The Dive Podcast

15: How A Strong Work Ethic Propels Careers with Todd Patrick

• Todd Patrick • Season 1 • Episode 15

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Why consistent singing, dancing, and acting training is your ticket to the big stage!

In this captivating episode, Todd shares his remarkable journey from gymnast to professional dancer, highlighting the pivotal moments that shaped his career. They talked about Todd's humble beginnings in Adelaide, his discovery of dance through commercial jazz classes, and the challenges he faced, including expulsion from school.

They talked about:

  • The turning point in Todd's life after expulsion from school and discovering his passion for dance.
  • Todd's journey through professional training in ballet and contemporary dance, including the challenges he faced.
  • His experiences navigating the professional dance world, including modeling and performing internationally.
  • Todd's reflections on his influences, the drive for improvement, and the importance of continuous learning.
  • Insights into building and running a successful dance school, along with the challenges and triumphs involved.
  • A Q&A session featuring questions from Todd's alumni and current students, showcasing his impact as an educator and mentor.

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Speaker 1:

Just be patient and keep training. I think so many young artists sit at home and wait for it and just it's not a reality. You don't sit at home and wait for it. You have to get up and do all of the classes, you have to go to the acting workshop, you have to be proactive and it's a team with your agency as well. It's as well as your school. If you're involved in art school, you have this whole network of people that support you mainly, but it's a 50 50 like. I can't get you into the room and you be successful if you just finished your training and you went great, like I'm done now, because it's just not the way it is.

Speaker 2:

Hello and welcome back to another episode on the Dive Podcast, a performing artist podcast dedicated to learning how to navigate the challenges we face as artists. Today we have Todd Patrick in the studio with us today. It was an exciting episode as we kind of went behind the scenes of Todd Patrick and his story and his upbringing up until his career now and the amazing school that he's built from the ground up Patrick's School of the Arts. And it was awesome because we actually got some questions in from alumni that have trained with him. I think there's about 10 questions or so and they were asked. If you had to ask Todd Patrick one question, what will it be? So, without further ado, let's get into the episode. Thank you for being on the show, todd. It's awesome that you're here and I know a lot of people are going to be wanting to hear from you, for sure.

Speaker 2:

And before we get into some questions, it's really exciting because we actually have a bunch of questions from alumni to ask you. Before we get into that, I would love to know when it all started for you before your career.

Speaker 1:

Well, similar to you I was, because you were a trampolinist, weren't you? I was a gymnast. I started gymnastics when I grew up, in Adelaide, in South Australia. I grew up down south. It's like a surfy kind of coastal low socioeconomic area called Nolunga, and nobody danced. I didn't know any boys that danced. I didn't know any dance schools. I didn't know any men in general that danced, unless I saw it on television. I don't even think I would have seen anything on television when I was growing up. So I was a gymnast. And then when I started high school they did this thing called Rocker Stedford, yeah. So I started doing that, and then I was doing like three classes a week, which I guess was commercial jazz.

Speaker 1:

I mean it was inspired by, like the people of the time, so like Paula Abdul and Janet Jackson, that kind of choreography. I was doing that three times a week, no technical training, sure. And then I got expelled from school, did you? Now? I got expelled from my private Catholic school because I was naughty, I Did you now? I got expelled from my private Catholic school because I was naughty. I wasn't actually expelled because I was naughty, I was.

Speaker 1:

In my opinion, if a teacher can't control a class, there's something wrong with the teacher. There's nothing wrong with the student. Students are always fabulous in my class. So, upon reflection, I don't think that there was something wrong with me. I think there was something wrong with the teachers at the time. But I was slightly energetic. So I did get expelled at the end of year 11. And I was obsessed with this high school that was like 45 minutes away from me. They were really strong in arts programs and they did the Rocker Centre and things like that. So I went and auditioned for them and moved there for year 12 and had phenomenal teachers, like really incredible teachers not just that was in adelaide, is that where we did that audition?

Speaker 2:

seaview high school? I don't know.

Speaker 1:

We went somewhere where we did the audition for psa probably, yeah, seaview high school so non-religionate religious government school costed like three hundred dollars a year, compared to like ten thousand dollars where I was, and I was getting straight D's.

Speaker 1:

And then all of a sudden I went from straight D's to A's and B's and doing really well and I wasn't considered that I had learning difficulties or that I was disruptive in class or that I was stupid or any of those things that they used to do when you're at school.

Speaker 1:

And all of a sudden all my teachers thought that I really had something to offer academically and artistically. And so that's the first technical training that I had, because I was doing the equivalent of VCE dance, which was called SACE in South Australia. Yeah, and that was all contemporary based and the teacher that I had, bob Weatherly, was just phenomenal. My drama teacher, ian McLeod, was phenomenal and they would pick me up and take me to everything because I was traveling 45 minutes to get to school and go home every day. Yeah, but luckily my dance teacher and my drama teacher lived in no Longer as well, so they would pick me up at night and we'd go with all the other students as well and we'd see, like Bat Shaver Dance Company, which is the most incredible contemporary dance company.

Speaker 1:

They took me to the Adelaide Fringe. They started my session with ADT and Meryl Tankard, who was my favorite choreographer at the time. I just thought she was absolutely. I loved the company.

Speaker 1:

I was so obsessed with them so they really opened my eyes and showed me all that kind of stuff and really gave me a sound grounding in technical contemporary dance. And then halfway through the year they said to me what do you want to do? Where do you want to go? And of course I had absolutely no idea, because there's nobody that had gone before me that I could follow and go.

Speaker 1:

I want to be like that boy or I want to be like that person in the industry. There was nothing for me to look up to or to aspire to be. I just knew that I wanted to be a performer. I actually thought I wanted to be an actor.

