Kirsty Clarke: memories to treasure

Studied: Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts
Presently: Oper Graz in Graz, Austria.

What is your best memory of your full-time dance studies?

One of my favourite memories was a tour we undertook to Beijing, China as part of the International Creative Dance Seminar in 2017. This was during our second year of training, and we performed a new work choreographed by our head of classical training Kim McCarthy alongside pieces from several other schools from around the globe. In addition to the performance, we were also exposed to a variety of new dance styles and cultures through several workshops. The combination of these workshops, developing and restaging a new work and immersing ourselves in a completely foreign culture is an experience I’m truly grateful for and is one of the best memories I look back on in my three years of study.

What was one of the main life lessons you learnt through your full-time studies?

Time management and discovering my boundaries when it comes to how much work I can sustain before feeling overloaded. I found that during full-time study, a lot of different people can expect a lot of different things at once. Having various assignments, exams and classes in the study environment, as well as expectations from our personal lives and work commitments, can create a very busy and overwhelming schedule.

I learnt quickly that finding a way to complete tasks efficiently and arrange my time to maximise an organised, healthy lifestyle was very important and has helped me immensely in life outside of my studies. Balancing my job in the studio and my life outside of work can often be tricky when certain periods of rehearsal or performances are intense and immensely time-consuming, so the awareness of time management I developed during those years in full-time training has assisted me to keep busy periods as stress-free as possible.

The Full-Time Studies Guide is published in the July/August/September issue of Dance Australia. Buy from your favourite dance retail outlet or go here and never miss an issue!