands-on qualification as a culture manager within one year as well as gain some important professional experience in international culture management. The culture managers are being looked after and coordinated by the regional branch Middle East/North Africa of the Goethe Institute in Cairo. Areas of operation so far have been: Assiut/Egypt, Marrakesh/Morocco, Tripoli/Lebanon, Aden/Yemen, Sharjah/United Arabian Emirates und Aleppo/Syria. At present: Djidda/Saudi-Arabia, the Nile Delta, northern Upper Egypt and southern Upper Egypt.
The work of the Culture Managers depends on the specific requirements of the respective location so it is very versatile. Generally, it is supposed to instigate and implement innovative projects and of course convey an up-to-date image of Germany in the guest country that would spark interest for German culture with the local citizens. Through their work on site, the culture managers of the Robert Bosch Foundation promote networking structures and international understanding for sustainable cultural collaborations between the guest country and Germany as well as in the region. The cultural and educational offers the culture managers provide include, for example, the organisation of exhibitions, music events, workshops, lectures and theatre projects. A vast range of activities – from fundraising and acquisitioning third-party funds to press and PR work – will result in an impressive body of skills and references ideal to apply for jobs in German or international cultural Institutions.
Further in-depth information:
www.bosch-stiftung.de/con…
The freedom of movement principal within the EU allows or even demands ever-higher mobility of employees, something that is almost second nature to professional dancers during their career. Along the way, they acquire plenty of competencies almost en passant, such as different languages and an extensive interculturality. With the Europass, all the qualifications and skills acquired at home and abroad can be comprehensively documented. This can make your job application more transparent and will also give you the chance to set yourself apart from other candidates. With just a few easy steps you can set up your CV online, create a language passport and document all professional employment abroad (Europass mobility) without making those many stop overs and time periods at lots of different companies, institutions and addresses look too chaotic. Anyone who obtained a foreign or international degree or certificate can summarise the main focus points of their studies with the help of a Diploma Supplement. The Europass structures your individual CV in a detailed but still clear and comprehensive way and aids with applications by presenting you as a well- rounded personality.
General information: www.europass-info.de/
Steps to obtain the Europass: www.europass-info.de/dokumente/
For the Diploma Supplement: www.europass-info.de/dokumente/diploma-supplement/
In our April newsletter we covered “unemployment insurance for freelance (Ex-) dancers“ (see here: stiftung-tanz.com/new… Now we complete this series with information regarding another equally important insurance: accident insurance.
On principle, we distinguish between company and private insurance. The same applies for accident insurance. Permanent employees are automatically covered by their employer or the company during work hours as well as on their way to and from their work place. – Attention: this protection is not effective outside of work hours! – freelancers are generally not insured against accidents during a project or job since it is usually expected that they take care of their own insurance protection.
If, for example, during rehearsals for a freelance project, a dancer twists his foot, injures a ligament and drops out for four weeks, he will lose out on important earnings while at the same time covering all follow up expenses himself. And, of course, he can’t count on continuation of payments while he’s signed off work. Freelancers carry a huge risk in case of accidents so they should categorically be insured for this case.
When signing contracts for a job, it is always worth asking about accident insurance for all involved freelance artists as employers can set up so called project-related group insurance with competitive rates that they should in all fairness actually offer their partners as well. Many people probably don’t actually know about this so it rarely forms a parts of work contracts.
General information about insurance and contracts for freelance work is provided by the Initiative Kultur- und Kreativwirtschaft der Bundesregierung on following website:
www.kultur-kreativ-wirtschaft.de/KuK…
The next newsletter will cover important information concerning personal liability insurance, another important insurance for freelancers together with unemployment and accident insurance.
Benefind is a search machine with which you can support Stiftung TANZ.
Stiftung TANZ receives one cent for every second search. We would be happy if as many people as possible took part.
Further information at:
www.benefind.de
And here a short instruction for use of benefind (posted on 06/06/2016, 12:27):www.facebook.com/Sti …