Speaker 2:

Oh, wow.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I really wanted to be an actor and I just happened to be good at dance because I had a natural facility and I was a gymnast. So they started showing me different places that I could go and they introduced me to. You know, there was NIDA, and at that time in South Australia there was a school called CPA which is similar to a WAPA or a VCA, and so it's now called AC Arts, I think.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, I think that's where we went. Ac Arts oh yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Where we did those auditions yeah so they introduced me to the school and they started taking me to their performances and then I was obsessed with what they would do. It was all contemporary, all contemporary or all acting courses, no musical theatre, no performing arts whatsoever. And then I auditioned and they weren't having an intake that year. They only did an intake every second year. But they said look, he's a bit rough around the edges, but we'll put him straight into second year. And I was rough around the edges as well and I really had no idea what was going on. So I finished year 12 and they guided me through and I moved into the city and started training at this school, which was all contemporary and all classical.

Speaker 1:

Wow, so these were my first classical classes.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And I was like 16.

Speaker 2:

And you went straight into the second year.

Speaker 1:

I went straight into the second year. I went straight into second year, yeah, and they were all like, oh, they were. They, especially the boys, just hated me. Well, they were also like stiff as boards they could barely touch their toes, the boys that were there. And then I came in with like 180 degree turnout and hypermobile spine and like who is?

Speaker 1:

this. I just would be sitting there stretching and you could just see them seething in the corner Just being like Going red, like it's just. I could tell that they thought it was unfair, but I didn't know, I was like 16, no no.

Speaker 1:

And I'd left the suburbs, I'd moved into the city. I had no fucking idea what was going on, I just was good at it. I did audition for the acting program as well and realised that I wasn't very good at it. I think I was too camp when I I was there for two years. I did two years with them and still loved everything. I fell in love with ballet and absolutely loved it. Halfway through the first year, my ballet teacher, sally Collard-Gentil, who was an incredible ballerina yeah, she was principal with a bunch of companies, but I think she was in the English National, the Royal Ballet. She was in the Scottish National Ballet Dance with Nureyev, oh wow, like phenomenal of oh wow, but phenomenal.

Speaker 2:

That's amazing. Yeah, Like to have that in Adelaide as well. Oh yeah Her career was insane.

Speaker 1:

And so she was saying to me halfway through the year, you need to audition for the Australian Ballet School. That's where you need to go. We're going to train you up. And I was like sure, I don't even know what a tonjou is Like. I literally didn't, like I had no idea. She trained me up, we did the application process.

Speaker 1:

They came to Adelaide, I did the audition, got invited they used to do like a week of national finals so invited me to Melbourne. So at the end of the year, I think, I caught a bus to Melbourne. I had no money, so I caught a bus to Melbourne, didn't really know what I was doing. I had like zero dollars as well. So the costume department at TPO made all of my all-overs and my leotards and stuff and it was so funny. I remember on the first day I walked in and I was like I've never been to melbourne. Okay as well. Wow. So that was a shock in itself. Never seen other really highly trained boys that were the same age as me and there was, I think it was about 20 or 25 boys that they'd invited to the week. I remember a boy walking up to me and he looked me up and down and he went white tights.

Speaker 2:

That's confident and I was like what the fuck?

Speaker 1:

I just didn't. I hadn't been in the ballet world, yeah. So it was all a bit weird to me. And then we started the national finals and I just hated it, hated every second of it, hated being pulled into a room and weighed in your support and like they measure everything. So you're lying on your back and I don't even know if they still do this, but they measure your turnout. You're in a jock the whole time. They're measuring your wrists for pas de deux. They're weighing you like nobody would eat. You know, that day and I was like you guys are crazy. Like I went downstairs and had a burger and ice cream. I just thought the whole thing was really weird. It felt like a chemist to me.

Speaker 1:

But I did love the artistic director of the high school, okay, who was Gaylene Stock. She was just ruthless and I loved it. I just I was really attracted to teachers that were so passionate that they were on the border of crazy. Like she was lovely to me, yeah, but I could just see like the sense of when she walked around, like she was so particular and she was. So I just thought she was incredible. But halfway through the week I was like this is not for me, and then you have to wear your number every day and you have to line up and by kind of the third day I was saying to the boy, just go in front of me. And he was like we can't, we're in numbers. And I was like fucking go, I just was over it and I didn't know what they were all talking. I'd done eight months of ballet and there.

Speaker 1:

I was in the epicentre of classical ballet for my age in Australia. The company was there and it just most of those boys had trained since they were two or three.

Speaker 1:

And I thought they were insane. They were so like Betty Ballerina Bunhead, actually one of my really good friends, david Mack, who I ended up training with at VCA. He was there at the same time. So I went back to Adelaide, I got offered a position but I didn't take the position because I just I was like it just felt like it was not for me it was like a chemist factory.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I wasn't into it. Went back to Adelaide, graduated you know with everybody else and then thought I'm going to go back to Melbourne. I can tell that's where I need to be an audition for VCA. And they put me straight into second year as well. But I said no, I want to go.

Speaker 1:

I looked at the second years and I did think they're very talented the first years were really talented so I was like, no, I'm going to stick with the first years. And David Mack, who I'd auditioned at he was there, who I'm still really good friends with him now and he went on to be in Sydney Dance Company and ADT and he's like a phenomenal choreographer and great person. Amazing, when we both started, we both had a bit of a giggle about the audition at the Aussie Ballet School.

Speaker 2:

It was crazy. I was like crazy and he was amazing, like hyper-extended legs and perfect feet.

Speaker 1:

But I didn't lose my love of ballet. I just lost, redirected it. I just, yeah, I kept training in ballet. I still wanted to be a contemporary dancer. I was really obsessed with Forsyth from Frankfurt Ballet and one of my favorite numbers in the middle somewhat elevated it on Sylvie Guillem. He's what I aspired to be and that's where I wanted to dance. And then I went to VCA. So I moved to Melbourne and was training and then they wanted me to be a ballet dancer as well. Oh gosh, they gave up on. We're not going to put you into the school. They were like glad that I was training with them. But they said, oh no, we're going train you up and you're gonna go across the road, you're gonna be in the company and taylor.

