Role of the Mentor
Dancers, regardless of their age, have lots of questions about dancing. Often it is the mentor who addresses these questions and offers useful insights. A mentor’s role is to keep the dancer focused and enjoy what he or she is doing.
Every dancer requires both short-term and long-term goals. This is where the mentor helps a lot. A mentor can keep their mentee focused on achieving those goals while stressing on the need to look at small details that are important, but often overlooked, by the dancer.
Mentorship forges a bond between the mentor and mentee. The mentee can approach the mentor to speak about problems and get tips to resolve them. In addition, hearing about the mentor’s experiences and travails and how they overcame them can be inspiring and useful.
Should You Work with a Mentor?
As a dancer, you may feel that accomplishing your role on stage is all that is needed to be a successful dancer. However, this is not true. Having a mentor by your side can help you reach the pinnacle of success and fine tune problems you may have about expressing yourself during a dance performance. Above all, your mentor will help you focus on your goals as a dancer and work out things that are stopping you from becoming a good and proficient-dancer.
Usually, a mentor is a professional dancer themself and this means they bring a wealth of experience onto the table that you can tap upon when the need arises. Experienced professionals provide quality theatre and performing arts training to students through unique performing arts programs and these same professionals also mentor kids to help them achieve success on the stage.
About Debora Wondercheck
Debora Wondercheck is the Executive Director of Arts and Learning Conservatory, a non-profit performing theatre school in Santa Ana, California. Debora has been with A&L for the past 7 years, where she has produced over 40 productions and helped create a highly reputed program. She loves inspiring and being inspired by children and works closely with parents and the staff to create a fun, unique and creative environment.
