“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark. In the hopeless swamps of the not quite, the not yet, and the not at all, do not let the hero in your soul perish and leave only frustration for the life you deserved, but never have been able to reach. The world you desire can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.”  – Ayn Rand, from Atlas Shrugged

Some people have questioned why I am a fan, of sorts, of Ayn Rand, particularly as her philosophies have been hijacked by people calling themselves members of the modern-day “Tea Party” movement. (Her political and economic policies advocate laissez faire capitalism, which, I think if there were no greed on this Earth, might be able to work.  In this world, alas, greed is everywhere, as well as people and organizations to seek to take advantage and harm others.)

Well. Her fiction calls on the power of the individual to follow his/her calling according to his ability, which lies within his/her competence and knowledge.  Her heroes are strong, empowered individuals who fight against collectivism, the naysaying of trends and the masses, the mediocre and the apathetic.  Her heroes strive for knowledge; they ignore those who tell them what they’re doing isn’t “acceptable”.  They march to the sound of their own drum.  Her philosophy also advocates that one must not harm another in their pursuit of their vision.  To harm another means to mooch off of them; to have a victim means that you’re taking from that victim and not working on your own accord.  This aspect of her philosophy appeals to me very much.  Work hard, make money doing what you do best, and don’t harm others in the process.  Sounds like a good way to live, yeah?

If you know anything about me at all, you’ll see why these stories have inspired me so much.  My tattoo, the star in the circle, is not only a derivation of a logo used by the band Rush, but also a visual manifestation of these ideals.  The band’s drummer created the symbol to represent the masses, the collective, the mediocre, the naysayers – I put it on my back to remind me that I have a duty to myself to push ahead on my own, regardless of whatever obstacles come before me.  I am my own leader, and I will follow my vision.

Before I left my day job, I had been reading several blogs on freelancing, escaping the cube, creativity, and simpler living.  (I also follow most of them on Twitter, which is how I found out about Pam’s DC workshop.) Some of these blogs include:

• Pam Slim’s Escape From Cubicle Nation. (@pamslim on Twitter)
• Jonathan Fields’ Career Renegade and Awake at the Wheel. (@jonathanfields)
• Michelle Goodman’s Anti 9-to-5 Guide. (@anti9-to-5guide)
• Seth Godin’s Blog. (@thisissethsblog)
• Freelance Switch. (@freelancesw)
• Dumb Little Man. (@dumblittleman)
• Zen Habits. (@zenhabits)
• Business Pundit. (@businesspundit)

To me, it seemed like the natural thing to do.  I wanted to start my own business as a freelance, independent creative contractor, in charge of my own schedule and my own life.  It seemed natural to want to approach dancing full-time as an entrepreneurial endeavor, so I wanted to read blogs written by and that inspire entrepreneurs.

What surprises me, though, is that many dancers, even and maybe especially the part-time professionals (those who are dancing, performing, and teaching for pay) are not looking at their dance as business.  They don’t file taxes with their state or with, in the case of the United States, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).  They don’t have business licenses on file with their home city.  They don’t itemize their deductions at tax time (because they’re not even paying taxes).  They aren’t demanding that their sponsors obtain work visas for them when they teach outside of their country of residence.

This lack of business prudence indicates several things to me:

• We, as a community, do not place a high value on being legally official.
• We, as a community, do not think that we need to pay taxes because, at least in the case of the part-timers, we make very little.
• We, as a community, do not take ourselves seriously as businesswomen… Even though we are selling services, knowledge, skills, and sometimes products.

And what that boils down to, in my eyes, is a fundamental lack of self-respect.

We owe it to ourselves and the community to go to our local government authorities and get the appropriate business license to teach and perform (and sell wares). Plus, it’s a pretty awesome feeling when you come home with a business license to put up on your wall at home.  We owe it to our students as examples and mentors that belly dance is a legitimate business venture, something respectable and honorable.  We owe it to ourselves and our community to show that we can be professional artists in an obscure and often misunderstood dance form, and still be official and legal about it.

If you’re teaching dance or performing for pay, it takes only a few hours to set up a business as a sole proprietor.  If you have questions about how to set up an official business, take a look at the blogs I’ve posted above… or ask your mentors.  Ask me.  I might not have the answers, but when we fail to report our income and our expenses to our local and federal governments, what we’re saying is, “What we’re doing isn’t a legitimate business”, and therefore “What we’re doing isn’t legitimate.” It’s under the table, shady and hidden.

In my eyes, belly dance deserves better than under-the-table dealings.  It demands respect, which we all claim to want, but unless we can respect ourselves enough to look at ourselves as businesswomen/men and entrepreneurs, then how do we expect those NOT in our community to respect us?

On one hand many of us paint ourselves as artists, as on par with the dances found in theaters and concert halls.  “Belly dance is just as valid as ballet or modern,” we say.  We say, “belly dance belongs on the stage next to other high performance art.”

On the other hand, we struggle with being entertaining.  Those of us who dance in restaurants and nightclubs must be entertaining.  The clientele isn’t paying for high art; they’re paying for a fun night out with their friends.

So… what are we?  Artists or entertainers?  Do we have to make a decision?  Or is it a matter of knowing how to be both, and being able to present an appropriate performance depending on the venue and crowd.  But if we tailor our performances depending on the client, are we compromising our art for the sake of entertainment?  Where do we draw the line?

