Bollywood Dance London

Artistic Director:Nileeka

Artistic DirectorWithin the company of Bollywood Dance London (BDL) Nileeka is the Artistic Director. Nileeka’s role is to manage the artistic side of the company and also to manage bookings for courses. She also choreographs, teaches and performs when necessary. Each day can vary depending on if Nileeka has public classes or private teaching to fit into her day, but mostly it will consist of marketing and networking at some point. BDL is a fairly new company and has a lot of administrative duties to fulfil at this stage whether that is getting listed on a website, getting a slot in an editorial etc. On top of that BDL is organising two big events next year so Nileeka also has to have that planned into her agenda in the week. Generally days can get quite unstructured unless she has goals and has planned her time well.

I choose to pick Nileeka’s job role because when researching and talking to some of the team at BDL Nileeka’s role as the Artistic Director is the one that interested me the most. The role of the Artistic Director is something that would fascinate me in being apart of within the Performing Arts Organisation. Dancing is a hobby of mine and to be able to take it on as a future career would be magnificent. Nileeka’s role inspired me and helped me understand how challenging the organisation can get.

The qualifications that you would need

to be an Artistic Director would be:

Teaching and training skills

Management skills

Effective communicator

Must be able to work under deadlines

Past experience teaching

Performing and Choreographing

University degree in a related field of study

Experience in managing a theatre or

performing arts venue

A lot of this is down to experience and

how fast you can cope with new

information and situations.

Nileeka previously trained at Pineapple

Performing Arts School, The Spotlight

School of Dance and attended courses

at the Sylvia Young Theatre School,

She was well equipped for her role

in Bollywood Dance London.

“I see from your resume you have a black belt

in Artistic Director.”

What training is

available to the job?The training is all self-learning. You have to take your own initiatives to keep up

to date with teaching trends and what is going on in the industry. Having

contacts in other dance companies and keeping good relations with dance

studios helps a great deal. You can then see what trends are emerging and be

quick to educate yourself on why they are happening.

All organisations have someone above them that they report to in

order to give feedback on how well the organisation is or is not

doing. Nileeka who is the Artistic Director of Bollywood Dance

London has a business partner, therefore she reports back to her.

Nileeka reports back many things to her business partner such as

performance feedback and progression feedback

For Nileeka the pay is tough, this is because BDL are a self-based

organisation that funds for itself through self savings, investments and

loans. Furthermore as Bollywood Dance London is in their first year of

business it means that Nileeka is getting minimum pay, due to most money

being put towards expenses such as advertising and marketing. However

once Bollywood Dance London has become more recognized and

developed, there will be more money coming into the business and

therefore money can be distributed equally between employees.

Nileeka finds it a promising choice being part of a Trade Union. Currently she

is with Equity, which is the UK’s trade union for professional performers and

creative practitioners. Equity is known and respected nationally and

internationally for the work they do, and on behalf of their members working

across all areas of the entertainment industry. Nileeka finds it very helpful

being part of a trades union as Equity supports them by negotiating their terms

and conditions including fee structures with all kinds of employers and

employer’s groups.

Nileeka has to sometimes work with demanding clients, she has tight

deadlines, and multitasking is mostly necessary. Having an abundance

of choreography to learn, personalities to manage, and balancing work

and social life – sometimes her social life becomes her work life!

For Nileeka her career is definitely what she makes of it. She believes

if you want to make dance your life, you can end up not achieving

much, however if you want to make it a business, you really have to

think about how to make your talents work for you and you won't

always be doing the creative stuff you want to!

Bollywood Dance London

is probably the biggest cross-

over dance company in the

sense that their clientele are 50-

70% non-Asian. They bring

Bollywood Dance to the masses

by having a Central London

location, a mixed performance

troupe and an easy-to-follow

class format. Bollywood Dance

tells a story and with each

class, teachers explain that to

their students, no matter their

background!

being an artistic director of BDL comes along with a high demanding responsibility, as nileeka has to make judgements upon auditions for dancers and choreographers that wish to join BDL. She also must ensure she picks the right people for the job so that they can bring in a more effective service to customers. As Nileeka has been trained in several different styles of dance, its here responsibility to ensure which dance suits which people best as well as ensuring it is made easy for customers to learn the unique dance routines. The generic issue that Nileeka may face with this is the fact that people are spending less due to the recession and other financial problems, therefore it is important that Nileeka and her team promote BDL as much as possible do that customers are aware of their tailored services. This way they possibly attracting every customers they possibly can.