A&H

Academy and the Real World

Developing realistic notions of career in the
performing arts
daw n b e n n e t t
Curtin University,Australia

a b s t rac t
Performing arts courses within the university sector retain a necessarily strong
practical focus as they prepare graduates for work within a highly competitive
environment. However, the reality for graduates is a world in which performance
is only one component of the myriad activities required to build a sustainable
career. This article reports findings from two studies which investigated work
patterns, education and professional development of practising and intending
musicians and dance artists. Data gathered using a questionnaire, focus groups and
interviews reveal disparity between undergraduate curricula, the career expec-
tations of students and the realities of professional practice. Alignment between
the results of the music and dance studies suggests the potential for the col-
laborative delivery of both initial and lifelong education. The findings are
discussed within the context of protean careers, and the article advocates the
potential for practising artist academics to engage students in career development
and the formation of their professional identities.

keyword s arts higher education, careers, employability, graduate attributes,

lifelong learning, protean careers

introduction
What s k i l l s an d at t r i b u t e s ar e r e q u i r e d by performing arts
graduates seeking to build sustainable careers? What form are these careers
likely to take, and what role can teachers play in their success? This article
presents results from two studies conducted with music and dance practitioners
and students, analysing students career expectations and the activities and skills

Arts & Humanities in Higher Education

20 09, sage publications, Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC. ISSN 1474-0222
vol 8(3) 309327 doi: 10.1177/1474022209339 953

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 Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 8(3)
of practitioners. The article suggests that both career competence and meta-
competence are crucial for graduates, and that teachers can often provide an
essential bridge between academy and practice.

Performing arts in the university sector

The rise in university-based practical training in the arts has resulted in a
staggering array of performance-based undergraduate and graduate qualifi-
cations for careers in which qualifications are not required and practical
experience is highly valued. Contributing factors include the trend towards
amalgamating academic and vocational training and a general move towards
larger, more competitive training institutions. In Australia the amalgamation
in 1982 of smaller Colleges of Advanced Education was followed six years
later by a mandate for any institution with fewer than 2,000 students to merge
with a university, which resulted in the unified national system (UNS). These
changes had a significant impact on Australian arts training with many smaller,
specialist arts institutions forced into mergers. The results of the UNS have
been much more complex than expected and continue to be problematic
within the context both of the funding for programs and of the demands on
academic staff to produce traditional research within a very limited research
framework that is just beginning to recognize creative output as research.
The increase in university based arts study is also the result of greater
participation in the arts: for example, the popularity of community dance
during the 1960s and 1970s led many people to pursue careers in dance. More
recently, highly popular television shows such as Dancing with the Stars, which
have featured personalities such as professional athletes, have challenged the
alignment of dance within Western hegemonic masculinity. Despite the
increasing popularity of university study in the fine arts, funding the arts as
standard university disciplines to function within standard university
parameters remains problematic.

Protean careers
Of the various career development theories, the social cognitive career theory
(SCCT) is perhaps the most relevant to the work of protean careerists in that
it takes into account the social and economic factors that are crucial to career
choice. Derived from Banduras social cognitive theory, SCCT focuses on self-
efficacy, expected outcomes or compensation, and goals (Lent and Hackett,
1987). The decision to pursue a career in the arts is almost always the result
of successful engagement with an artistic activity. Integral to the outcome
expectations for artists are subjective or intrinsic measures of career success

