Business Smarts: See Yourself As A Writer

We’re returning to our thoughts on Zulu Gremlin’s business smarts class at the H4 conference with a look at expanding the role of dancers as writers in their career. In Los Angeles, it’s not uncommon to find aspiring writers wherever you go. But for dancers, we often don’t see ourselves as the originators of stories. We see ourselves as performers at first. But this isn’t a push for street dancers to become screenwriters. What we’re looking at is how dancers can protect their ideas and be seen as originators of stories.

In the entertainment industry, the writer still creates the blueprint for what will later become a film, a television show, or a new media, web based series. We always need someone to come up with the original concept, even if it’s not in a script form. Anyone can come up with a story idea, which makes the entertainment industry a wide open playing field for newcomers. Dancers have the same opportunities to create concepts that will become amazing stories. So how do we protect our ideas?

According to Grem, we need to learn how to write down our ideas in synopsis format or even a treatment. That allows our ideas to be presented in an acceptable format within the entertainment industry. It’s not a bad idea. Ideas for movies are passed on daily through synopses and treatments at all of the agencies in Hollywood. Ideas are commodities that are traded, negotiated, and revised everyday, seven days a week. If you write a synopsis, you can email or mail it to yourself in order to claim copyright protection with the stamped date. Protecting story ideas is just as important as protecting our dance moves and styles.

So we need to consider expanding our talents as a street dancer. We can write stories or we can write the kernels of the original idea that will become something bigger later. Regardless of our writing abilities, let’s take steps to make sure that we earn what we have worked for. It can only increase our market value in a competitive industry.