Episode 39: How to Make a Career Out of Aerial

Intro and Announcements

• Cirque & Spook Tickets Are Live!

2:39 — The Big Stage Path

6:50 — The Local Gig Economy

• The Money Talk Episode

9:33 — The Teaching Path

17:14 — The Hybrid Model

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to The Aerial Alchemist, where movement transforms into magic and stories take flight. I'm Fallon, dancer, aerialist, and storyteller, inviting you into a world where circus and dance meet creativity, resilience, and community. Whether you're here to be inspired, to learn, or to simply dream a little bigger, you found your place. I'm glad you're here. How to make a career out of Ariel. I had someone ask me this on Reddit. How do you make a career out of doing this stuff? So we'll get into that. Quick, quick announcement. Cirque and spook tickets are now on sale when you hear this. Because as you know, I'm batch recording. I have this and one more episode to record today. If you're watching on Patreon, I'm outside in my yard because it's Sunday. And I feel like I've been cooped up all weekend getting all of this admin work done. And this is how we make it a win-win is I get to be outside for a little bit while I chat with you. So here we are. Um but by the time you hear this, Circ and Spook tickets are on sale. And uh I'll put the link to that in the show notes, of course. It will be at the Savoy Denver. We love the Savoy. It will be on August 8th from 4 to 6:30. What is it going to be? We are going to have uh our Sky Pours option, optional add-on to get a little champagne poured from the sky by our lovely Amber. And then aerial performances throughout the night, both spotlighted and ambient. And we've got a juggler there this year. I'm pretty excited about that. There's also a live auction with all sorts of cool things. We're still gathering things for that auction. If you are a business owner and you want to donate to the cause, hit me up. We would love to feature you at our gala. That'd be great. Also, light bites and a cash bar. So it's gonna be a whole night. Last year, people had a great time. Last year we just went with just a general theme of gala, but we're making it spooky this year since we're we're in vampire mode for our end of season show bite. So come and join us. It'll be a good time. You won't regret it. So let's jump in. How do you make a career out of Ariel? And can you actually make a living doing this? I'm gonna write up the front, yes, you can make a living doing this. Are you going to be rich? No. Probably not. Could you be? Yes, yes. Because we're gonna manifest that and we're gonna not shut it all down. But it's good to be realistic. It will be hard because it's not something that's been done before that I know of. So I kind of put this into four different paths that you could take. We're gonna start the first one with the the big stage path. So I'm talking like Cirque du Soleil, cruise ships, going to Vegas, different international companies. There's a bunch of them. Um I'm not gonna get into what all of them are. Um and next week you will be hearing from a little guest who did this path. So we're gonna jump into what that looks like. So stay tuned next week to hear that. But to get a little into it, this is the type of aerial where you go, you audition for the thing. There's going to be certain training requirements to do it. And yeah, so I I did not take this path. I did audition for one show that was in this path very, very early on in my aerial career. So early that I had no expectations that I was going to get into this show. I did it more for the experience, which I highly recommend. You do auditions for the experience. If you've been listening to my podcast, you know that I think that. So, yeah, so that's been kind of my only experience. And then knowing people who have been in that arena of circus. So, from what I understand, you can either come with a prepared act or more times than not, they just train you to do the thing that they want you to do. So you have a certain set of skills and they go, Great, we can mold this person and have them do X, Y, and Z. So you have to be competitive and versatile. Have your physical conditioning needs to be there because it can be quite competitive if you want to go that way. And typically what it will look like is you're you'll be on a contract that's like an extended period of time. I actually just saw one of my uh previous company members at at Denver Fringe, actually, last night that she had just gotten back from it was a shorter contract. I think she said it was two and a half months, versus like an eight or nine month contract, which she's also done. So for her, the shorter contract felt nicer. Um you're on an eight or nine-month contract or talking about it. That's that's just where you live now. You just live on like your cruise ship or you just live wherever that show is and and that's what it is. And you're doing, you know, eight to ten shows a week typically, uh, which is a lot. And uh training during it, though that is also like the performance is part of your workout for the day, but you do still have to keep pushing yourself and and do the injury preventions and things like that. And then when the contract ends, you gotta find a new job. Sometimes. Sometimes they'll rehire you. Sometimes you need to find a new job. So it's it's a choice. And it's just good to go in with your eyes wide open of how that is. And I think that the people who gravitate to this type of work are those who are younger and haven't like put roots down anywhere yet. I'm not saying that that's across the board, that's how it has to be. It's definitely not, but that's that's how I see it. Uh when I was younger, that felt more achievable. Now I have all these other things going on that I don't want to leave. And some of those things are my my beautiful fur babies that I just don't want to be away from for eight months. That doesn't sound nice for me, but it does for other people. You're also doing someone else's choreography for those eight to ten shows a week, and that that's what it is. So if that's what you enjoy doing, is doing other people's work, then that's great. If you enjoy doing an act so many times that you have it absolutely perfect and flawless, that's great. That's for you. If that sounds boring, then that might not be your jam. That might not be the path for you. So let's talk about other paths. Uh the another path is the the local gigs. So things like corporate events or small showcases, small companies, basically what I the kind of shows I produce, and freelance performances. So there's if you're going to do that and scrounge up all those gigs yourself, there's a lot of hustle in that. So uh it's it's going out and networking, building