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 Bennett:Academy and the Real World
such as creative output and personal development, and compensation can be
considered quite differently from traditional rewards such as career advance-
ment or salary.
The complex nature of careers in the arts is critical to the establishment
of responsive university curricula in a wide range of subject areas. Mirroring
careers in the arts, general labour market trends have seen more people expand
their work behaviours, competencies and connections in search of success that
is determined not in the eyes of others, but in terms of self-identity, intrinsic
success and the meeting of personal and professional needs. This career type,
relatively new to many fields, is particularly noticeable in management, infor-
mation technology and academia, where traditional tenured positions are on
the decline. Two of the most common terms applied to these careers are
portfolio, which refers to multiple concurrent roles, and boundaryless, a term
first coined by Arthur and Rousseau (1996), which refers to work undertaken
independently of traditional organizational career arrangements. This can
involve working with different employers, ignoring traditional hierarchies and
career progression, or validating achievements from outside of the employ-
ment situation. However, the term which best describes careers in the arts is
protean.
Protean careers are at the extreme end of portfolio careers and are named
after the mythological Greek sea god Proteus who was able to change form
at will in order to avoid danger: something that increasing numbers of people
need to do in order to remain employable. The creative industries workforce
has long engaged in protean careers, which necessitate the continual develop-
ment of new opportunities and the attainment of the corresponding skills
required to meet each new challenge. This pattern of self-managed career
pre-empts general labour force trends and makes artists an ideal study group
for labour market and career development research.
Psychological success is vital to protean careerists and requires the continual
expansion of identity. In a constructivist approach such as SCCT, self-identity
influences ones perceived ability to undertake new tasks; thus identity, merged
with career, becomes a moving construct according to activities and inter-
actions. Hall illustrates the differences between the protean career and
traditional, organized careers (Table 1). The protean orientation will be
familiar to many artists, although the correlation between increased success in
the arts and increased periods of travel means that some artists will utilize
increased mobility to travel less and to work more sociable hours.
Whether defined as waged activities or in broader terms, work is a means
of participatory belonging and is also central to personal identity and self-
image. Artistic identity often develops away from the more usual physical,
shared workplace culture, and the mythical figure of the artist has been

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 Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 8(3)
ta b l e 1 Elements in a protean career (Hall, 1976)

Issue Protean Career Traditional Organizational Career

Whos in charge? Person Organization

Core values Freedom Advancement
Growth
Degree of mobility High Lower
Success criteria Psychological success Position level
Salary
Key attitudes Work satisfaction
Professional commitment Organizational commitment

variously constructed (Bain, 2005: 28). This mythological image is at the root
of the problematic labelling of artists. Self-definition as a dancer, actor or
musician, for example, implies a performance-based career; and yet this would
accurately describe the activities of very few artists. Ironically, a study of
musicians whose full-time performance jobs align with the traditional
labelling of a musician found that most performance-based musicians self-
define according to their instrumental specialty: for example, as a violinist,
rather than as a musician (Bennett, 2007). The narrow construct of career
identity has led to arguments for the term musician to be redefined as
someone who practises within the profession of music (Rogers, 2002) and for
the common adoption of the term dance artist, which reflects a broader
range of activities than the term dancer (Vincs, 2005).
Although, as illustrated in Halls model, protean careerists define success in
terms of the achievement of personal and professional goals, traditional artistic
hierarchies measure success according to performance activity and status. This
hierarchy contributes to the angst experienced by practitioners who have a
non-performance focus and whose activities attract less prestige within the
social context: such prestige being one of the ways in which individuals gain
self-meaning from their work (Glaeser, 2000; Weller, 2004). In reality, artists
meet their needs through acting in multiple concurrent roles and often
combine high- and low-skilled positions as required: hence it is particularly
important to advocate a non-hierarchical view of the range of occupations
available to them. It is common to find artists working concurrently as a
performer, director, manager, teacher, and in low-skilled administrative and
technical roles.
The perception of success as the attainment of a performance career is
already entrenched in the mindsets of incoming university students, whose