Speaker 1:

I couldn't think of anything fucking worse I couldn't than lifting a girl for 10 years in a ballet company. I just I hated part of her. I actually was talking about a funny story the other day. One of the girls in my class, christy air, incredible contemporary dancer. She's now now the CEO of Chunky Move. She was a fantastic contemporary dancer. We both were like with part of her. We didn't really love it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And we were in a part of her assessment and she fell off point and there's just like you and your partner and the panel, and as she fell off point, I just grabbed the back of her leotard, the straps, and pulled her in and the whole panel went like they were so shocked and she was like I could tell she, I couldn't see her. She was rolling her eyes and we were laughing about that the other day Like it wasn't what I wanted to do. I wasn't really into it and I had teachers that really wanted me to be a classical dancer and it started to drive the passion out of me. The way they taught you about your nutrition back then Right Wasn't as sensible as it is now wasn't even as sensible. I think the last 10 years we've really learned things of what to say and how to do things and we've learned that dancers are athletes and they really didn't know that.

Speaker 1:

And I'm not angry at the information that they gave me, even though it was not helpful or healthy, because I think they'd been passed down that information from their teachers. Yeah, and they just really wanted me to know what they knew. They only knew what they knew. They really wanted me to get a career Because they only knew what they knew. They only knew what they knew. They really wanted me to get a career. What they knew was that in my all overs and my leotards, they didn't like that. My shoulders were too big. They were like, please stop swimming and could you drink black coffee and smoke cigarettes. And of course you're like, yeah, of course I will, of course I'll do that. I want a career. Yeah, that's what they're saying, that's what I'll do. So I did that, obviously. And then, six months into the course, some of the teachers were like you look amazing. I'm standing in first, looking in the mirror, and you can see straight through my thighs. I'm a six foot two man. I weigh 85 kilos, so I probably I mean so you're exhausted.

Speaker 1:

I reckon I was just over 70, even if that Like I looked, look. But they thought I looked amazing and the funny thing was you still. You're depressed, it's hard to get out of bed but you can still dance so well, like it's quite bizarre. And we were doing our assessment and a contemporary choreographer from Chunky Move actually like I was out having lunch, so that meant half a big M and cigarettes and he sat next to me and he was like how are you? And I was like good, how are you. And he was like me and he was like how are you? And I was like good, how are you? And he was like yeah, good. He was like everything good. And I was like, yeah, everything's good. And he was like you just don't look as powerful as you did six months ago.

Speaker 1:

And I was like what do you mean? Like I'm skin and bones, don't I look amazing? And he said I just want to make sure that you're going well. I don't think you're dancing as well as you were six months ago and he just watched the assessment, but the ballet teachers were like happy.

Speaker 2:

So I was like hang on a second.

Speaker 1:

And then my jazz teacher at the time we got one jazz class a week at BCA, which I love. She could just tell that I was getting a bit sad and a bit frail. And she said bit sad and a bit frail. And she said, oh, why don't you come and do a jazz class at Dance World?

Speaker 2:

on Saturday and I was like yeah, okay, yeah, all right, I don't know.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, okay, I'll do that. So I came in and I was doing the class and she'd done a sneaky and she'd gone into the agency and said you've got to come and have a look at this boy. I think he's really talented. So that was Barbara Warren Smith. Jackie Testro was the agent then, and so she had her in the room and I did the class and I thought it was so fun and everybody looked healthy and they were eating before the class and just I don't know, it was another different world that I hadn't experienced, which is the performing arts and the world of music theatre. Yeah, and so Jackie sat me down afterwards and she was like, what are you doing? Like, do you sing, do you do hip-hop, do you do acro?

Speaker 2:

and I was like what do you mean? What are?

Speaker 1:

all these things she's like I think we can get you into some modeling as well. Like your height's great and I was like fuck, all I've been told for the last six months ballet, ballet, ballet, ballet, ballet. You're gonna be ballet dancer that's it, that's it. That's all you're gonna do, and she said I think we'd like to sign you, and I was like, sign what? Like I don't even know what you're talking about. I was still a young kid from down south we were still figuring it all out Still figuring it all out.

Speaker 1:

Plenty of sass, though, Don't worry about that. So then I went back and I kept training and started to not be interested in what I was doing. And then I was doing more classes, more jazz classes, more performing arts classes and hanging out with the guys and the girls that were from around there, and it just felt better Like I found myself constantly anxious in ballet. I mean, it's so rigid and I didn't want to be a fucking prince on a stage. I was way more excited. I still loved contemporary, but I think the ballet had really turned me off and I was exhausted and I was hungry and all those kinds of things.

Speaker 1:

So I think it got to the beginning of the fourth term and Jackie called me and said oh, we've got a casting we'd like you to do. It's touring around Asia for Asian Fashion Week with a bunch of international DJs. It was like Fatboy Slim and I don't know, I can't remember. They were all famous at the time and so I auditioned for it. You just had to freestyle in this video and send in photos. And then she ran me like three days later and she said oh, you have to leave in two days, like you've got to go to China and I'd never been overseas.

Speaker 1:

And I was like, well, I don't know how to do that, I don't even have a passport. And she was like, ah, she freaked out. They got my part. I don't even know how they got my passport. I found myself on a plane. I told VCA I was having a few weeks off. So you didn't even say it. No, I was like having a few weeks off just investigating what I was doing. Went to China. We arrived in Hong Kong. They bleached my eyebrows. They bleached my hair.

Speaker 2:

No way, they were like we want you all to be blonde.

Speaker 1:

I was told I wasn't allowed to tan or do anything. They just wanted us to be blonde and white skin. And I was like, fine, fine. And then for a month I was flown around China with a bunch of other dancers and models and modeled for all these incredible European fashion labels. Incredible, yeah, it was cool, but it was also an eye-opener because it was what was I like, I don't know, 18, 19, 20 somewhere around there, and China was not the China that it is now yeah, so it was bizarre everyone was still wearing, you know, the communist blue clothes everyone was on bikes, we were followed.

