I've decided to finally word down a bit better what I intend to research with this inquiry, I guess I'd been having some hard time finding the right path, but this could be a good start.
What Business & Self-Management skills are required to survive and succeed as an emerging performer and to what extent is it possible for a freelance performer to control their career development?
I finalized this question after analyzing small interviews (simply talking to people or via web tools) and exchange of ideas I had within my community of practice (BAPP blogs, Facebook SIG's).
I originally wanted to focus more my inquiry on the difficulties and cultural differences between diverse ethnic groups, but then I figured that this could have been integrated within this inquiry as a sub-question or themed related to the main body of interest.
I decided to send out an interview under the form of email to a professional friend.
I set up 5 simple question (didn't want to make it to long as I know how busy lives can be and didn't want to lose the opportunity of a response if the email would have been too scary and long to replay!) and I addressed them to few friends of mine that are currently in performing arts but with different background and lives style.
A privacy consent form has also been sent out by myself to make sure that my interviewers were safeguarded.
I here would like to analyze what came out from the first interviewee
Giancarlo Capito, an Italian performer currently in the Italian production of
Happy Days, the Musical.
1.How would you describe the training you received and what kind of colleges/courses have you attended?
He trained in Musical Theatre in Milan, at a 2 years course private college. He described himself as a born musician and singer so didn't have much experience at all on dance so that was the first time he started taking dance classes; he also pointed out that because of that he can't really explain and compare the level of dance training he has received, but surely he noticed they didn't offer much dance classes taught by men. Another lack he felt was the little attention paid to solo singing but was more focused on choral singing technique.
Nonetheless the course wasn't extremely intense (8 hours of singing a week, 7 of acting, 5 classical ballet, 3 jazz and tap, 1.5 music theory and 2 of Musical Theatre history) he admitted the training must have done its job as he hasn't stopped working since leaving college.
2.Describe yourself as what kind of artist.
He described himself as a Musical Theatre performer with his strengths in Singing.
3. Do you get trained in the history of Musical Theatre?
They received a general training in the history of MT and where it first started, so he believes to have an average knowledge about it.
4.How woud you describes the development of MT in Italy? Do you have any experiences of working in Musicals in other countries ?
He explained to me that musicals in Italy are starting to grow and get noticed by the public, even if sometimes,unfortunately, not at a great level. Particulars are often overestimated to leave space to anything to gain cheap laughs from the audience...and then he carries on telling me how VIPS and TV characters are asked to perform to attract the public, without having any idea of what a stage is. This puts the quality of the show in a position of a final poor product.
He continues saying that he had some experience with UK production and he can see the enormous difference between the cultures. Everything in the UK was looked up with much more accuracy, choreographies and movements set to reach perfection among the dancers, on the other hand he personally experienced that for such preciseness, the dancers weren't warming up property and therefore injuring themselves quite often.
5. How and where do you see yourself in 10 years? Have you got any project for the future still related with performing?
He sees himself still on a stage but in the meantime he's starting different jobs such as working in TV and teaching singing lesson at the school where he graduated.
He then wanted to precise how difficult this world is for an Italian performer. We (as I speak as an Italian citizen ) don't have union such as Equity to safeguard ourselves, our colleges are private and the qualification you gain don't have any value in the working world, we will probably never obtain a pension and worst off all, Italians in general still don't consider what we do a real job, but instead only a hobby.
Maybe it's from here that Italian culture should look up to other countries regulations and how they value the work of an artist/performer. Countries such as the UK, Germany and I believe Spain are well developed within Musical Theatre and their performers are protected and helped with their careers.
I'm not talking about financials as I don;t know enough for comparison and surely there are gaps and difficulties in these countries too, but as a matter of consideration and awareness of the disciplines of dancing or singing professionally we still are far away from our fellow european countries.