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successful auditions are likely to be the latest in a long series of examinations
and competitions in which performance has been the priority. Exposure to
other valued activities is crucial. In their work with first-year undergraduate
music students, Burland and Pitts (2007) have observed that, whereas the
university students musical identities shifted with the acquisition of new
academic abilities, at least in the short term, students within the conservatoire
setting continued to prioritize performance work.
For performing arts graduates the need for a positive and broadly based
professional identity is clear. Unfortunately, role models are most often
successful performance artists, and there is a very real risk that students
performance identities preclude them from planning a positive engagement
with non-performance activities. A more complete awareness of, and experi-
ence in, a range of activities throughout and beyond the arts are likely to lead
to the construction of more expansive and inclusive artist identities. This will
require careful thought about graduate attributes, curricular design and
teaching strategies. In anticipation of this, the aim of the current study was
to investigate the activities and skills of practitioners in music and dance and
to outline the career expectations of a cohort of performing arts students.

method
A total of 239 dance artists and musicians including 31 dance students and 25
music students participated in two surveys and two sets of interviews; 57
dance artists and 152 musicians responded to surveys that asked questions
about work patterns, formal and informal education and training, skills,
attributes, and professional development. Interviews were attended by two
dance artists and 13 musicians, and 6 artists participated in the trial of instru-
ments. An additional nine dance artists contributed to the study by attending
informal interviews and meetings.
Given the longitudinally retrospective objective, the demographic was
intended to provide representation along the breadth of a career in terms of
both experience and age. Study participants were provided with information
about the study and signed consent forms. Participants were informed of the
process for protecting their anonymity and were assured that they could
withdraw from the study at any time without prejudice or negative conse-
quences. The anonymity of a survey incorporating open questions and ample
space for comment led to a rich source of data, with many respondents
utilizing the available space to enlarge upon their answers.
The sample embraced both genders, although as predicted there was a
much higher response rate from female dance artists (84% female respon-
dents). Survey respondents ranged in age from 1618 years to 5665 years, and

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in experience from 05 years to over 30 years. They included practising
artists from the independent sector and from within companies, and post-
performance dance artists working within dance or other fields. Australian-
based respondents constituted 91.5% of the sample; however, it is important
to note that 38% of the sample was originally from outside of Australia and
that a further one-third of the sample had studied outside of Australia.
To ensure the inclusion of independent artists, purposeful sampling was
employed to locate dance artists and musicians through informal networks
and professional associations. Analysis comprised inductive coding together
with quasi-quantification to record groups of responses into a database using
SPSS software (version 17, 2008). Using Whytes interview hierarchy
(Ticehurst and Veal, 2000), an interview checklist was used so that the partici-
pant could guide the conversation as much as possible. Within this article,
quotations from survey respondents are identified with the letter S and
interview participants with I. A suffix of D or M denotes dance artist or
musician.

re sults and discussion

Skills
Participants were asked to identify the skills used in the maintenance of
their careers. The question was a multiple response question with suggested
skills including performance, small business skills incorporating management
and marketing, teaching, new technologies, and (for the dance cohort) chor-
eography. Dance artists in the survey used an average of 5.4 skills and musicians
averaged 3.9 skills. Figure 1 illustrates the frequency of each skills set.
Respondents described their use of each skill. The overwhelming theme
was the need to be self-sufficient and adaptable in a sector with decreasing
numbers of employed performance positions and a growing number of
graduates; in Britain, the ten years to 2007 saw a 37.9% rise in the number
of music students and a 45.3% rise in students of drama and dance (Brown,
2007). The same decade saw a reduction of permanent dance, music and
repertory-based companies (Freakley and Neelands, 2003). The same is true
in Australia, where the number of professional artists in Australia almost
doubled between 1983 and 2003, and the number continues to rise by as much
as 23% each year (Throsby and Hollister, 2004). Given that dance artists in
particular can expect to spend a large proportion of their working lives within
non-performance activities because of the physicality of their work, responses
from the dance cohort were analysed by age. Figure 2 illustrates that the
number of skills remains high across all age groups and reveals the continual

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 Bennett:Academy and the Real World
figure 1 Frequency of skills.
100
% of cases 80
60
40
20
0

Teaching

Other skills
business

Choreography
Performance

technologies
Small

New
Dance artists
Musicians

figure 2 Number of skills by age group (dance artists).

