Thread: Putting your best interview face forward

Background:

I work with The Afet Collective, a group of 7 international dancers who put on charity shows here in Japan to benifit a women and children's shelter. We wouldn't exist without the brain of Eshe ( who now resides in South Korea) and her amazing publicity and organizational skills.

The charity work nature of what we do, and some personal connections, have meant that we've done 3 rounds of email interviews and have gotten some very good press.

One round of interviews led to nothing, but that was for the best because that man was all about "The sexuality of bellydance" and seemed to be pointing all his questions towards that point and we weren't going to allow him to go there. He had a few horrid questions about how that sexuality clashes with the non-expressive nature of Japanese people (I know, WTF? We have Japanese members and we don't buy into racial stereotypes of who can or can't dance and emote!!!) I am glad those interviews didn't go anywhere.

Eshe and I have been e-mailing a little bit about the latest rounds of questions, her wonderful partner is a freelance writer and I know that they'll be working together to help us as a group better understand how to tailor our replies so that can we defend ourselves from interviewers who are not as respectful as him and who WILL want to take things out of context and slant the story in the future..just in case...you never know. I'm looking forward to it.

The topic:
So, we all know how we collectively cringe at most articles on bellydance. If we do an interview we worry about how our words will be used once they leave our mouths ( if not, we should be worried)...and I'd imagine that a majority of us worry about our own weaknesses in speaking articulately...but I've never seen us talk about how to prepare yourself for an interveiw (verbal or written!)

And I think we should talk about it. Our words represent us when our dance can't be seen. Our words can shape what people have seen or help them figure out what they want to see or can expect from belly dance.

What do you do to prepare? Do you review articles you've liked and hated in the past from other people? Do you prepare some general guidelines for how you'll react to anticipated questions? Do you practice answers?

What do you wish you could have done differently in the past, and what tips would you like to share?

excellent topic

I have spoken in public for charities that have worked for in the past. I had several talking points wriiten down for some of the harder questions that I just knew were going to be asked as well as for the points that I was determined to make. Other than that..I spoke about my passion for the charity with passion. I dont know how a written interview might work, but I feel that if they want you to put your thoughts into a written record, they should supply with the questions beforehand so you can properly prepare.

It also helps to give a little bit of written info to the interviewer ahead of time. Sometimes they take text directly from a bio or other info you provide which may mean that they use your wording rather than making up their own (not always, but a lot of times writers/press have deadlines and they will use what info/text is readily available).

I don't know how much I can chat about preparation, per se, but I did recently have an interesting informal interview that wound up in the newspaper. And I have to say that I'm glad I have a good head on my shoulders and can think quickly about how things can be misconstrued.

This particular journalist was writing a piece on bellydancing as a profession. I posted the link to the article here on Bhuz, actually. The beer-belly dancer. Anyway, when he "interviewed" me (I say that loosely because it wasn't a formal sit down sort of thing...) he kept obsessing on the "male bellydancer" thing. Not that I have any issues with male bellydancers, but it isn't representative of most professional bellydancers...so it was truthfully, a bit off topic.

He must have asked me at least 3 different questions about male bellydancers and even went as far as to say "So would you say that there are no professional male bellydancers in Vegas because nobody wants to watch a guy do bellydancing?" *sheesh* talk about trying to put words in my mouth!!!

I said "NO! I wouldn't say that at all. I WOULD say that the general culture surrounding male bellydancing in Arabic clubs is not supported; however, if more American women saw artists such as Jim Boz, Tito, & Karim Nagi they would be clamoring to see them."

That kind of shooshed it with the journalist. I think he got my point. And I have to say that I was 100% relieved that he didn't dwell on the male bellydancer angle for long in the article.

Anway...I've rambled a bit. But I'll be watching this thread to see what others come up with.

Someone mentioned providing background, above. I think that's an excellent suggestion. A while back I did an email interview about bellydance and fitness, for a women's health magazine. The article was well written and didn't misquote me. But they didn't ask me any questions about history, and then pulled some spurious info off a website to intro the interview part of the article...you know the sort of thing - "done by women as ancient fertility rituals", etc. In the article, it appeared as though I'd also given this info.

So, I've now learnt that it's better if I provide what I consider an acceptable version of background - history, modern day bellydance, etc. - as any written article is likely to use some of that info.

I also think that having a few 'key points' that you want to get across is a good idea. (That's what politicians do, no matter what the questions, they just refer to their key messages!)