Speaker 1:

People would come out of shops and follow us when we were walking around. It just was. It was bizarre, but I loved it, like hanging out with these djs. Obviously it was a huge eye-opener hanging out with those people as well yeah it's the first time I'd really seen drugs laid out in front of me. It's the first time I'd been kind of party situations. There was parties in every city. I'd never been around huge designers or designer clothes.

Speaker 1:

I wore this belt and it was designed by Swarovski and it was like $20,000 or something. Gosh, they were like you walk on, they put the belt on you, you come off, they take the belt straight off you. There's a security guard, like it just was bizarre. I had no idea what was going on. I had I had no food at home in my apartment well, they didn't really want me to eat anyway and then I'm being paid all this money. I can't even remember what it was, but it was great money for an 18, 19 year old.

Speaker 1:

All of our we're staying in hotels and everything was paid for and it was just bizarre. It was completely bizarre to me. So we finished that, came home, great reports were sent back to who was going to be my agent. They were. Jackie was thrilled. Barbara Warren Smith was like I think performing arts is for you. I think everyone was saying I think performing arts was for you.

Speaker 1:

Then I met the director of Dance World, which was Pamela Apostoli, another like really tough female director that I loved. People think she's crazy, but I just, I don't know. I love it when people are passionate, and when they're, you want to throw a chair at me and scream at me. That's going to make me better. I'm like cool, let's go, like, yeah, just get into me, tell me what's wrong with me. I just want to be better, and I was so hungry. I did want to be better. When I first went to that, the Seaview High School, they were all better than me. They'd had more training. Then, when I went to CPA, they were all better than me, and so I was so hungry there. And then I came to VCA and they'd all had more experience than me. And then I went to the performing arts school and they'd had more experience for me, so I just was constantly on the back foot and watching all of these incredible people around me.

Speaker 1:

So I came home, I finished the year with a little bit of attitude. I think I was like this isn't for me, but I'll do it. Yeah, they were like you're just doing the classical piece at the end of the year and I thought back and was like no way. Like I'm doing, I'll do the classical piece, but I'm doing the contemporary piece as well.

Speaker 2:

Like there I am 18, telling them what I'm going to be like, no, I'll do both pieces.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm going to do both pieces, but they let me do it. I don't know why they let me do it, but they did.

Speaker 1:

And then I signed up and I moved into the performing arts course at Dance World and then that was great, yeah, like it was ruthless training.

Speaker 1:

I don't think I've met a woman like Pam in my life that had so much passion, like her style, the choreography that they used to teach us.

Speaker 1:

I mean it was so fucking hard as well, like it was so technical and everybody around me felt like a person of color in hip-hop and I felt like this kind of six foot two standout ballerina and there was just so much style to what they were all doing and when we're in choreographing with her movement had such passion and such intensity and they really drilled into me how to use the classical and contemporary training technically that I'd had. And then she just wanted to layer it with so much flavor and there was lots of dancers there that I could look up to. Like you were involved in an industry school there where you don't really see that in the tertiary institutions in contemporary and classical, in a private performing arts school, you see it. So there was people coming in that were in musicals. I had people teaching me that were choreographers of musicals. The people around me were singers and dancers and actors and we did acro, then we did hip-hop, then we did contemporary, then we did rehearsals.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

I feel like we were always rehearsing like sometimes 12 o'clock at night and things like that.

Speaker 2:

Just until it was done, just until it was done. Yeah, whenever she was creative, and I'm creative now, when it's eight o'clock at night, let's go, I don't have anything else to do? Well, fine, let's do it. When you were creating even PSA, did you want to take all of that kind of style of different classes?

Speaker 1:

And I think I took little things from all of the people Like I took.

Speaker 1:

all the people that I really admired had incredible passion and had incredible work ethics, like Bob Weatherly that taught me at 12 was so disciplined. Do you know what I mean With everything that he did, the way he did our lighting for our performances, the way he rehearsed us. He wasn't ever mean, but he was tough. He was definitely tough, and the same with my drama teacher. And then Sally was really quite strict with me because I was incredibly flexible, sure, and I had no idea how to utilize my body whatsoever, just like bending it into these stupid positions. Yeah, for the first year at CPA, she wouldn't let me lift my legs above like 90 degrees and they put weights on my ankles. Oh yes, so that I had to build up more strength because I was literally a newborn baby deer, like, Like I was From that ballet as well, it was, yeah. And from gymnastics Like in gymnastics, they just ripped me into whatever position.

Speaker 2:

They could Jump on your back in a split, but I.

Speaker 1:

But so I was six foot two and I was like Gumby. Just do you know what I mean? I was hitting positions where they were like, well, it could be beautiful. Like more, like a contortionist, and you do get feedback from the dancers around you. When you can do incredible things, when you can hold a really high, devil pain You've got a great foot, or when you've got a pass, split ponche on the bar Everyone's like whoa where did this come from?

Speaker 1:

And so you want to do it more. But those teachers were like no, no, you're not, you're definitely not going to do that. So she was really tough on me. From a technical perspective, the contemporary teachers there had all been in Lee Warren and Dancers or ADT, and one of them, lisa Heaven. I remember her saying to me just stop trying to make it pretty. And in my head I was like I'm not trying to make it pretty. I just am pretty like that. Do you know what I?

Speaker 2:

mean.

Speaker 1:

I wanted to say that and I didn't say it back. I was like I just like making nice shapes or in contemporary nice shapes or in contemporary.

Speaker 2:

They don't always want that, they want those types of choreographers kind of wanted it to be ugly and a bit more gritty and I was like why?

Speaker 1:

can't it be a beautiful line, like I want it to be a beautiful line? Or they would say to me the leg doesn't have to be that high. I'm like I'm not trying to make that just going there, it's just going there yeah, as a kid I couldn't understand why they were having a go at me like that, but I had no idea, no idea what my body was capable of doing. We did have a great choreographer from Taipei called Xia Zhong. He choreographed the Cloud Gate Contemporary Dance Company.