6.00
Count (mean)

4.00

2.00

0.00
18-21 21-25 26-30 31-35 36-40 41-45 46-55 56-65

Age Group

development of skills and identity to be expected within protean careers. A

core of skills encompassing performance (whether utilized in choreography,
teaching or performance activities), small business skills and teaching was
common to both the dance and musician cohorts and was utilized through-
out the life-cycle of the career.

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 Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 8(3)
Performance skills
Both music and dance participants referred to performance skills as integral
to their practice: to allow me to dance professionally (S11D), and also to their
profile: I maintain my reputation as a desirable teacher partly through main-
taining a public career as a performer (S1D). Participants also emphasized the
importance of maintaining knowledge and awareness of current trends
(S9D) and the need to be versatile in a range of styles and of working
(S84M). Skills in a variety of genres and environments were mentioned in
relation to maximizing opportunities for work: up-skilling in different tech-
niques . . . to be more diverse S41D). Both musicians and dance artists added
that performing in multiple genres increases satisfaction in the performance
role: I perform my own and contemporary music because I love the freedom
of it (S54M).

Choreographic skills
Choreographic work was described positively by dance artists as the heart of
my work (S17D), my primary passion (S9D) and the part that I love the
most (I1D). In addition to the potential for choreography to provide extra
income, dance artists comments reveal that the creativity and creative control
found within choreographic work are attractive elements of the work. Despite
the samples positive view of choreography, McKechnie suggests that
Australian choreographers are seldom given time to explore, test or revise
their conditions, for the work is hardly ever treated as a form of thinking
(McKechnie, 2004: 7).

Teaching skills
As the most common parallel component of performance careers, teaching is
integral to most artists careers and provides consistent work and connection
to artists and the industry (S43D). Participants engaged in teaching to
open a broad range of opportunities, for a regular income and to survive
financially (S38M), to share accumulated knowledge, to make a tangible
contribution, to support and mentor young artists, to clarify their own skills
and to stay physically active: I cant put my body down (I2D). Many
musicians and dancers stated that they had initially viewed teaching as a fall-
back career, but had subsequently drawn great satisfaction from their teaching
activities. Comments focused on new challenges and the intrinsic rewards
found in teaching, the need to find a worklife balance, and positive
workplace dynamics stemming from control of the workplace. The latter

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comments came from musicians who had left the orchestral workplace, which
can be politically and emotionally fraught. The ability to establish and
maintain a teaching practice was considered by both cohorts to be a crucial
core attribute.
Drawing on Freuds theory of mourning, Huhtanen (2004) categorized the
piano teachers in her research as either realists, who accept teaching as part of
their creative identities, or as dreamers, who engage in teaching to meet
financial obligations. Responses from both dance artists and musicians fell
clearly within one of the two categories, as did comments relating to chor-
eography. Dreamers described teaching in terms of a necessity to survive
financially (S14D), whereas realists were more accepting of the teaching role:
I enjoy it immensely and it is also used by me as a stable and fruitful income
(S25M). Many participants viewed teaching as parallel to their arts practice
and as an extension of performance (S45D). The benefits of teaching were
clearly articulated: working with groups in [the] community, particularly
young people, is a way for me to balance my less accessible practice. By that
I mean that it provides a tangible contribution for me to make as a working
artist, which I need (I2D).
Oversupply in the dance labour market led one respondent to stress a re-
luctance to teach young people who are serious about dance when I know
they have very little chance of becoming dancers (S56D).

New technologies
Approximately one-third of participants described technology as a key
component of their artistic practice, and a further one-third reported using
technology to keep up with trends and to remain employable. Dance artists
reported either a high level of skills in new technologies or a desire to obtain
skills in this area. Similarly, musicians commonly mentioned the need for
just-in-time training. Existing skills included music recording and editing,
composition, photography and film, video, sound and installation work,
archival work, and complex coding. Some of this work was linked par-
ticularly to choreographic and new media work, digital composition, and
screen dance. The speed with which technologies advance reflects the need
for regular skills development in this area.

