Thread: Follow up on restaurant auditions

I don't post on here often, but I'm looking for a bit of advice.

I've been auditioning at clubs in NYC throughout the spring and summer, trying to get a regular gig. Last month I had a successful audition at a small hookah lounge. I performed a free set and the crowd was great - I got people up on their feet, and put on a nice show.

The owner of the club appeared to like me - had me stick around for a while, fed me, introduced me to all his regulars, and thanked me profusely for coming. He took several of my cards and told me he'd call me when he needed me.

It's been nearly a month now, and no communication. I may have been remiss because I have been busy working on other projects. However, I am wondering, is there something I missed in the communication? I am not yet the savviest person at working in the restaurant business, and am wondering if this audition was one of those plays that owners sometimes make at booking a dancer for free, when they don't want to pay their regulars.

I had a tremendous time performing there, and would love to do it again. My question is - given this situation, is it appropriate at this point to make a follow up phone call? Or is it best to drop this location and look for other possibilities?

Thanks for any and all advice!

Welcome to the oldest trick in the book - restaurant owner gets dancer to 'audition' by performing a show for free. Tells her how well she's done, never calls her again. In the meantime, the owner then gets another dancer to dance for free, then another, then another...

It's definitely worth contacting the restauranter to chase up further work - it's not pushy, it's showing enthusiasm. But if he's doing what I've outlined above, you may just have to chalk it down to experience and move on.

In future, don't ever agree to do a show for free. Get a demo DVD made up or, if they insist on a live audition, do it while the restaurant is closed, so that you're not providing their night's entertainment for free again.

I highly recommend networking with the local bellydance community or finding a mentor if possible, to help you make inroads without being taken advantage of. Good luck!

Hi Kat,
there is a New York yahoo group for dancers - "prodancers" I think- that might be a good place for you to start.
Jewelbellydance also made a good point - never give a free audition at a venue when there is audience there. They're just getting a free show.
I'd recommend taking classes from some of the wonderful teachers in NY and taking part in their haflas- the venue owners and other dancers will see you; a great way to start on the scene. :)

You just got taken for a ride. Never EVER EVER do an audition w/ customers in the house. EVER. Not unless he is going to pay you. You do your auditions in the morning when the place is empty, or you invite the owner to come and watch you dance somewhere else (where you are getting paid).

Please PLEASE PLEASE take Jewel and Samira's advice and go and hook yourself up with one of the local teachers/mentors/troupes, etc to learn from and make sure you aren't falling into these traps again.

Samira has a GREAT website here As does Shira right here both of these websites are great resources for new dancers... and I have to say they have helped me immensely!

Bottom line is you should never ever ever be doing anything for free. NOTHING. (Unless its a charity event or a contest) Thats the easiest and quickest way to become the "free dancer" in town that all the venues know about. You do NOT want to be known that way.

Make sure if ANY restaurant owner asks you to do an "audition" during business hours he is paying you the local rate and not a penny less.

i agree with jewelbellydance's advice...

also, speaking of tricks in the book, i found this article helpful when i started doing restaurants:
Top 20 Club Cliches

i hope that you find a gig where they treat you like a raqs star... good luck!!!

To play a little devil's advocate (though I don't necessarily think this applies to the situation in the O.P.), I think there may be some occasional appropriate exceptions to the "no live auditions with an audience" rule.

In some circumstances and markets, a dancer who is not a known quantity (e.g. a newer dancer looking to start dancing professionally etc.) may be asked to audition live...and it may need to be during open hours because that is when it can be arranged for both the owner AND his scheduling/lead dancer (who he wants to confer with) to both be there, and it may be preceded or followed by a short "interview." That has happened at certain restaurants in my town. **BUT** (and it's a BIG but) this is only appropriate if it is done at an off-peak time--say, an afternoon or possibly early on a week night evening at a time when there is normally no dancing and few customers, AND the dancer's performance is kept short--much shorter than a normal set. It shouldn't be a "free show"--just something designed to give the owner and lead dancer a realistic sense of what she's like in performance. (On a personal pref. note, honestly, many dancers represent better live than on video--or at least they're more "true" than on video--so when I'm involved in auditioning people, I'd rather see them live. I'll smile, and clap along and try to be a good audience to help get the best out of them, but good or bad, I'd rather see the "real McCoy"....)

Under most circumstances here, owners have been willing to trust the recommendations and reputations of pro/known dancers enough to at least give them "paid auditions" (as in, paying them to perform one night whether as a sub or as a one-time thing) and then deciding whether to keep them on, but these "live" auditions have proven a good foot-in-the-door for some young dancers who otherwise might not have had a chance.