relationships with different people, um, auditioning for local companies, getting on different companies' rosters, knowing who's in your area to do that. And I will say, go back and listen to the I forget which number it was. It's been quite a minute, but the money, the money talk episode, I'll link that in the show notes for you. But make sure that you're getting paid appropriately for that and think about everything that needs to go into that, like everything that that payment has to cover and knowing that it's not going to be reliable income. It'll be it'll fluctuate. Sometimes you'll be getting more gigs, sometimes you'll be getting less gigs. So you have to, you have to accommodate for that and be prepared for that. So if you're doing gig work with another company, the nice part about that, I've done it both ways. I've I've been the person who's gotten the gig and hired the people, and then I've been the person that was hired to do the gig. So I I've been on both sides, so I can tell you the pros and cons of each. And as if you go in with a different company as just a performer, you didn't set up the gig, you're just like you show up and you do your act, it's really nice because you show up and you do your act and you go home. And there is no, there are typically, especially if you trust the producer you're working for, there aren't any site checks. Um, they've already done all that stuff for you. You don't have to load in. You literally just bring yourself whatever you need to like take care of yourself and that's it. And you do your thing and you go home. If you are the person booking the gig and coordinating all the things, again, in the money, the money episode, we talk about like adding that on to your rate. So I'm gonna be charging more because it's going to include those site checks and bringing the rigging and getting that set up and getting it torn down. And typically, a lot of times you have to stay until the end of the event. You're just literally sitting around until everybody's gone and you can break things down, uh, or coming back the next day, depending on what's going on. So, but you are getting paid a little bit more. You are doing more work for that. So, you know, it is it is a trade-off. And in all of this, you have to get good at more than just performing. You have to get good at marketing yourself and knowing your rates and showing up professionally and doing all of those things so that you get hired again and growing those relationships. So it's also a lot. There's something to it. The third path is the teaching path. So private lessons, group classes, retreats, uh-huh. Like I will be doing right when you talk, right when you hear this, right when you talk to me. You're not talking to me. I'm talking to you. Silly. Yeah. Or studio working for studios or owning your own studio. So all of that realm. And again, like when you talk about owning your own studio versus working for them, it's very similar to like going to the gig and just doing the thing or getting the gig and running the whole gig. So it's the same type of trade-offs. Yes, you're going to likely be getting a little bit more money. We're saying more money. We're a little bit more money. It's for the work that's being done, it's not that much more. But for the studio, yeah, same thing. Probably getting a little bit more money, at least consistent money, uh, which can be very nice to know that it's coming consistently. It still will ebb and flow because man, summers slow down. People do not take classes in the summer, everybody's traveling. You have to kind of work with your people and and how am I going to handle this? So yeah, it's a thing. But I do think it's maybe one of the most sustainable and long-term paths in Ariel because you can teach beyond the performance years. I mean, you can teach probably all the way up until you're until you're done and you want to retire. Because as I have learned in having surgeries done, you don't have to necessarily demonstrate to be able to teach things. So that is that is a nice thing about the teaching. And there's this spectrum of this too, right? Of being employed at someone else's studio versus building your own clientele versus owning the space. And the building your own clientele that's in that Venn diagram of the overlap. Because whether you own the space or you're just working in someone else's studio, you still need to build your own clientele. Students will gravitate towards certain teachers for certain reasons at certain points of their paths, of their journeys. And some of them will stick with you forever and some of them won't. And that's that's that's what it is. But that's a very important piece. So as someone who's working for someone else, really being clear in who you are as an instructor so that your students trust you and you start getting those students that you click with. I was talking with someone, I remember last week or something, about how when they were younger, they had a teacher who was teaching them essentially theory and they didn't want to know theory. They just wanted to know how to do the trick and then move on. And I said, Yeah, that's why I don't really work well with most kids. I have a few younger students who I work really well with because they really enjoy theory and they like that, even though their faces are always blank. But they do enjoy learning the theory. I'm I'm a theory person. I want to know why it's working and how it's working so that eventually I can develop my own path and my own thing, or just feel safer and more confident in what I'm doing. And so that's how I teach is this is what's holding you up and why. And and sometimes I don't always have that answer. And then I work through it with my students. Okay, let's let's figure this out together. What is holding us and why and what's keeping us safe? And so those are the kinds of students that stick with me because they enjoy that. And then the ones who just want to learn the trick, I don't get along well with them. Not like as people, just as like this teacher instructor dynamic. And so they typically don't hang around super long because they just want to learn more stuff. And I'm not a learning 8,000 to like tricks person, just not who I am. So building your own clientele, figuring that out. That same goes true if you're owning your own space, and you have to kind of go beyond that with your instructors. What is the environment that you want to create in your studio? So, who are you bringing in to teach for you? Are they on the same page? Are you looking for some like a space that is very warm and welcoming and everyone in that space is warm and welcoming? Or are you looking for a space that is very like uh serious and strict and methodical and borderline