Skills in small business

Small business skills were used by 78.5% of the respondents and were linked
implicitly to sustaining a career: business skills are necessary for survival,
which, in dance, is a form of succeeding (S54D); and, from a musician,

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 Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 8(3)
business is critical to being successful as a musician (S149M). 85% of
Australian artists are registered as small businesses (Throsby and Hollister,
2003) and over 60% of dance in England is delivered by freelance artists
(Heeley and Pickard, 2002, in Brown, 2004). Almost all Australian artists are
sole traders and work on a freelance basis, necessitating a raft of small business
skills and the ability to manage these requirements across a number of physical
locations and contractual arrangements: to create you have to expand (S17D).
Participants confirmed that grant writing and acquittals, arts advocacy, self-
promotion and financial management are particularly important to create and
make the most of opportunities and to cope with the requirements of a sole
trader/artist (S25D). Marketing skills were perceived as vital not only to
audience development but to personal networking and profile development
as an artist (S48M), and vital also to sustain a face within the dance
community (S28D).
Dance artists described project management as a crucial area of dance
practice, incorporating administration, the coordination of artists, financial
management, time management, networking and managing the creative
aspects of projects. One dance artist described management skills as vital if
you spend any time as an independent artist, community practitioner or
anyone who basically works outside of a large organization/business/
company (S48D). Another described management as the
catch-all word for keeping on top of the day-to-day, keeping in touch with contacts,
keeping abreast of knowledge and information, keeping going when youre tired,
keeping the books, keeping track of time, place, movement and energy of humans and
other resources. (S57D)

Both artist cohorts reflected on the need to apply their management skills on
personal, practice-based and community levels, and on the difficulties of
learning new skills on the run (S47D).

Performance-based degrees
Undergraduate course philosophies and objectives indicate both course
emphasis and the intended or most desirable destination of graduates. Analysis
of the course philosophies for 18 Australian performing arts degrees, shown
in Table 2, reveals an overwhelming performance focus.
If performance careers are revered within the course literature, at what
point should students be informed of the reality facing them as graduates,
and how can this be accomplished without destroying students dreams and
ambitions? As Vetter suggests, the provision of clear program goals could be
one step towards a better understanding of the nature of the degree and its

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 Bennett:Academy and the Real World
ta b l e 2 Emphases within Course Philosophies (f)

Category of study Frequency of theme %

Performance, including choreography 29 37.0

Choreography and direction 2 2.3
Specialist technologies 10 11.5
Research and inquiry 10 11.5
Teaching skills 8 9.2
Diversity of musical genre 6 5.2
Core studies 6 5.2
Experience and industry awareness 4 4.6
Ensemble training 2 2.3
Leadership and creativity 3 3.5
Cultural environment and society 2 2.3
Business studies 2 2.3
Readiness for postgraduate study 2 2.3
Inter-arts collaboration 1 1.1

Source: Analysis of course philosophies and mission statements

effects on students careers (1990: 189). If course objectives are simply part of
the advanced marketing designed to draw students into a course, it follows
that course structure will be geared somewhat differently. However, previous
research with classically trained musicians compared the four roles in which
musicians spend the highest average proportion of time (teaching, perform-
ance, business and ensemble direction) with the structure of performance-
based degree programs, and found a disparity between core course time and
professional practice: for example, an average of 87% of time was spent in
teaching activities compared with just 1.1% of core course time (Bennett,
2008). Given the protean nature of arts careers, it is a matter of concern that
within existing courses such minimal emphasis should be given to teaching
skills, research and self-directed study, industry-based experience, small-
business skills and career development. Such findings strongly suggest that
much existing training does not adequately prepare artists for sustainable
careers; they show the value of existing programs which do involve industry
placements, career development initiatives and the involvement of industry
bodies and other academic schools.

