Julian MacKay: Advice for Young Dancers and Musicians - “Embrace Uncertainty!”
Julian MacKay. Photo © Nicholas MacKay
Julian MacKay is a principal ballet dancer, but the worlds of classical dance and classical music have a lot in common. Both aspiring dancers and musicians start their training from a young age, often within the context of highly selective, competitive schools. Competition and uncertainty are an intrinsic part of the training process, as is the camaraderie with friends who share the same passion and aspirations. Here are Julian’s words of advice on how to navigate your way to the top:
Find the Right Fit
From a young age, Julian has been on the move to maximise his growth as an artist. But the decision to leave home to train in a different town, or country, should never be taken lightly: “I think the most important thing is finding the right place and the right fit for you. Because you can work in a big company or go to a big school, and it cannot be the right fit for you: you can be forgotten or looked over and because of that, it doesn’t work out. Same thing can happen in a small company or a small school, so I think it is very important to find the right people that you feel you can trust with that kind of guidance.”
Build a Healthy Approach to Competition
It is crucial to develop a healthy, constructive relationship to the talent surrounding you. At the Bolshoi Ballet Academy, Julian quickly developed an ability to structure his work strategically: “When I started off at the academy, I had an initial entry exam grade of a three (out of five) which is passable, but definitely not good. The thing that I realized: there is a lot of talent around me, a lot of people that have phenomenal bodies, or really good work ethic, but sometimes, people would lose focus, or they wouldn’t necessarily put in the extra five minutes after every class, the little kind of moments. My strategy was always: I’m going to work hard but trying to do it smart. If it’s a smart idea to push five minutes more, I would always do that. I think that’s how I coped with a lot of it, because there is always someone better than you. Even now, I’m surrounded by wonderful dancers I’ve looked up to since I was a kid. I think as an artist, you try, on the one hand, to stay very competitive, because you know: the more you can compete, the more you grow. But on the other hand, try to learn to accept your strengths and what you are good at. Try and build that more unique side of your dancing, your art form.” For Julian, it is still the same joy of dancing that he felt in those first variation classes at school that keeps him going: “I really loved it, I wanted to do it. That doesn’t mean that it works out today or tomorrow, but it means that I won’t give up on that goal.”
Embrace Uncertainty
TWoA asked Julian what he wished somebody had told him while he was still a student. For him, the biggest challenge has been to accept and embrace uncertainty: “One of the things everybody deals with, and definitely one of the things that I dealt with, has been the fact that when you are on this road, this journey of a dance career, there are all these moments that you can have a lot of self-doubts, because - you don’t know: you don’t know if this coach is telling you the right thing, you don’t know if the performance was good, you don’t know if you are on the right path in general to get to the goals you want to get to. Maybe you don’t even know what the goal is, you are just hoping to make it through the day. For me, especially when I was younger, if I would have been able to believe in that a little bit more, I would have been a lot calmer throughout the entire process, because it’s such an adventure and you never know where these things are going to lead you. I definitely had that mentality that I was going to make it and that I just needed to work hard and figure things out, and kind of be smart about it, and it will be ok. But there were so many moments, honestly, there were so many moments, where you don’t know the next step. Sometimes, embracing the fact that no one knows, and that it is ok that you are on a journey and the next step is scary (and maybe you don’t know the next step), that is something that I’ve gotten a lot more comfortable with, and almost used to. Now, if there is a show that I have and I’m really stressed out about it, that’s the first thing that I remember: it’s the next step, and that’s how life is.”
Click here to read an interview with Julian.
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