The street dance has been widely recognized, and a number of artists who are centered around dancing seems to be increasing more than ever.
A long ago, only the accomplished dancers who passed through the world competition had the privilege of eating with dancing alone.
But now, time has changed. Even the young dancers in the early 20s have a chance to live off of dancing.
Experienced dancers in their 30s who are engaged in studio as instructors can become independent and open their studio.
Even so, it does not mean that when those dancers leave the studios, you as young dancers will have open space available. After their independence, most of them carry on teaching in multiple studios. They will hold onto their monopoly in the dance scenes for some more time.
So there is no space for young people to dig into studio slots. It is understandable thinking they have the popularity and achievements they have built up so far, after all.
Too many expert problems for the young
It is a similar problem to the world of TV hosts.
The layer of entertainers in their 40s who have survived the industry have built up enough fat. It is difficult to break that ceiling for 20s and 30s.
The street dance industry is almost like this.
Even the dancers who were already experienced when I first started dancing 12 years ago are still healthy and active. Entering international competition is still relevant for them.
Not only that both the technique and mentality are mature, the years of experience has accumulated. And it feels like they are out of the reach for anyone to catch up.
In the future, if the day when space became available for young dancers were to come, that would be when all older expert dancers would go extinct in some ways. But such days will never come.
How do young dancers live off dancing?
Well then, there are 2 ways left by young dancers who want to dance live off dancing.
1. Wait almost forever for the instructor's open position
2. Advertise yourself and operate a dance classroom
I put it as being cynical the first one. The time will almost never come.
If you live in a big city, having instructor position in the famous downtown studios are always attractive. If you want to teach in a particular studio, the only option you have is to wait.
Even if it becomes empty, it is often the case where the instructor or the studio owner have already chosen the successors from their personal circles. To break inside is almost harder than taking a law exam.
The second option sounds even harder. But it is not really.
The secret opportunity to live off dancing actually lies in the suburb/rural area.
Find your niche in the rural side
Even if you fight for the spot with many rivals in the city, there is no winning.
On the other hand, there are quite a few people in the suburbs or country side who want to learn dancing but cannot go far away.
It is important to understand the keyword: class establishment for children.
- A child who thinks she wants to dance
- A parent who wants her kid to learn dancing
When you become a high school student, the range of activities becomes wider using trains and buses. So even if they live in a rural area, they can attend the studio themselves.
For junior highschool and younger, the commute option is limited. Their parents are obligated to accompany the them. Attending classes that happen at night is certainly difficult for children.
Even though there are parents who want their kids to try out dancing, there are many cases that are impossible physically.
It sounds businessy, but the target young dancers should go for is here.
You have to advertise your skills to the right people.
Children who cant go far
In a place where there are children who want to learn dancing but cannot do, demand and supply are mismatched. You should administer a dance class in such area.
Starting up in a strange land is difficult to attract customers, so it is recommended to start with your own local community.
The process follows like this: look for facilities in the area where dancing can be taught. It can be private gym, sports facilities, community center, etc. And rent such place on a regular interval. Finally you start attracting customer. The whole startup process does take some time.
If everything goes well however, it will succeed as a business.
Be patient until the space opens
If the facility space is available now, you can start right away. But there are times when the desired time slots are already filled. In such situation, you will have to wait for months or even years to have the space opened.
To get started, it is always an option to change the location if you have a car or live in the commutable area.
Once you secure the place, you can start off by running the trial lesson for a month or so, until the word of mouth starts to spread out. You can advertise it on Facebook page. I would not recommend the paid advertisement while you have not secured the budget. Rely solely on friends and family for those who have attended in the beginning.
Running your own studio has bigger potential than being an instructor
From gathering customers to managing money, you will have to do everything by yourself. But there is also a merit that your profit ratio is overwhelmingly higher than the hired instructors.
There seems to be a case that people who establish a dance studio in the local neighborhood earn multiple times more than having multiple classes in multiple studios in the big city.
Since there is no one who takes a cut, everything becomes profit after deducting expenses.
You just need to make profitability and builds a base studio (castle) from there.
The feeling of big potential... don't you get excited?
Success stories utilizing online media
Dance & videos, the two are very compatible to each other. This compatibility is as good as Bonnie and Clyde.
Speaking of videos, YouTube comes to mind. After all, it is very powerful platform for self publishing. In recent years, there are more and more dancers who are monetizing by submitting videos to YouTube.
An easy and understandable example would be those commentary videos describing popular choreography: the one that pops out when you search by "bra bra choreography tutorial".
To demonstrate, I typed in "Shape of You choreography tutorial" (my favorite catchy song). The result showed this video by Matt Steffanina. The number of views is quite high and the number of subscribers of the channel is over 2 million.
I am not sure how it looks from the mature dancers point of view, but it fully satisfies the demand for those who want to try out dancing a bit.
In reality, there is obvious popularity for tutorial type of choreography commentary videos, so this field will definitely grow in the future. But at the same time, the number of rivals will increase too.
There are possibilities where you get hate comments from experienced dancers the moment you target non-dancers (lay people). Only those who do not care about it can do it. People who do not care about appearing in the media should start it immediately.
Success is on your hand regardless of your track record as a dancer if you can monetize with your own dance skills with your own video contents.
It is the win for whoever starts first in the category nobody has experimented before.
What it means to live off of dancing
Even for young dancers with bright skills, it is not easy to live off of dancing alone. It certainly is not. But when you look at from different angles from instructor career alone, there are always ways.
There is no need to borrow money to launch anything. You should start with what you can do, and do as far as you can.
Again, it isn't a easy deal. But if you want to merge your passion with lifestyle, you consider every option available.