Where in the world am I today?: Toronto – Charlotte – St. Thomas
On Wednesday’s I try to find some sort of topic about a job opportunity, a possible market worth considering or something related to the execution of the getting/doing of gigs. Today I thought I’d take the opposite approach and ask this questions… If there are only 52 weeks in the year ask yourself this.
How many of them do you really want to be working?
I’ve been really lucky in that I’ve successfully migrated my career from one that was seasonally dependant when all of the gigs I did were in the summer months, to one where the season seems to bear little relevance to how busy I am. I’ve got work in various markets that keep me busy all year round.
Even when I worked almost exclusively as a street performer I found ways to follow the sun because it’s always summer somewhere. The 1989/1990 calendar was a perfect example of this for me because I worked a ton over the course of the 1989 Summer in North America, stuck around to do a slew of Christmas Gigs, then hopped on a plane and headed to Australia for three months during which I hit various Festivals and events as well as just street performed at various pitches. Following this I had a two month run in Japan which brought me to the beginning of May, and shortly after that I was back into the full swing of the North American summer season. I was 100% successful at keeping myself busy, traveling and working over the course of an entire calendar year.
That was the year it really started to click with me that, if I really wanted to, I could be busy 12 months of the year and I actively started to pursue just that, as many jobs as I could possibly book myself each and every month of the year.
With this sort of driven work ethic however comes the risk of burn-out. One of the things I really enjoyed about the seasonal nature of the North American Street Performer’s Season was actually taking some time off during the winters when I could recharge my creative/performance batteries and refresh myself so that when I went back to the day-to-day routine of a more demanding performance schedule I actually had something in the reserves to give to the audiences I was performing for.
There was a year in the late 90s when my touring season started in January and was pretty non-stop until the middle of November at which point I started into the Christmas Performance season. It was the peak of my work in Japan and the contracts that I was doing in Japan at the time were the typical three shows a day, six days a week sort of scenario. After three of those contracts over the course of the year each of which were roughly a month long combined with a very busy North American Summer Season of touring and performing I sort of felt like I was running on fumes and didn’t have much to give to my audience when I stepped out to perform.
I remember taking a year off between high school and university. I traveled, I performed, I explored anything and everything and at then decided to go back to school. I had a blast at the University of Ottawa. I studied general arts with a concentration in theatre and loved filling my head with interesting lectures and new ideas and at the end of the year at school I felt like my tank was once again full and when I went back to performing I had so much more to give to my audience.
There’s something to refilling your tank so you’ve got something more to give. Some people are successful at refilling their tank along the way, which means their tank never runs dry – this is awesome. For myself however I think I occasionally need a complete change of scenery to really re-charge my batteries. This past year I had the amazing opportunity to take about three weeks away from performing and travel to Peru and visit Machu Picchu… I came back with full batteries which was a pretty important thing because I walked straight into performing a new show at the PNE.
There are 52 weeks in every year. Yes working during many of them is important because if you want to make a living, but equally important, I think, is setting some time aside to make sure your tank is creatively and playfully full so that when you step in front of the audience you’ve got something in your well to give.
So, figure out what your financial nut is and make sure you’ve got enough gigs in the schedule to look after that, but also give some thought to your creative nut and what it’s going to take to make sure that it’s being nurtured and satisfied as well… If things get out of whack balance-wise you run the risk of burning out, and if what you really want it to be able to sustain a career as a performer and creative a person, then striking a balance between commerce and creativity is critical!