Professional development
Participants acknowledged the broad range of skills (I5M) utilized within
their careers, but articulated the difficulty of focussing and managing their

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 Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 8(3)
skills: I would love to focus my skills and experiences into one job! (S14D)
Asked what skills they would like to develop further, responses focused on
marketing, practical skills, administration, and skills in film and technology.
The addition of administrative responsibilities to a portfolio career is difficult
to sustain, and small business and communication skills emerge as critical
needs for artists professional development. Dance artists placed great weight
on the continued development of their current practice with a desire to
expand creativity and physical experience. The most commonly cited areas
for professional development were marketing and self-promotion: the ability
to articulate my ideas (S45M). Responses were not confined to careers in the
arts, and dance artists wrote of their desire to develop skills in science,
community and youth engagement, research and physiology: further evidence
that artists are a highly skilled group with knowledge and attributes, such as
the ability to innovate and create, that are directly transferable to other fields
of work. Responses to the two questions about skills development are
combined in Figure 3. Alignment between the professional development
needs of musicians and dance artists suggests that many professional develop-
ment initiatives could be delivered collaboratively.

Practitioner reflections on education and training

Survey respondents were asked: Based upon your experience, what changes
would you recommend to the education and training that you have under-
taken? The three most common responses from musicians deserve special
mention as they accounted for almost two-thirds of responses. The first was
career development and industry-based experience (24.1% of responses).
Respondents stressed the importance of open discussion about the realities of
working life and the limited performance opportunities. Instrumental
pedagogy attracted 18% of responses, which is unsurprising given that
musicians allocate more time to teaching than to any other activity,
including performance. Respondents highlighted the importance of pedagogy
training for all music performance students. Suggestions included formal
pedagogy training, opportunities for teaching practice, mentorship, and the
incorporation of credits towards a teaching qualification. The same argument
can be made for dancers given that education positions far outweigh company
performance positions. Small business skills constituted 15.3% of responses: Its
so important to train people with the attitude to be an entrepreneur right from
the word go (I14M). Congruent with the first category of career development
and industry-based experience, the inclusion of situated and simulated
workplace learning permeated the responses.

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 Bennett:Academy and the Real World
figure 3 Skills development questions combined (dance sample).

16

14

12

10

M arketing and self-promotion M anagement of people and finances

Confidence and versatility New technologies
Grant writing and press releases Information communications technology
Postgraduate study or research Languages
Unrelated skills Choreography and direction
Curation and production Administration
Performance technique including Community and youth engagement
other genres

Dance artists in the study raised a number of suggestions including career

awareness and development (37%), training in different genres (37%), and
changes to course structure (26%). Comments relating to career awareness and
preparation are aligned with a growing number of calls for change at the
tertiary level, such as Juilliard School faculty member Stephen Piers comment
that educators must not contribute to the gap between the expectation and
reality by selling the dream (Wakin, 2004).
Interview participants made similar recommendations to those made by the
survey respondents, advocating the inclusion of real and simulated experience

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 Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 8(3)
within artists education and training to create an awareness of the industry
and the realities of professional practice (I12M). Comments relating to
mentors and networks signal the importance of creative capital in establish-
ing and sustaining careers in the arts: learning to network effectively is a
learned skill useful in virtually every field (I5M).