Speaker 1:

And he was quite obsessed with facility and lines and he was really flexible. So he utilized, he really taught me how to use my body. I don't think he really liked me as a dancer. Sure, I'm pretty sure he didn't. He liked all the other boys, but he understood your facility, he understood my facility and I could make all the shapes that he wanted me to make and so I learned that and he trained the other girls like that. So I watched the girls. I had no boys to watch, no boys could make those shapes, and so I was watching the girls in the class and trying to figure out how they were utilising their body. But I definitely wasn't one of his favourite dancers.

Speaker 1:

I think he took all the second years to Taipei on this tour and I was the only one left behind and I was like, fine, but I ended up doing two weeks of secondment with Lee Warren and dancers and I did a week with Meryl Tankard, which broke my heart because I told you I was obsessed with her. Yeah, and I thought she was absolutely petrifying. And we were in rehearsals one day and we were sitting next to each other and she went can you just move over? And, like I moved over a bit, she went can you move over more? No way. And she was my idol. I'd watched all of her stuff and so I was devastated.

Speaker 2:

I was like oh, you're nasty, like I love you I love your choreography.

Speaker 1:

She did this piece called furioso that I was really obsessed with and so that kind of broke my heart a little bit as well. But another tough woman that had been in my life, that yeah, kind of I feel like they were always tough women that I would look up to, and so I've taken bits of all of them into what I've done with my school yeah, hey, listeners.

Speaker 2:

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Speaker 2:

Now that's enough for me. Let's get back to the episode. Well, we can get more into your school now. I know you ended up having an amazing career and now you've built a school. That is how many years old now it's 17 or 18 or something.

Speaker 2:

I remember the 10 year anniversary like it was yesterday. Nearly 20 years, but we've got some questions in here from alumni and people from that have trained with you or have had the pleasure of being in your company. I don't know if it's always pleasurable.

Speaker 1:

Well, maybe these questions, is it?

Speaker 2:

always pleasurable when I train you. Well, how about we just get through the questions?

Speaker 1:

and see what comes up.

Speaker 2:

You want to know who's asking? Yeah, I want to know who's, so let's start with Finn Green. Yeah, so Finn Green asked why should people who are singers first learn how to dance?

Speaker 1:

Well, because it just gives you so many more opportunities to have a career. It just comes down to business. If I'm watching somebody that's graduating from my school and they're a singer actor mover and I'm watching someone graduate from my school, that person in my experience and in my agency gets a hundred times more work than that person. That singer-actor can go for those roles and that singer-dancer-actor can go for those roles, but they're also fitter, so they do corporate commercial work. They can get into commercial modelling, they go for all the TVCs, they can do stunt work. There's just so much more that an artist can do.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and the longevity of you performing as well is just going to be longer. Davy Harris asks what makes a great dancer and what is your creative process for your contemporary routines.

Speaker 1:

That's hard because there's so many different dancers that have been my muses over the years and they've all got different things. Like if I look at my students that I trained or who I really looked up to, like Carly Donato, I loved her because when I worked with her she was seamless to work with, like I would dance and she would just watch me and I'd go what did I do? But she had similar facility to me, yeah, and she was so powerful and so athletic so I loved that. I could say to her do a turning Russian and 50 turns into a backflip, and she let's do it and she could do it. Or if I looked at somebody like Mel Hawkins, like one of the first tertiary students I had she was so dripping with style.

Speaker 1:

So she was that age group in the late 90s and early 2000s where I think women were incredibly athletic but, they just were so passionate about the way they moved Mel Hawkins or Sam Dottomade or Brooke Parsons or people that I didn't train like, like a Leanne Cherney or a Kate Wormald or a Michelle Hopper or a Hayley Winch or all of those women just they were oozing performance. It was powerful and it was so sensual and it was choreography.

Speaker 1:

It wasn't just kicks and jumps and turns, like they were. So grounded and into the ground, and so I think that makes a dancer really good. With boys it's probably different.

Speaker 1:

I think my favourite dancers have always been women not necessarily men, but if I look at some of my favourite dancers, it's probably the same thing. They're either a technical machine who can hit such classical lines with lots of power and lots of strength, and then there's the ones that are not so classically trained or inclined but they hit beautiful lines, like, I think, of boys that I've trained, like you, or some of my younger ones, like Tim or Campbell or Tiggy, or even a Julian Adler years ago who came in as a gymnast but then really learned how to be a powerful dancer. Or when I was training boys that I looked up to, like Dion Nuku I think he was incredible. Ash Wallen when I was first graduating he was still in Australia and I thought he was amazing, and then I don't know. I think that's all.

Speaker 1:

I think they're the two that I like, the two types of dancers that I like, but obviously if they don't have a work ethic, then I don't like any of them. If I'm training them, I don't care how good you are. If you're only going to turn up on a Tuesday and you're supposed to do that Monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday, I don't, I'm not interested. That's it. Oh, and Fabio Catafi, oh, yes, yeah, he was our careers crossed, so we did dance together as artists and then when I was choreographing, he was my go-to. I would book him for everything. He's one of the boys that when I was on stage, I would look at the audience or Reese as well Reese Bowbridge, also one of my favorite dances. Whenever I was on stage with either of those boys, I just watched the audience watching them.

Speaker 1:

I was like I'd have to do. I would have to really pull it out, because they were so dripping with style, yeah, and charisma that I'd have to utilize my physicality, so my jumps or my flexibility or things like that to get the audience's attention back to me. But I can remember and I've spoken to fab about it and because I love them and I used to book them for everything I was stupid because the audience was watching them not watching me.

Speaker 1:

But I loved them as people and I loved the way they danced. But, yeah, I remember being on stage and I could feel their energy and I could see the audience watching them. It was a cry, it was like an out-of-body experience, but I couldn't take that away from them like I knew why the audience was watching them. It's why I wanted to hire them for everything, because they were amazing, and Rhys is from Adelaide as well and he's got a similar story to me, so yeah, I love him.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Amy Hopwood sent in. What does it mean to be a triple threat or have the full package in quotations?

