Freelance Dancing Overseas: A Conversation with Briana Stuart
The thought of living in another country can be daunting. However, as a ballerina, exploring new cultures and countries through dance may be a great way to elevate your dance career.
Briana Stuart is a freelance dancer and entrepreneur. Last year, she founded Creative Living for Dancers, a self-development and career coaching organization for freelance dancers who seek resources and advice for expanding their creative careers. A native of Detroit, MI, Briana has been living and working in Brussels, Belgium as a successful freelance dancer for 4 years and counting.
If relocation is something you’ve considered as a professional or freelance dancer, this is the article for you! Read on as Briana shares tons of insight and advice from her experience as a freelance dance entrepreneur living abroad.
Photo: Briana Stuart on Instagram
New Experiences and other Benefits
“There are a lot of different hubs that have different opportunities when it comes to dance-related things,” Briana said. “London has a lot of workshops and classes for if you really want to sink your claws into some of the European dance stuff,” she added, comparing London’s West End to New York City’s Broadway. Briana also mentioned Berlin, Paris, and Brussels as great locations to hone ballet skills.
Another benefit of living abroad is the ability to easily travel to the countries nearby. For example, it takes less than two hours to travel to Amsterdam from Brussels by train with ticket prices currently listed at about 22 Euros, or 26.00 USD. This makes for a great opportunity to soak in new cultures, try new foods, and make friends all over the world.
How to Prepare for Moving Abroad
“Moving abroad is a transition because you’re literally uprooting what you would consider as home to a different place and trying to create a complete and full life for yourself,” Briana said.
“Of course, you’re going there for dance, but that’ll only last so long. Eventually, you’ll want to get to know the new city and even find your tribe of friends. Just be prepared for that transition, and in the midst of preparing yourself for that, show yourself a little more grace and more patience. If you haven’t found your best friend there yet and it’s been a year, know that it takes time.”
While preparing to relocate, there are also legal and logistical requirements you’ll need to consider. “Depending on how you got your visa to go abroad, you need to be prepared for the necessary paperwork, going to different buildings, making appointments, and know that that’s something that doesn’t happen only once. It will need to happen several times because you’re a foreigner living in a different country,” said Briana.
Finding Your Audience in a New City
One of the benefits of being a freelancer is the ability to be flexible and exploratory in your career. That means you don’t have to stick to a concrete list of duties. Your work can be as diverse as you want it to be. Briana has been hired for roles that require acting, singing, and even drum playing.
“You’re really breaking down that barrier of the fear, and stepping into that ‘yes’ allows you to discover new things about yourself, new things about the environment that you’re in, and new projects,” she said. “Moving abroad really required me to step into dance entrepreneurship and what it means to be an entrepreneur.”
By embracing this new artistic and entrepreneurial identity, your specialty may shift as you settle into your community. From there, your audience will grow authentically. “People will react to what you’re trying to do. It requires you to be flexible in different ways to figure out how you can find solid ground and grow from there,” she said. “Really start to think about yourself as a dance entrepreneur. It really helps you see yourself and see what you’re doing in a larger picture.”
Just do it!
“If there is anything that you’re merely interested in doing - any art or dance-related thing that requires moving abroad, I just say do it. Just do it. That could literally mean find time to spend a month somewhere, two months somewhere - it doesn’t matter,” Briana said. “That global perspective just changes everything about how you approach things.”
Through Briana’s work with Creative Living for Dancers, she is able to provide resources, lifestyle advice, career coaching, and more for freelance dancers. Check out her professional development video course here. Briana is also the founder of STU Arts Dance, an organization centered around providing a variety of group and private dance lessons for students of all ages. Keep in touch with Briana by following her on Instagram.
“I think dancers sometimes, we belittle ourselves and the difference we can make. Every person that does something that positively affects the life of someone else matters. As you think of your dream being as big as you can make it, you’ll step into something that will not only change your life but other people’s lives too,” Briana said. “Continue to believe in what you do.”