Student expectations
Previous research investigating music students career awareness (Bennett and
Stanberg, 2006) found that 97% of students expected to pursue portfolio
careers ranging from teaching and performance to librarianship, arts manage-
ment and music therapy. Moreover, performance students were aware of the
likelihood for teaching to feature in their careers. To ascertain the career
awareness of dance students and to offer a comparison with the music sample,
dance students in their second year of study were asked to identify what they
would like to be doing two years after graduation (their ideal roles) and what
they expected to be doing at that time (their expected roles). Akin to the
music sample, data indicate that dance students are aware of the likelihood to
be working in portfolio careers. Many students wrote a list of expected roles:
for example,part-time company member; part-time independent artist; part-
time teacher; choreographer; dance filmmaker (S18D). However, there were
some significant disparities between students ideal and expected roles; as
shown in Figure 4, many more students expected to have to teach than had
expressed a desire to teach, and there is a similar discrepancy relating to work
as independent dance artists and choreographers.
Despite students emerging career awareness, qualitative comments from
both the practising dance artists and the musicians suggest that the realities of
practice can come as quite a shock: I didnt comprehend that I would
constantly live not knowing what I would be doing in six months time
(S23D). Career development and industry based experience would be a timely
addition to many tertiary programs; however, as Mason et al suggest, although
structured work experience may lead to directly relevant employability skills,
the most valuable result can be engagement with specific communities of
practice (Mason et al., 2003). Indeed, engagement of this kind is one of the
more viable options for higher education providers already struggling to
deliver courses within the constraints of budget and time.

c o n c lu d i n g c o m m e n t s
DeFillippi and Arthur (1996) suggest that success as a protean careerist requires
knowing what, knowing why, knowing where, knowing when, knowing how

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 Bennett:Academy and the Real World
figure 4 Ideal and expected roles.

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and knowing whom. These forms of capital are essential aspects of the entre-
preneurship required by artists, for whom protean careers are a necessity rather
than a choice. The lack of choice is important; rather than choosing to
become independent having learned the market and gained a reputation, most
artists find themselves entrepreneurs by default immediately they begin
searching for work. Research undertaken by the UK Department for Culture,
Media and Sport (DCMS) concludes that the creative industries sector needs
those with creative and entrepreneurial talents who have also had the chance
to develop real-world awareness, commercial know-how and know-who, self-
efficacy and confidence to build successful new businesses and have an impact
on existing ones (DCMS, 2006: 41). Arts graduates need immediately to be
self-organizing individuals who understand their intended field of work
and, crucially, understand themselves. They need passion, confidence and
resilience. They also need to be able to articulate both the specialist and
generic skills gained from their studies and other activities and to see that

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 Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 8(3)
many of their skills and attributes are transferable to different fields of work.
These are issues considered within the personal development planning
schemes in England (Knight and Yorke, 2003).
Given the rise in protean careers, the argument for embedded career and
self-management skills can be extended beyond the arts and humanities to
many other fields of study. The Australian Employability Skills Framework
(Curtis and McKenzie, 2002) lists the skills of communication, teamwork,
problem-solving, initiative and enterprise, planning and organization, self-
management, learning and technology. It also lists personal attributes including
commitment, motivation, adaptability and positive self-esteem. Whereas most
graduate attribute statements focus on the transfer of skills into the workplace,
making graduates attractive to potential employers, the trend towards protean
careers means that increasing numbers of graduates need to remain attractive
to clients. This is a very different concept wherein career competence and
meta-competence are vitally important, and the constant development of new
skills is essential to maintaining financial viability. Accordingly, the call to
produce vocationally aware, work-ready graduates is gaining intensity.
Alongside this is the assumption that the world of work is correctly under-
stood. However, for a growing number of university students this is simply
not the case. Graduates are increasingly responsible for the development and
management of their own careers, which will include periods within and
outside of employment linked by periods of learning. This means that lifelong
learning and lifelong employability are becoming one and the same. Mirvis
and Hall (1996) convey this very nicely; rather than earn a living, they suggest
that workers increasingly need to learn a living. Maintaining the currency of
skills and knowledge is increasingly an individual concern and the individ-
uals responsibility. It is probable, therefore, that the most important graduate
attribute is a willingness to continue to learn.
There are ample opportunities for universities to become lifelong learning
partners, though this growing market remains relatively untapped, in part
because, just as careers are less linear, lifelong learning will not necessarily be
at a higher academic level. Rather than building on existing skills, lifelong
learning will often involve adding new skills and knowledge to a portfolio
supporting an expanding identity.
This article has attempted to outline the growth and characteristics of
protean careers, the career expectations of a cohort of performing arts
students, and the activities and skills of practitioners. It has also described some
of the difficulties facing degree programs that train students for careers in
performance. Although performing arts curricula are necessarily practical, the
findings of the study create a strong case for students to identify a broad
variety of roles as being successful, and suggest that career preparation and

