Our Work Experience at The Place

Before doing Work Experience at The Place, we thought it would just revolve around dance and choreography. However, we were yet to find out that just as important things add up to make this wonderful, creative, and free space. Including all the behind the scenes work.

Currently we are both in our fourth year attending a performing arts secondary school in North London, as well as dance companies outside of school. We both aspire to be dance teachers in education, so this experience really helped us to see different styles of teaching and choreography.

Day One:

When arriving we were welcomed by two members of HR, and they were very kind to give us a detailed and in-depth tour and introduction to The Place. Then we worked in the school office doing admin and filling out exam forms, which we both enjoyed as it gave us a look into the admin part of dance teaching. After we had lunch in the open cafe, we sat in on a BA2 Hip Hop (Boy Blue) and a BA2 Contemporary class. It was nice to see a range of styles in a mainly contemporary environment.

Day 2:

We started the day in the CAT Office where we marked attendance and sorted out injury boxes for the extracurricular. We liked this as we got to find out more about the CAT program. Then we headed to the Producing & Touring Office where we looked through past photo albums of shows. However, we would have liked to find out more about their role in the company and day-to-day activity. Just before lunch we had a Q&A with Josh Slater about the London Contemporary Dance School and admissions. This really helped us to see what they were looking for in the next generation of students. After lunch we were lucky enough to sit in on the Camden School Festivals technical run which later on in the week we helped behind the scenes.

Day 3:

First thing we had Communications where we practiced Alt Text with images from PLUE. Then we headed to The Place 2, where we sat in on the Theatre and Artist Development meeting where we got an insight on other people's roles that make up The Place. After lunch we helped the costume department by labelling costumes from their past shows, this was interesting as we got to see a variety of old, new, homemade (some by students) and brought costumes. In the evening, we got the opportunity to help out backstage as runners in the Partners Schools Camden Festival.

Day 4:

Before the first activity there was a fire drill which the staff handled very sensibly by making sure everyone was outside of the building. Then we attended an Over 60’s Contemporary class where we observed new teaching methods for a range of ages. In HR we learnt how to create a job using The Place's talent management system. After lunch we were in the Development Office which was something very new to us. We used Excel to layout a list of potential sponsorships and how we found them and how they could link to The Places’s lifestyle and the potential risks of these partnerships.

Day 5:

On our last morning, we wrote this blog, and it helped us to reflect on our time and how it has helped us improve our dance and mentality toward the other sectors in the arts community. Then we had a BA1 Sharing, which was nice to see all the creativity and hard work the students have put in. After lunch we had a BA2 Design Sharing where we watched the talented students model their homemade costumes.

Conclusion:

Overall, we had a great time doing Work Experience and we are going to miss the creative feel of the University, and it couldn't have happened without Richard and Zahra from HR they have been an amazing support throughout our week here. They have created a diverse timetable including a range of experiences in different departments, although we came here with the mind set of just wanting to experience dance life it has opened our eyes to several different avenues in the dance world.

Thank You for having us xxx

By Edie Guest and Talia Warner