How to Get Started

One of the most common questions I get is, "How?"

How did I become a full-time performer living in Bel Air, doing six to ten shows a week? Or in other words, how did I create my dream life? When I started out, I would have loved a handbook to guide me along. Instead, I had to follow my gut and hope that it would move me somewhere. Thankfully, it worked and often it's impossible to fail if you do follow your gut. However, I can make things easier for you tell you in five easy steps how to begin:

1. Go To Shows

Sounds like an obvious thing to do, but sometimes the obvious things are easy to miss. The most important thing for an up and coming professional is to get exposure. In order to sell your brand, you need to know what's selling and what is marketable. Being present at shows allows you to see what good acts look like. They also help you understand what attracts the kind of audience you're looking to get. Moreover, being at the scene can provide the opportunity to meet the right people. Sometimes that's the show director, the dancers, bar manager, or maybe even someone in charge of a completely different show. The whole thing comes down to exposure.

2. Meet People

The more people you meet and the more friends you have, the more likely someone will remember you when they are trying to look for your kind of talent. When I started off, I began doing free or low-paying gigs. I found people I liked to be friends with and always tried to leave a good impression with whoever was in charge. To this day, I'll still get calls from random connections I've met overtime.

3. Diversify Yourself

When I began dancing, it was very clear that I was one of the worst. Out of all the people on my high school dance team, I probably had the least amount of potential to become a professional dancer. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was because I had no experience. My only competitive edge was that I could do flips. However, my aging body was already warning me that that wouldn't last for long. By lucky coincidence, I stumbled into the circus aerial arts and found my niche. To this day, I book more work than most of my friends who are technically trained dancers.  The reason why is because I do fire, aerial silks, lyra hoop, and pole on top of regular dancing. This allowed me to make myself ten times more marketable than the average dancer.

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Some times you need a powerful song to do powerful moves. ...don't play the sound if you don't like descriptive songs.

A post shared by Alyssa Mei Liu (@alyssameiliu) on Nov 30, 2018 at 5:03pm PST

4. Train Constantly and Consistently

Once you find your niche and your few skills that diversify you, it is essential to be training constantly. The competition is always growing and getting better. If you yourself are not, then you'll fall behind and lose your jobs to the new up and coming talent. Expand and grow. There's always more to learn. This also means you have to be willing to spend money. It's cliche, but spending money really does make money if you take the time to learn how to do it right. I've spent from $200 to $2,000 a month in training. But when I started, the most frustrating thing was trying to spend money I didn't have. I didn't have any gigs so how could I pay for training? The answer was that I had to maximize my time and do the things I didn't like first. I had to work a full time job and train at night. Then I had to work three shows in a night and work off of 5 hours of sleep. The reason so many people fail at becoming an artist is because they are not willing to put in the hustle and tough work required to succeed.

5. Understand Yourself: Body, Mind, Soul

And finally, the most important things about being an artist of any kind is understanding yourself. You have to know what your body is capable of and what looks best on you. You also need to have a deep understand of yourself and who you are. An artist that doesn't know who they are and simply copies the moves of another person will never excel or be memorable past a certain point. The only way to make a lasting impression is to find your own movement and skill that sets you apart. This comes from training but also from reaching deep within and learning how to express your soul. And that is what will separate you completely from any other artist.