5b. Working Abroad Continued..

From one of my comments on my previous blogs helped me to think more deeply into my earlier reflection. 

Often, with any problems we might have had, we just had to do our best to work our way around them. Because we would only be in the venue for a forty five minute set, the venue would not have necessarily moved mountains for us. This is because they are a business themselves and although we are there to bring in the customers as an attraction, they are inevitably the ones who make the money. So wasting their time on us will be stopping them from serving customers.
I am not overly fussy when it comes to job situations that I am faced with. This is because being able to perform overrides all other problems. I can change in a grotty area, glass on the floor is a difficulty but we can sweep this away. I have moved barrels around a changing area before, this wasn't my job to do and if I would have hurt myself there would have been some serious repercussions, but I didn't so it wasn't a problem. I think where I draw the line is at bugs. Were I have a genuine phobia of something. It's something that I would not tolerate in my own home and I'm not being payed enough to tolerate it anywhere else. But the problem is, I put up with everything else and others want the job so much that they can stand being put in a room with cockroaches running around. Which as a result allows employers to put performers in situations like that and to only think of them as little worker bees that bring in the money. This is a downward spiral for performers. This is why I have grown to believe performers should not do unpaid work. If performers lower the price of themselves then it allows employers to pay less and put performer in bad situations because they know that performers are very replaceable.  So by a small amount of people doing something for a low fee, why should the employer want to pay any more to have new performers when they know that someone will do it for a cheeper price?

I think this has brought me to think about how we as performers look after our wellbeing. Organisations like Equity have been put in place to stop this from going on. But we have to work with them so that they can help us. The more we allow ourselves to be walked over the more it will affect others within the industry too. We must do our best to bring the industry's view on performers to a higher level. 

5b. Ethics Within Working Abroad

I have been trying to look up different laws on the topics that I had brought up. Straight away I contacted Equity. Today, Equity is not as important as it was before, Long ago, performers were not able to work unless they had an Equity Card. However, You could also not get an Equity Card unless you were working. so people were just going in circles. Now though you can still employed without the necessary documents.
I looked though all Equity's contracts and discovered that there was a lot of information on health and safety. Explaining that it is always the fault of the employer or venue. However, the performer must also look after themselves by warming up and doing their best to avoid injury. There was also lots of information on the performers welfare. But the way it was written was very non-specific, to cover all angles. The best way to find out individual issues is to make a claim to one of the Equity representatives that will individually taylor the claim around you. I am very glad that I have joined spotlight because it keeps me reassured that in a dog eat dog industry, I have someone else looking after me.

All of Equity's information is found though this link:

www.equity.org.uk

Blake Curtis-Woodcock Dance Showreel

I have finally got my dance showreel up and running and now it's been uploaded to the web!

Blake Curtis-Woodcock Dance Showreel

Give it a click and let me know what you think!! :D xx