Speaker 1:

Well, it means you're booked. Generally, if you're a proper triple threat, you're booked. It means that you're singing and you're acting and you're dancing is all on the same level, which is something that the school really pursues, where I think schools have their point of difference and their flavour. And because I came from no money, so I think I've always been driven by a slight anxiety of I've got to pay my bills. I'm the only one that's going to pay my bills. I've got to work, and so if I want to work, I have to make sure that I can go for as much as possible. So that means sing, dance and act, and so I think I brought that into my training. I think it is a more financially secure line to go down because there's more opportunities and I think it makes you a better artist.

Speaker 1:

You can physicalise the emotion of a song as well as emotionalise it Like an actor and a singer. They're really good at portraying it vocally but physically. Sometimes I watch actors and I go, damn, you'd have just done a few dance classes, something, so you don't look so awkward. Or I saw Danny Ball recently. He's alumni of the school and he was in a play at Malthouse, and it was just him, on his own on the stage for an hour, and because he did the dance training with us and then he went and trained at NIDA as an actor, he was physically so at ease in the character that he portrayed, he owned it and he made it his.

Speaker 1:

He wasn't just an actor, it was the whole thing, and he's a triple threat. He's not going to say he's a triple threat. He'll probably tell me off for saying this. He'll be like I can't dance anymore. He can bust out some vicious britney spears though. I can tell you that, but he is, and that's what I would love to see. I would love to see more actors, trainers, dancers and more singers, trainers, dancers, and at the same time, I want to see dancers who are pushing and pursuing their acting and their and their singing. Musicals have changed as well.

Speaker 2:

They're so much more athletic. That's the industry now. You used to be booked just as a dancer or just as a singer, but now it's everything oh, and a circus artist like, can you fly through the?

Speaker 1:

ceiling can you play an instrument? Yeah, all of those things gosh.

Speaker 2:

Jodie thornton sent in what's the best piece of advice you've ever received about the dance or performing world well, it wasn't to smoke cigarettes and drink black coffee.

Speaker 1:

Skinny I skinny. I could tell you that I don't know. I think I'd have to think about that a little bit more. We can come back to that one.

Speaker 2:

We'll come back to it.

Speaker 1:

Sophie Holloway wrote in her question that is what is what's a dance job that you always wanted to do but never got the opportunity to do? So I moved into the cabaret world, which meant I had to leave Australia, because I think there was only one cabaret company here which is Jupiter's Casino.

Speaker 2:

And even still it's not as big as overseas. No, oh my God, no not at all.

Speaker 1:

It's not. I don't think Australians even really know what cabaret is. They don't understand it. They don't understand the whole world that it is when you go to Europe or when you go into Asia or to America. It's massive, it's like ballet companies, but they're cabaret dancers. So I pretty much got and now I'm going to sound like I'm boasting, but I got every single company that I wanted. I went to Aledo and that was a huge platform for me. It was the only company that I was ever in the ensemble, Literally. After that, everything that I was offered was principal roles, and I got a role in Friedrichsthatt Palace in Berlin and I think I'd either signed for Sonomar in Spain or I'd signed for Royal Palace in Strasbourg, one or the other, and so I couldn't do it. And then I went on and had my career and did a couple of companies, and then my feet I was so injured and my back was so bad.

Speaker 2:

And I? I thought I'm going to quit.

Speaker 1:

I don't want to do it now, Right, and I just would have loved. I wish I could have pushed myself that little bit further. I would have loved to have lived in Berlin and the company's phenomenal Um, and there was another company in there was three companies actually where I got jobs and I couldn't do them because I was another contract.

Speaker 2:

There was.

Speaker 1:

Estoril in Portugal. And now I look at Portugal and think, oh my God, why I should, even though my feet were broken, I should have gone. I should have lived there. There was Friedrichstadt Palace in Berlin and then there was I don't even know if it's still there now, but it was Sun City in South Africa. And I could have gone to Sun City in South Africa but I didn't go because I was scared, because everybody had told me that the political situation in South Africa at the time it was quite violent and I was told that it was a full gated casino community. Oh, wow, and that kind of freaked me out. And they're like, oh, if you walk down the street, you can't wear jewelry and things like that. And I really wanted to go there and I really wanted to live in South Africa, but I was like, maybe, not, maybe I'm not going to do it, but the number one, that was Friedrichsthal Palace.

Speaker 2:

And.

Speaker 1:

Cats actually.

Speaker 2:

Really.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so I auditioned for Cats.

Speaker 2:

I never knew this yeah.

Speaker 1:

And they put me on hold for I don't know. It's like it's Macavity and something else. They play the same role. Athmetus Maybe.

Speaker 2:

I can't remember.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm going to do that, I want to do that.

Speaker 2:

Because he's usually tall.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, all right. Okay, it's the first musical that I'd ever seen. As a kid, I used to think that I was Cats. Okay yeah, I used to perform around the house like putting a belt down my pants, so I had a table and performed.

Speaker 2:

Please tell me there's footage of this somewhere.

Speaker 1:

Oh God, no nobody had video cameras back then. I'm turning 45, like this was all just my family thinking that I was cuckoo, right like my brother. He's like six years older than me and a surfy and he, just like your brothers, he was like, what are you doing? Like no, I'm giving it ballet as a seven-year-old to. It's the final countdown. Yeah, in my lounge room they just were like you are. They didn't know what I was. It just I was a born performer, but they had no idea. So, yeah, the whole soundtrack of Cats I think I performed in my bedroom Every role, oh, my gosh.

Speaker 1:

So I did really want that and they put me on hold. And then they rang me like a few days later and they said, oh no, actually you it that much. But I was a little bit devastated and then I was like, oh fine, like just yeah, a little bit shook. I didn't go for too many musicals, I really wanted to dance and dance hard.

Speaker 2:

And at that time and that musical was Just Dance, just.

