Except for every one kid (easier in this example, as he’s male and with male dancers most companies can’t afford to be as picky) who both LOVES to dance and makes a career of it, there will be about 500 or 1000 who won’t make it, not because the eeevil everyday world is against them, but because they didn’t hit the genetic lottery. Dance is brutal on everyone and especially hard on women. If you want to be a pro in any mainstream discipline pray you are naturally slim and not too tall or too short, or you will never be anything other than a sideshow freak at best. Singer? Better be okay with choral singing or being the local discount wedding singer, unless you have looks and a freakish amount of luck to go with it. Writer? Good luck, the odds are even if you’re talented you’ll be stuck in the slush pile forever (and God help you if you don’t slot easily into a category.) Almost everyone can learn some sort of practical if boring job skill, but no matter how much you love the arts, talent you can’t learn and luck you can’t buy are bigger factors in making a living at it. And you have to make a living. If anything the truly overlooked disciplines in school are voc-tech. You have a better shot at being a well-off arc welder or pipefitter than you do a dancer or a doctor, but both the college-prep side and the artistes sneer at the vocational classes despite the majority of students probably being best suited to them, rather than higher academics or fine arts.
Except for every one kid (easier in this example, as he’s male and with male dancers most companies can’t afford to be as picky) who both LOVES to dance and makes a career of it, there will be about 500 or 1000 who won’t make it, not because the eeevil everyday world is against them, but because they didn’t hit the genetic lottery. Dance is brutal on everyone and especially hard on women. If you want to be a pro in any mainstream discipline pray you are naturally slim and not too tall or too short, or you will never be anything other than a sideshow freak at best. Singer? Better be okay with choral singing or being the local discount wedding singer, unless you have looks and a freakish amount of luck to go with it. Writer? Good luck, the odds are even if you’re talented you’ll be stuck in the slush pile forever (and God help you if you don’t slot easily into a category.) Almost everyone can learn some sort of practical if boring job skill, but no matter how much you love the arts, talent you can’t learn and luck you can’t buy are bigger factors in making a living at it. And you have to make a living. If anything the truly overlooked disciplines in school are voc-tech. You have a better shot at being a well-off arc welder or pipefitter than you do a dancer or a doctor, but both the college-prep side and the artistes sneer at the vocational classes despite the majority of students probably being best suited to them, rather than higher academics or fine arts.