For me… I consider myself more of an artist than an entertainer.  But, in being an artist, I can’t forget that I’m also a performer, and performance is entertainment.  How entertaining an audience finds a performance depends on the person and their expectations of what they’re going out to see.  But I won’t perform a piece solely for the purpose of entertaining the audience.  I don’t perform in order to elicit positive reactions from my viewers.  I have to love the song, the performance, and the piece itself.  Personally, I also no longer dance at private parties or do regular restaurant gigs, because those weren’t the right environments for what sort of dance I want to do.  Those audiences want to be entertained and to have fun, not to see something they might not understand.  I’m glad that I have taken those gigs in my early days as a working dancer; for one, they were great experience in dealing with apathetic and some times even rude crowds.  Those gigs also taught me that I’m not meant to be a bellydancing entertainer.  And I don’t see anything wrong with those performances or the dancers who take those gigs.  They just weren’t for me.

I feel most at home on the stage, in a concert hall, or at an event populated by other dancers.  Sure, this narrows my reach, but if I were to perform my style of bellydance at a private birthday party, hired by someone looking for a bellydancer, I think they’d be quite confused.  The private parties and Middle Eastern restaurants are not where I’m meant to perform.

I think it’s important for us to think about where on the spectrum between entertainment and art we want to sit.  We don’t need to choose a single point on this scale.  We can move between the two sides, and ideally, we should aim to find a balance between both that doesn’t compromise our personal vision.

How have you tried to balance art and entertainment?

But I couldn’t have survived seven years of building a dance career while holding a full-time job without developing a few balancing tricks.

Surviving the Day Job as a Creative

Many of you out there either dance part-time or as a hobby, and when you’re not dancing, you’re spending forty or more hours of the week at your Day Job. Maybe you’re an artist, and you’re working a Day Job to make sure you can pay the rent or mortgage.  If you’re a Creative person, the Day Job often can be stifling. All the red tape, bureaucracy, adherence to rules and the way things have “always been done” can really hamper your desire to come up with new and unconventional ways to do your work. Plus, spending more than 40 hours a week at a desk when you could be dancing can be incredibly frustrating.

How can you turn all of that around to your advantage?

The most obvious answer is to leave your stale Day Job and find something else that suits you better. But often this isn’t always an option, and sometimes it’s not even necessary. You might actually like your Day Job… you just need to find a better way to balance your responsibilities. Here are some other tips that might help you escape the mental cubicle, even if you don’t escape the physical one:

• Find an advocate and seek out other Creatives. Surely there are other people in your organization who are Creatives and who are just as frustrated with the Conventionals as you are. Find them. It really helps if you can find people in your organization who have more experience than you; they not only know how to cope with the system, but they have also found ways to work it, hence their still working there!

• Prove yourself with conventional work but take an unconventional approach. It is possible to do your day-to-day work in a creative manner. Try new ways to complete your tasks. You might find that trying creative ways to approach your work will help you excel at it. If you can find ways to better like your work, you will be able to perform better, proving yourself and your management that unconventional methods don’t always have to be scary.

• Don’t be ashamed of your Evening Hobby. Yes. It’s true. I’m a belly dancer. Telling people is, I guess, a little like coming out of the closet. Personally, I’ve never had a problem telling my co-workers that I bellydance. They actually find it fascinating and ask lots of questions about it. You don’t need to hide your hobby at work.

• Believe in your talents, not only as a Creative, but as an inherent member of your organization or company. You can believe and work for the mission of your organization without being completely sucked into the bureaucracy of it. You might have to take some risks to do so, but if that means being able to approach your work the way you want to, those risks will be worth it.
  

• Have fun at work. Don’t let the sterility of the naysayers infect your personal workspace. Keep things at your desk that make you happy: toys, photos, inspirational quotes, and other things that might be silly to the typical passer-by. Chances are your company doesn’t have a rule prohibiting you from tacking up some awesome photography on your cubicle walls. (…and if that is the case, maybe you should leave that Day Job!)
  

• Use your “free time” wisely. This is probably one of the most important and yet hardest elements of balancing a full-time day job and a full-time creative job. When I got home from work, on nights when I wasn’t teaching classes, I would immediately jump on the dance business that needs to be completed. When I’m feeling overwhelmed with dance business, I make lists of what I need to do. If going home and working on your dance business starts feeling like a chore, remember why you dance and what about it makes you happy. Also remember that you can’t be a working dancer without taking care of the business end of it. Personally, most of the time, I find joy in completing my dance business in the evenings.
  

• Take advantage of alternative work schedules. Many workplaces today are offering alternative work schedules. I’ve found that working an alternative schedule has been extremely beneficial for my dance business. I was on a “flex” schedule, which afforded me every other Friday off of work, which meant that I can use that day either to work on dance business at home, or use that day to travel to a workshop, event, or festival without using my precious vacation leave. If your workplace hasn’t institutionalized alternative work schedules, it still wouldn’t hurt to ask your management about it.

Those are just some ways I’ve managed to find somewhat of a balance between the Day Job and the Dance Job. It’s possible to do both, and do both well. It just takes some careful planning and a little bit of risk taking.

Of course, sometimes push comes to shove and you have to take the leap to do what you love.  Life’s too short to just like what you do for a living.