Bonnie Oda Homsey’s Career Development Offerings
-
Created career development and dance leadership courses at USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance and California Institute for the Arts; led in-person and online workshops at Gibney NYC for emerging and mid-career artists; guest lecturer at colleges and universities around the country.
-
“An Action Plan for Artistic Identity and Career Development” published by National Dance Education Organization. Click Here for Article. “Career Development Skills for the New Normal” workshop presented at the NDEO annual conference.
-
Serves on Western Council of Entertainment Community Fund (formerly Actors Fund) helping to create free youth programming for the Hollywood Arts Collective’s Glorya Kaufman Performing Arts Theater.
-
Serves on the inaugural Board of Directors for Gold Standard Arts Foundation helping to establish platforms of services, programming, and resources for the greater AAPI community of artists and creatives.
-
Created the process and criteria for the inaugural Ann Reinking Scholarship grant application and selection process.
-
Provides in-person and online consultant services for arts organizations and individual professionals.
An Action Plan for Artistic Identity and Career Development
by Bonnie Oda Homsey
This article presents career development concepts, tools, and exercises used in courses I teach to college dance majors. The focus is to introduce sustainable practices that withstand the inevitable internal and external influences shaping a dance career. Educators are encouraged to incorporate the applicable exercises into existing coursework to support their students’ transitions into the professional workforce.
I attended a dance conservatory program for college, but at that time there was no course in career development. Fortunately, many dance programs now offer this type of dedicated course or provide similar information within other courses. In this article, I introduce tools and exercises originated for use in the career development courses I teach, taking as a jumping-off point my what if attitude to surviving a forty-year career dotted with both highs and missteps. I encourage educators to select the applicable tools and exercises I discuss in this article to enhance students’ proficiencies in existing coursework such as dance production, senior project, directed or independent study, project-related dance courses, or even better, to institute a career development course.