cold, maybe? And I said serious, but in that realm. And so who are we bringing in and how what does it feel like when we come into this space? If you've been taking Ariel for any length of time and you've gone to even more than one, just one studio, you will notice a difference in the feel of the studio of the space. They all have their own little dynamics. So it's just something to be very intentional about in your own class and then in your studio, whichever way you decide to go. And what makes a great aerial teacher, it's not just being a great aerialist. I have had teachers who were phenomenal aerialists, and I thought they were horrible teachers. Just because you can do it doesn't mean you can teach it. And, you know, just because you can't do it doesn't mean you can't teach it. Did I say that right? You understand what I mean. The great teacher will be able to say things in several different ways to work with several different brains. I talk about it with my beginning students a lot when I'm teaching footlocks, specifically figure eight foot locks. Uh, are you thinking about the standing foot or the working foot? Because if you're thinking of the working foot, then it's under over. And if you're thinking about the standing foot, it's over under. So I have to figure like what kind of brain do you have? How are you thinking about this? The same thing's happening. And that goes for so many things. So a great teacher will be able to say things in more than one way is because we all have these wildly different brains that like absorb information so differently, which is so cool. And the best teachers are the ones that can accommodate for the most brains. There is a fair amount of emotional laid labor, I think, in and mental labor in being a teacher going through your pedagogy and how are you like what is the structure of how you're gonna teach? There's plenty of aerial teaching trainings at this point, which didn't really exist when I started doing this. There was like one or two that I knew of. Now there's plenty more of them and really great ones uh about how to like structure your teaching. So there's there's like a wealth of community to to lean on to be able to think about these things. Uh, and some of it is honestly trial and error with your own students, because I found that every student is different in how you approach things. Just when you think you crack the code, and I'm gonna teach A and B and C, you find somebody like, I guess I gotta teach B before A. Weird. So you do you do the best you can, but in that, that's where like that emotional labor comes, the mental labor, the lesson planning. So it is, it is work and teaching is so cool because because of all of that, and because it's made me a better aerialist and it made it's made me understand how it works so much more because every class, someone will mess it up in a way that I never even thought possible. And and then I'm like, okay, well, I guess I need to fix my words for that, which is so cool. Even after I've been teaching for since 2012, I think. So it's been a minute and I'm still learning, even from beginners, especially from beginners. And the last path is kind of the hybrid model, and that's that's kind of any or all of these or several of them, or one at one time and one at another time. So you really like if you're young and you're hungry and you just want to, you want to do the circle soleil thing, you want to be on the cruise lines, do it. Go do it. 100. And then when you're done, you can like find a little aerial community that you like, or create your own and and have it be what you you need. This is very weird because you're hearing, you're hearing this episode before the one that's coming next week, but I have recorded in the opposite order. So I already know what happens next week and can like allude to things. But it's it's something that uh Rachel Strickland says that if there isn't a room for you, then build the room, which is what I have done with In the Wings. I wanted a place where I could create the types of stories I wanted to tell in a way I wanted to tell them. So I did it. And it's led me down these different paths so that I didn't I didn't think I would be a teacher. And turns out I enjoy that. Never thought I'd be hosting a retreat, and here I am doing that, and that feels so exciting. I plan to do more. I hope you join me in that, in that journey, because retreats are so special. Yeah, they're just so special. Every retreat I've ever been on. And hopefully the one that I'm doing right now, I'm sure, is the same, the one that I'm leading. And this is really the the hybrid model is kind of I think what most people do in some way or another. Because some because really none of none of them are all that sustainable super long term or on their own. So the combination really works well. I will say they don't always work well at the same time. You can't it's hard to focus on several things like getting gigs and teaching and producing shows all at the same time, not gonna happen. It's too much. It's too much for anybody's brain. If you have a big team, then that can happen. But at first, when you're one one person show, hard, hard, hard, hard. And all of this, like can can be hard to find the sustainable place in many ways. Financial, it can be hard because it it is a niche thing and it's art, which we don't appreciate very much in our country. And in the creative realm. Because once you turn your hobby into a job, it's now a job. And it can weigh on yourself. And this is when I think retreats are so important, whatever that looks like for you. But getting, I've said it before, getting bored, turning off all of the buzzing and the beepings and the noise as I say that. My my vibrate message just went off in my pocket. Guess I didn't put that on, do not disturb, see. And it gets overwhelming. So in order to be sustainable, you have to learn to take those breaks. You need to learn when to turn things off and when it's not okay. Maybe in the future I'll do an episode on like how I've all the little tools that I've done to to make it more sustainable for me. And I'm still finding more. I'm still finding more ways of doing it. So yeah, I'm gonna wrap it up for today. Because I have one more podcast to record, and then I gotta go catch some friend shows. If you have requests for future episodes, I'd love to hear them. Uh you can hit me up on all of the social medias at in the wings Ariel or on Patreon at in the wings Ariel. And speaking of Patreon, thank you to my patrons. I couldn't do this without you. Thank you for standing with me always in all the ways. I hope you have a beautiful week and I will see you next week. This has been the Ariel Alchemist. Now go create some magic of your own. Happy flying.