Speaker 1:

Dance, but there wasn't so many others at that time that were Just Dance I could sing I that were just dance I could sing. I enjoyed singing, but I enjoyed singing more for myself. I didn't love singing to other people. I did my lessons. I did everything that they told me that I needed to do. I remember Jackie really pursuing me and saying you could be this in the industry and you could be that. At that time I don't know if I really believed her Socially in Australia like it was still a fairly homophobic country and I remember when she was saying, oh, you could do this and you could do that, in my head I was thinking, oh no, I can't because I'm gay.

Speaker 1:

Which is such a strange thing when I flick back and look at that now. So the stuff that I didn't go for, I might have been able to and I might not have. Like it's such a different time now. People weren't out, People weren't. It's not like the world are now.

Speaker 1:

Like I think when kids come up and they talk about things now I just think, oh man, you're so lucky we were hiding off Chapel Street and Commercial Road when we were going home and we wouldn't walk home by ourselves because we thought we were going to get beaten up or I was pretty mouthy and could look after myself. But still it was a vibe, or you were careful to not say too much about it in the industry because you didn't know how some people would take it or wouldn't take it.

Speaker 1:

And yeah, it's so different to when you came through school to now, like it's not even a discussion at school. It was like a big thing to come out when you're when I was younger and now nobody gives a shit. So yeah, so, Cats and Friedrichsthal Palace in Berlin.

Speaker 2:

Nadia Tornes says what was your biggest fear as a dancer and what is your biggest fear now.

Speaker 1:

My biggest says what was your biggest fear as a dancer and what is your biggest fear now? My biggest fear was as a dancer is that I had no money, and my biggest fear now is probably still the same, because I completely looked after myself. When I left home. I was young and it wasn't in the greatest circumstances. I think I had a suitcase and I was like I'm out running away. I'd run away a couple of times I think you probably did, when I was training you as well and just yeah, I just landed on my sister's doorstep and was like okay. And she was like well, okay, I've got no money, you've got no money, what are you going to do? Like so I did what you did back then I went to Centrelink.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

You sign your papers, they give you money every week. Thank god we live in australia and you have those opportunities. They had like a salvation army food stamp thing. So I got the food stamps and got my food. And then I remember the first week I got my pay from from centerlink, I went and bought a pair of colorado boots. It's like the whole thing, the whole. Like I was living off maybe 200 a week and that was the boots and my sister was like so how are you gonna eat for the week? Like no realization, like literally had run away from home and yeah, like whatever I don't know.

Speaker 1:

So I I spent my whole time training, petrified of how I would pay my rent, could I afford that bill? Where was I going to get enough money to to eat or do the things that I needed to do? And schools like they are now, like I give lots of kids scholarships or I say to them if you can't afford something, you've got to get a job, and if you can't do that, you've got to go to Centrelink. Like I have that background. So I was constantly petrified of having no money and so that drove me as a dancer, and then I guess it's not as prevalent as it was. Now I'm a successful man, but it's still. I think it's driven me to be as successful as I am that fear that you know, if you don't have a wage, like you're done, todd, like no, I couldn't call on my parents to help me.

Speaker 2:

So I just had to yeah, that's good that you had that experience and now you can help students that were there or where you were. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

I find it humorous when a student says to me now I can't afford my fees, and I'm like, okay, well, where are you working? I don't have a job. I'm like, come back to me when you've got a job. Man, if you want to achieve something like I'm the worst person to say something like that too. I worked for every single thing that I had for the business. In my career I've never had any partnerships with the company. It's always been my money. The company it's always been my money. The houses that I bought it's been my own money, Everything that I've achieved by myself.

Speaker 1:

So when they come in and they want a freebie or a handout, I'm like Absolutely not.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely not. Yeah, bailey Nathan-Park put in what's he going to ask? Are you ever actually mad at the students, or is it all an act to encourage them?

Speaker 1:

I've been mad at him. I've been mad at him as a student and I've been mad at him as an adult. To be perfectly honest, I've been mad at you as a student, not so much as an adult. Yeah, I'm pissed at them, I get furious. It's never an act, I think I. I can't believe he would ask that. No, there's no act. It's unfortunately. I can't hide the way I feel, which is, I think, what some people really love about me. And I think it's what some people can't cope with or don't like about me, because if I think you're full of shit, I will call bullshit. Do you know what I mean? I was never the type of dancer that sucked up to the choreographer, whether I liked them or not, so I could get something. If I didn't like them, I just didn't like them. And if they didn't give me a job don't give me a job like I don't care. I couldn't fake it. I couldn't fake it in personal relationships, I couldn't fake it in friendships, and so I wouldn't fake it at school.

Speaker 1:

No, when I'm angry, yeah, with the students you're not as angry as you used to be, I think, though I don't have to push students as hard as I had to push them back then because people understand when they come to psa there's a certain work ethic, so that attracts people. So back in the day people would like, oh, I'm going to go and try that school. There wasn't social media, there wasn't big online presence, so they would see a performance and think, oh, that looks amazing, I want to learn to do that. But what they don't know is behind that is an incredible amount of effort and work ethic and discipline and passion and expectations. I have high expectations for what I want to achieve.

Speaker 1:

So you know, back then students couldn't meet those expectations of what I wanted them to do so that they could then have a successful career. Yeah, I was pissed off, but I don't have to do that as much now. I think I don't get as annoyed with work ethic. I get annoyed with other things, think I get, um, annoyed with other things in the industry really bother me and the final question actually is from stefan.

Speaker 2:

And he put in did you ever think psa and the alumni and the kids that you have now would actually get as big and as successful as they are now? And he also asked and how does it feel to now watch us grow from the first audition at PSA to now watching us in our dream shows? What's the first big did I think?

Speaker 1:

we'd be this big. Yes, I didn't think about it. I didn't think about it, I think, at the beginning I just really wanted to move. I mean, I didn't want to tell stories or any of that kind of naff stuff that people talk about. Like I, just to move. I liked how it felt to kick my legs and jump and turn and be exhausted and to sweat. That's why I wanted to do it and so in the room.

