Why this thought? I am in the midst of planning and implementing "The Master Plan" (and have been for the last several months). While I can't talk about "The Master Plan" just yet, I can talk a bit about the process and journey. What it has required is a lot of research into business models, promotion, communication, productivity - as well as ways to maintain passion, creativity, etc. And recently I have been thinking about the "concrete" vs. the "abstract" in terms of marketing and targeting - who is my audience? Who do I wish to attract?
But first back to those model airplanes. One of my older brothers built a lot of model planes in his younger days. Definitely not the most artistically gifted of the offspring, he still tried his best at building the planes from the most difficult kits. They might not have been the most highly-crafted examples of model planes ever, but he kept at it, and it taught him about attention to detail, patience, craftsmanship, not to mention aerodynamics on a miniature scale. And he didn't default back to the simpler kits just to get a quick end result that looked good. He wanted the nitty gritty DIY, he wanted to learn, and that involved the struggle for getting it done the hard way.
Now back to dance. The marketing/business parts of my brain is fascinated by what people chose to take - what sponsors pick out of my two dozen+ offerings to have at events, what sells out lightning fast in one area, and slow in another. Some of them cover very specific, concrete subjects: aka, Gothic or Steampunk bellydance, floorwork, twists and turns, stage presence - others sound more abstract in title ("Essence of the Dance", "Museum Quality" etc), but have concrete results. And while there is definitely overlap between who signs up for which workshops (especially since there are plenty of folks who sign up for whatever I'm offering regardless), I was pondering if there's a difference between those who are attracted to the neat concretely named workshops and those attracted to take the abstract-sounding ones.
And I think there is, to some extent. I think some dancers want to learn their dance like those snap-together model airplanes. To learn some ready-made combos and choreography, go out there and perform them, and add it to their resume'. Other dancers want to take the nitty-gritty approach. They want to make the dance their own, figure out what makes it (and them) tick, how do the parts become the whole? How to customize it with their own style? Balsa-wood bits and all.
Now, there's a fair bit of generalization involved there, yes I know. Concrete-sounding topics are often key opportunities to learn more about a specific subject, and the forever learning dancer will always take those if it piques their interest - they're up to expand their knowledge, try something new. But I do wonder about a certain amount of fear factor involved with abstract topics.
So I'll ask you - what do you like to take? What piques your interest? What draws you to take a workshop or not? Why?