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 Bennett:Academy and the Real World
industry placements should be fundamental components of the performance
degree. There is also an ethical dimension: as Brown suggests, training
performers rather than holistic, industry aware practitioners could be
considered fundamental dishonesty (2007: 46).
Providing a realistic worldview is essential to students career development.
It is particularly important in the performing arts where most of the role
models are performers, and students know little of their heroes non-
performance activities. One musicianeducator commented that the
challenge is to offer students more rounded career prospects to counteract
fewer traditional employment opportunities, and for students to be positioned
to manage portfolio careers (I4). The development of positive attitudes
towards non-performance study requires students to explore their individual
talents and interests in relation to the outside world, and to make connections
while they are still within the relative security of student life. In this way,
dreams and ambitions can be expanded rather than being destroyed.
Visiting and part-time teachers are often particularly well-connected to the
outside world through their own arts practice. Preliminary results from a
survey of 32,000 Australian university students suggest that more students seek
career advice from teachers and professors than from any other source,
including career centres, because students expect academic staff to have
specific knowledge about the fields in which they teach (Graduate Careers
Australia, 2008). Add to this the finding that the greatest influence on career
planning for university students is work experience, and teachers emerge as
the ideal cohort to engage students in career development activities.
Universities will benefit from supporting teachers who seek to build career
awareness among students by sharing their industry knowledge and creating
opportunities for situated learning, practitioner visits, reflective practice,
mentoring and communities of practice. The teachers of practical subjects
such as performance studies often have little or no course involvement beyond
their performance classes and tend to be visiting staff. It may be possible to
consider how their professional activities and connections could form the
basis of much-needed career awareness and planning. This would have the
added benefit of enhancing connectivity between the university, performance
teachers and the industry in general.
Although skills will be continually developed on the job, the core generic
skills of teaching, performance and small business, together with the develop-
ment of industry capital, need to be introduced within undergraduate
training. Strong alignment between the results from the music and dance
cohorts suggests the potential for the collaborative delivery of both initial and
lifelong learning with respect to these core generic skills. The challenge for
educators is to ensure that graduates have made connections with the real

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world through an engaged curriculum, and that they have somewhere to
come when they need to up-skill.
There is a fundamental responsibility to prepare students for positive engage-
ment across and beyond their intended career goals. For performing arts
students this will mean the adoption of a broad identity within which success
is redefined not as a performance career, but as a sustainable career. Teachers
who have active industry roles are ideally placed to make these linkages.

ac k n ow l e d g e m e n t s
The dance study referred to in this article was funded by Australian dance transition program
SCOPE (Securing Career Opportunities and Professional Employment), with the able assist-
ance of dance artist and researcher Jo Pollitt.

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b i o g ra p h i ca l n o t e
daw n b e n n e t t is a Senior Research Fellow with Curtin University of Technology,
Australia. She holds postgraduate degrees in education and music performance, including a PhD
(Distinction) with the University of Western Australia and a Fellowship with Trinity College,
London. Bennett has worked extensively as a violist, educator, researcher and administrator in
England and Australia. Her research focus is sustainable professional practice within the creative
industries, with a special emphasis on the effectiveness of related education, training and policy.
Her monograph Understanding the Classical Music Profession: The Past, the Present and Strategies for
the Future was published by Ashgate in 2008. Address: Curtin University (Australia), Building
209/419, GPO Box U1987, Perth, Western Australia 6845. [email: d.bennett@curtin.edu.au]

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