Speaker 1:

I wanted to do that and I wanted to pass it on and see other people's enjoyment out of being physical. I never had this goal that we had to be the size that we are now or had to achieve all those things. I just wanted to pass on information and train great people and give people opportunities and mentorship like I'd been given. I jumped on the bandwagon of people's dreams Like Ali was 14 and she was like I want to go to America, Todd, I want to go to Broadway, and I was like, all right, fuck, let's make that happen. What do we have?

Speaker 2:

to do. This is what we have to do.

Speaker 1:

This is what we have to do. And so we did that and she made that. Or, you know, mel was living in adelaide and I was like you're so talented. You just got to come to melbourne and she's like, well, I can't afford it. And I was like, that's fine, I'll deal with it, just get here. So she jumped in the car and she drove to melbourne and then I was like what do you want to do? She's like I don't know musicals great, we're gonna get you a musical jumped on that bandwagon, or sam dodds or nick, who said to me like I want to play bach in wicked and he was so close in australia and then it didn't happen.

Speaker 1:

And then, like 10 years later, he rang me and he was in the west end and he was like you're not going to believe this, I'm playing that fucking role. That's insane. So I jumped on the bandwagon and the train of what I needed to do to help these people achieve their goals and their dreams. And then, because it was, their positions in the industry became so prevalent and they became the artists and the people that they are. Everybody started to know who they are. So then they knew about the school. So it wasn't.

Speaker 1:

obviously I'm horrifically competitive with myself. Yeah, I don't know if I'm competitive with other people, but I'm really competitive with myself. I don't know if I'm competitive with other people, but I'm really competitive with myself. So if I produce and it's good, well then I want it to be better next year because I want to be better than myself. Or if I'm back in the day when I was doing kids competition routines, like I wanted them to win because I wanted them to win for us and for their, the way that they've worked.

Speaker 1:

So I don't know that I set out wanting it to be what it was, but I don't know that I set out wanting it to be what it was, but I don't know, it just happened. I just woke up one day and I was like, oh, this is all encompassing and a little bit suffocating and exciting and completely and utterly exhausting. Yeah, no, I don't think I would have 17 year old me, probably would have been bulgy enough to say I'm going to do that. Yeah, but if I'd have thought about the other side of that, which is how hard it is when something gets to the size that it is now.

Speaker 1:

And how exhausting it is and how it can impact all aspects of your life. Yeah, I think I would have done a few things a little bit differently. Right? And what was your second question of?

Speaker 2:

course, stefan has two questions. He said how does it feel to now watch us go from, you know, auditioning for psa to now actually living our dreams and being in shows? How does that feel, watching?

Speaker 1:

someone was teasing me the other day and said oh, you never cry, like I don't cry about sad things, like if someone dies, I'm like, okay, I'll deal with that. I really compartmentalize everything and oh, that's gone wrong. I have to deal with that. Like sad things or depressing things or upsetting things. Don't make me cry. The only thing that can make me cry is success.

Speaker 1:

Like when I watch a student be successful or achieve something that they've worked for, that's it. I'm like a blubbering mess, or like the Olympics or sporting events. Or, you know, watching a swimmer that I love in the Olympics succeed or Simone Biles in gymnastics or hockey, like anything. I'm so obsessed with sport If they win. Or I see a story like a hard luck story of an athlete or an artist who's had to work really hard and has suffered like heaps of setbacks or disappointment in their life and then they've eventually secured their goal. That would make me upset and that makes me cry. And that's like when I see any artist on stage. Like that gets me and it would choke me up. But generally, day to day, I'm not so emotional we've got a lot to do, for sure.

Speaker 2:

And then, just to finish, I would like to ask you is there any other piece of advice that you could give to performers that are just fresh out into the industry and looking to book their first show?

Speaker 1:

Just be patient and keep training. I think so many young artists sit at home and wait for it and just, it's not a reality. You don't sit at home and wait for it. You have to get up and do all of the classes. You have to go to the acting workshop, you have to be proactive and it's a team with your agency as well. It's as well as your school.

Speaker 1:

If you're involved in our school, you have this whole network of people that support you. Amazing. But it's a 50-50. Like I can't get you into the room and you be successful if you just finished your training and you went great, like I'm done now, because it's just not the way it is. If youin Rouge for two years and she's like Pilates and she's in everyone's class, I've seen her smashing out Mikey's classes and I've seen her smashing out Neville's classes and she won't do my class. She said no, but I'll get her there eventually. You just got to have respect for yourself. It's not. You're not respecting yourself or your product or your talent if you're sitting at home and thinking well, now I've done all my training at the ripe old age of 20 or 21 and now my agent's going to do it for me that it's not a possibility, and the end result shouldn't just be the first job you know what I mean.

Speaker 1:

you should go going as ensemble in in the cabaret world, in the classical world, in the musical theater world, and then you should have these aspirations of I want to be a resident choreographer, I want a role, or I want to understudy roles, or I want to be a DC. But for all of that it takes growth and it takes learning, like I still learn every single day. The kids come in and are showing me things, I think, even more in my 40s than when I was younger. They're showing me things now and keeping me up to date, and lots of different choreographers come in and I learn from them and I'm inspired by them.

Speaker 1:

So I just don't think that they should believe that when their training is done at that age, that they're done. Get your ass to class, man.

Speaker 2:

Get your ass to class. Get your ass to class. Well. If you have any other questions for myself or Todd, you can email us at info at the divecomau. Thank you, todd, for coming in.

Speaker 2:

Thanks, thank you all for listening in to another episode on the Dive. As always, if you feel like this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend and share the love. And if you have any questions for us, you can always email me at info at thedivecomau. We are here to help you and support you in your performing arts journey. Feel free to follow us on Instagram with the tag at thedivecomau. And, of course, go check out our amazing website, wwwthedivecomau, where you can find out free resources and lots of freebies there to kind of help you out and give you the structure, strategies, tips and techniques to help you get off the ground, help you create a foundation for your performing career. And, lastly, why not go and check out another episode? We have heaps of episodes now that you can go check out. And look at the title, look at some things that you may be dealing with. Click on the title and I'll see you on the next one.