The Wandering Monkey

Today is Sunday night (monday morning) and I'm relaxing after the Sunday night swing dance.  We had a monthy party at a bar on the Bund (a relatively famous area of Shanghai).  It rained heavily, and the summer is a slow time as many expats flee the city's heat.  But we still had a good attendance, near 100.  It was good fun and I think we'll have a few new students from it.

 

As for me, I'm about the same.  Been still feeling tired, but there's a bit of momentum.  I've got to get into the correct frame of mind for running a swing dance movement.  You can't take it too seriously, but at the same time you can't be too disorganzied or unplanned.  I have been trying to get help from folks to better our marketing, class plans, and so forth to increase the amount of students and regular party attendees.  The swing parties are a good idea.  People who are otherwise too busy will come out for them.  People who otherwise do not dance will also come out for them, just because they are fun and something different from the usual night life here in Shanghai.

 

The downside, at the moment, is the usual downside.  It's been a money-losing affair for quite some time, and that's got to stop.  I have two options; one is to try to get it to become an actual career.  The second is to get a regular day job and do swing dance as a very interesting side-line.  In either case, I need to increase the amount of helpers I have.  At the moment, I'm responsible for almost ever aspect of the operation.  Publicity, graphic design, web design, venue management, teaching, performing, choreography, data entry, and marketing/sales.  I am trying to get help in the marketing/sales area, as this is the root of everything.  I have interviewed a very promising candidate last week, but she failed to show up for the first meeting day, or even answer the phone calls.

 

All the time I did computer consulting in Silicon Valley, I was always a one-person operation.  Granted, I had a lawyer and accountant, but neither of them were involved in making the business operation work.  I considered several times about taking on additional employees, but that's an entirely different situation.  There is an enormous responsibility when you have a full-time employee, especially in IT.  First, you must ensure they are qualified, then you must ensure they are doing the work correctly and documenting everything.  Then, assuming everything works well, you have another responsibility.  You must keep the operation continually working so that you can pay their salary.  An adult is depending on you for their means of living.  This means that you yourself must sacrifice some of your life choices.  You can no longer terminate operations just because you feel like it.  You are obliged to keep going.

 

It is the goal of many people who set up their own companies to get the operation running, put the proper people in place, then be able to walk away and have everything operate without their intervention.  Go and live on the beach and collect a check at the end of every month.  However, this is easier said than done.  As the head of an organization, you become responsible for any mistake, absence, or vacation of your employees.  You have to stand at the end of the process and catch anything which falls through the cracks, and many things do just that.

 

The swing dance organization, though not a company in the usual sense, is a very different type of multi-person operation.  I have several volunteers, who grant their efforts in exchange for free lessons, good will, and such.  However, with volunteers you must accept that you can never TELL anyone what to do.  Just like with the students, you can never take too much of an authority position.  People do not like being told what to do during their leisure activites.  So it's a tricky balance.

 

I just got word that my cousin in Phoenix is doing very well with his business.  He's started his own gym for training of gymnastic and cheerleading, and he's got over 300 students.  (I think I mentioned this before).

 

In the IT world, I was succesful because I could provide solutions which businesses required to operate.  My role was that of a specialist necessary for the day-to-day life of the company.  Only a handful of people worked in my field, so I had a great deal of leverage over my client/employer.

 

This dance business thing is nothing like that.  I'm providing a leisure/entertainment role.  I can't just set a goal and have everyone obtain it.  I've got to be sure everyone is HAPPY as well.  And if I myself am grumpy, who's going to be happy taking my class?

 

So, again tomorrow I will try to get some assistance with the marketing area.  Hopefully we will come up with something and the organization can turn a corner and experience significant growth.  We've been hovering all this time at under 20 active students at any given time.  It is remarkable that I've been able to keep things running, hold successful events, and get media attention with so few people around.  But the whole point of this effort is to popularize swing dancing - not to count how many magazines and television shows we can appear on (but, in case you might wonder, it's been about 20 magazines/newspapers and 4 television stations.  Plus soon, one movie!)

 

Yes, and about that. The White Countess comes out in September, approximately.  In an solemn turn of events, the producer of the movie - Ismail Merchant - passed away within the last month.  I believe this means the White Countess will be his last film (though it is possible he had started another project since then).  It's a shame, really.  When I met him, it was my first day on the movie set.  I walked on, and a upper-middle aged Indian man of average height came up to me, shook my hand, and say, Hello, my name is Ismail.  So, having no idea who he was, I said, Hello, nice to meet you.  It wasn't until days later that someone pointed out to me who he was.

 

Since the White Countess, I have had some involvement in other films.  I danced tango (poorly) in a movie starring some big Hong Kong stars.  I myself did not know them by name, but I had seen their faces on movie advertising posters in China.  It really is best not to try to learn how 'big' a star you are working with.  It is much better just to meet them as a person and be natural about it.

 

However, besides that, the other movie involvement has been just extra roles.  After you've been on a movie set, the thrill of being an extra the second or third time gets a little thin.  Plus, the pay is really, really low.  It comes to 50 rmb per hour, which is about seven dollars.  As low as that sounds, it's a lot better than the local Chinese get for being extras in the same movie.  They only recieve 50 rmb per day!

 

There is a project a friend of mine is producing.  It involves some ballet and hip-hop.  Ballet is not my forte, but a decent amount of swing can cross over into hip-hop.  He's verbally expressed interest that I may come on that project as an Assistant Choreographer.  This would be cool.  I really enjoyed the choregraphy work, even more than the on-screen dancing.  It's quite a thrill to be sitting behind the monitors, seeing what it looks like, then going out to the dancers and giving them instruction for how to improve the result for the next take.

 

Of course, as nice as all this sounds, I've got to face a financial situation.  What would be ideal would be to take on some sort of job which allows me flexibility, just in case something good in the artistic side comes up.  I'd hate to 'sell' myself back to the corporate world, only to have to pass up an artistic opportunity.  But at least I have that choice.  A friend of mine, also a foreign dance teacher, has gone into dance immediately after college.  He's done no other type of work, so he's committed to his profession, for better or worse.  Should he abandon it and go into a more normal career, he'll have to start at the ground level and work his way up, all the time feeling the sting of being removed from his chose profession.  Such is the life of a hard-core artist.

 

Well, I should probably get some sleep.  In the morning I have my Mandarin lesson and I haven't studied sufficiently.

Peace,

-J