Career Lab Sessions-Getting Gigs Pt. 2 with Rachel Strickland

Circus News

Career Lab Sessions – Marketing for Performers: Getting Gigs Pt. 2 with Rachel Strickland

Launched at the start of 2023, the Career Lab is a digital space where professionals and creators in circus and the performing arts share their knowledge with our PRO members, providing useful advice and information about products and services that will enhance their career. Think Business, Health, Marketing, Artistic Development, and more! Career Lab sessions will grow into an inclusive and expansive collection of professional resources from providers, services, and products that help artists to ignite their career and learn first-hand from leading-edge experts about topics that are not always covered in school. Each Career Lab session features a guest creator (and their product or service) who provides exclusive professional advice in their area of expertise. These sessions are but a sampling of their amazing work; our guests experts are ready to connect and engage with you!

Excited to be back this week with Rachel Strickland’s second Career Lab session! Rachel is an interdisciplinary performance artist, aerialist, storyteller, and award-winning choreographer. Her work combines circus arts, dance and movement modalities, and elements of bizarre spectacle to create original, socially relevant performative works. To unearth aspects of the self which are buried, suppressed, and mutilated by the sanction of outside influences is both her subject matter and her work’s intended effect on the viewer.

Classically trained in ballet since the age of three, she began her study of circus arts in 2007, developing a unique style and innovative approach to aerial hoop. Her work brought her international recognition, and she has coached, performed, and choreographed on four continents. She’s been featured in Authority Magazine and Thrive Global and presented her stories and pedagogy on stages worldwide. Her work has been recognized by the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto Busker’s Festival, RAW Performing Artist of the year in Seattle, WA, and “Best Bet” at the New Orleans Fringe Festival.

Rachel is also the director of The Audacity Project, an eight-week guided process to equip artists and creatives with the tools necessary to be working professionals. As a mentor, Rachel is passionate about empowering artists to pursue their most authentic work and to claim their places in the world with conviction.

In Getting Gigs Pt. 1, Rachel taught us the basics of personal branding, offered a three-step strategy for reaching out, and shared helpful tools to make the whole process run smoothly. In this session, Rachel dives into the third step in that reaching out strategy, which is the big task of actually writing that email to the company, casting directer, or whoever holds the keys to the opportunity you seek. Learn what to include in your email, as well as what not to include, and come away with a template that you can use for all your future outreach endeavors. In addition to drafting out this seven-part template on screen, Rachel offers another template for reaching out to a colleague for an introduction, because getting an introduction is always preferable to a cold call! More advice on this topic in the session video below!

This session is a great resource for artists and freelance performers looking to pursue job opportunities with the goal of establishing relationships with companies and casting entities and getting booked.

Interested in learning more about the business side of circus?

Check out Rachel’s Audacity Project!

The Audacity Project program is for aerialists, performers, and freelance performing artists—and packed with no-nonsense, actionable tasks that get real results.The eight weeks include weekly assignments for building your promotional materials, getting crystal clear on your goals, arming you with the tools you need, and generally getting your $hit together. This is for people ready to show up and do the damn thing.⁣⁣

The primary requirement is that you need to be hungry: ready to put in the work, get delightfully uncomfortable, and answer some tough questions.⁣⁣

Weekly assignments are through Teachable: lectures, worksheets, and no-nonsense tasks to get your shit together. Pinpoint exactly where you want to go, who you need to talk to to go there, how to talk to them, and how much to charge for it. ALSO, you’ll have relevant, beautiful, updated promotional materials so all you have to do is send someone a link instead of scrambling.⁣⁣

  • Unlimited support throughout the 8 weeks
  • Two private 1:1 video calls with Rachel
  • Weekly group calls via Zoom with Q & A and additional insights⁣⁣
  • A private Facebook group comprised totally of (amazing) people who have been through the program or are going through it with you
  • Lifetime access to these materials⁣⁣
  • Assurance that this program has been tried and tested since 2017, with excellent results. It works.

Enrollment for Rachel’s spring cycle closed last week, but the waitlist is available on the website, so you can be notified of the upcoming fall 2023 cycle!

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Rachel Strickland

Rachel Strickland is an interdisciplinary performance artist, aerialist, storyteller, and award winning choreographer. Her work combines circus arts, dance and movement modalities, and elements of bizarre spectacle to create original, socially relevant performative works. She’s been featured in Authority Magazine and Thrive Global, and resented her stories and pedagogy on stages worldwide. Her work has been recognized by the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto Busker’s Festival, RAW Performing Artist of the year in Seattle, WA, and “Best Bet” at the New Orleans Fringe Festival. She is the director of The Audacity Project, an 8-week guided process to equip artists and creatives with the tools necessary to be working professionals. As a mentor, Rachel is passionate about empowering artists to pursue their most authentic work and to claim their places in the world with conviction.