I am another one who thinks auditions during business hours are fine. If I have to audition a dancer I expect them to come in on a night when there is not normally dancing and do a shortened set. I want to see how they interact with patrons, handle the spacing and the waitstaff moving around. I don't think you get a real feel for how they will perform in a restaurant setting when your sitting there with the owner watching them. It is unnerving for the dancer and unreliable in evaluating their skills in dealing with the unexpected.

While it may be ok, in limited circumstances, to dance during business hours for free for an audition...in this situation it does sound like you were taken for a ride. It's not the norm in NYC to have "free" auditions, and the NYC Pro yahoo group is a great place to go to if you have questions about what is and isn't normal. I know that it can be hard to find a mentor (my first teacher was anything but a good mentor, and by the time I left her I was already performing pro and not in a place to start looking for another pro to take me under her wing), but online groups are a great place to go in lieu of an actual person.

if there's an audition during business hours, it should be paid, period.....a recent venue i helped start dancing at does just that....someone comes in wanting to dance, the owner said, 'book her for a day, we'll see', her first performance night is intially a paid audition.........if he or, more importantly, the audience, don't like her, she doesn't come back........BUT, she gets paid for her time, they see how she is with an audience, and both sides get to see if it's a good fit......win/win

Im genuinely curious if other types of dance jobs audition for free, or are they paid?

I don't think there's pay to audition to be in something like a Broadway play, but the dancers aren't in full costume and there's no one watching other than the casting personnel.

If you have to put on a show in front of customers - like the kind you would normally be paid for - to audition, then you should be paid for your time. If not, a business that is profiting off the people watching you is taking advantage of the situation.

Originally Posted by miriamgamal

I don't think there's pay to audition to be in something like a Broadway play, but the dancers aren't in full costume and there's no one watching other than the casting personnel.

If you have to put on a show in front of customers - like the kind you would normally be paid for - to audition, then you should be paid for your time. If not, a business that is profiting off the people watching you is taking advantage of the situation.

exactly! auditions for plays and dance productions are informal, without audience, set, costumes, etc.............usually in street or practice clothes, and only using a monologue or 2-3 minute choreo, not a full production

what they're doing is getting a show for free, since you're putting on a costume, make-up, cutting music, and dancing for 20 min............if it's in front of customers, that's a show! and should be paid.........

ahhh, I see. Thanks for the info! :o) Back to the particulars of this situation... I don't think that the restaurant is always profiting off a dancers audition if it follows the guidelines I outlined earlier. However, I do think that the OP was definitely taken advantage of in this case.

Ladies, thank you all so much. It looks as if you're all acting as my conscience right now, because though I had a mentor who became very busy, I am looking at trying to find another close mentoring situation. It's ultimately a better (and less harrowing!) path to take. :) Many, many thanks for the words of wisdom!

I *do* agree that it sounds that the OP was probably being taken advantage of, that unpaid auditions are probably *not* appropriate in NYC, and likely not in some other markets, but Ruta, I have to strongly disagree with the idea that an unpaid audition is never appropriate. I think, as I said, in some places, under the conditions I described, they can be very appropriate.

I understand that in some areas (the DC area maybe?) there is a lot of work--sometimes almost more work than qualified dancers, but in other areas, that balance is shifted--there are many very skilled, highly trained dancers vying for a limited number of shifts...and always more many more interested dancers coming onto the scene.

Under the system you suggest, for a new up-and-coming dancer with no previous restaurant experience to get an audition at a restaurant, the restaurant owner would have to pay her to dance. That means either paying an "unknown quantity" to dance on a night they don't normally have dancing (which frankly, they're not going to do and I don't blame them--profit margins in the restaurant industry tend to be paper thin except for a small segment of the industry) OR scheduling her for a time when there normally is a dancer...which means taking away a potential shift from the pool of regular dancers who have already EARNED their spots in the restaurant...and you don't even know if the girl's going to be any good. That's not fair to the house dancers. Now, occasionally it does happen that a restaurant needs a sub because someone gets sick or there's a hole in the schedule, and occasionally someone gets a "paid audition" that way (that's often how more experienced dancers get paid auditions around here...), but many restaurants also already have established sublists, so sometimes new people need to find a way to get known/considered for that as well. Simply put, in these kinds of markets, scheduling/lead dancers and restaurant owners don't have the time or frankly the need to chase around town on weekend nights visiting haflas to see the live performances of dancers who are interested in working in restaurants to decide if they're good enough, but they're also not interested in paying someone they know nothing about, nor kicking an established dancer off her night for such a person. Still, they're interested in knowing about new talent, and new talent wants to be seen. A short, sweet, to the point audition.

And it's not totally unprecedented. There are circumstances with certain other types of restaurant/cafe/bar/venue entertainment where the entertainment is required to in some way demonstrate their ability in front of a live audience before they can expect to receive pay or at least the full pay they would normally expect. Much as we may prefer to think of ourselves like broadway dancers, in a restaurant the other is the more apt corrollary.