While we are on the lookout for new practitioners to join our team for our Delight in Dance: Heroes vs Villains project, it felt like an ideal moment to share more information about Made By Katie Green’s commitment to being a ‘Freelancer Friendly’ organisation.
I started to put this statement together a long time ago in response to Arts Council England’s Creative and Cultural Freelancers Study published in 2024, but ironically the day to day reality of life as a freelance artist has meant it has taken a while to get it online!
Made By Katie Green is a small dance organisation working on a project-by-project basis. We don’t have core funding, and have a very small team, but it is important to us to try to support freelancers really well.
I wanted to start to draw together the key points of what ‘Freelancer Friendly’ practice means for us, but the following is offered as the beginning of a conversation rather than an exhaustive list, and we hope to keep evolving this practice over time.
Why work with freelancers?
- The Opportunities
Working with freelance artists, practitioners, creative collaborators and professionals is at the heart of our practice. These individuals can draw from the wealth of their experiences when they’re involved in a creative process or new project and we benefit from this. Freelancers can be the most organised, professional, creative thinkers because they are required to juggle so many things as part of their portfolio careers. They are open to thinking flexibly about ways of working that might involve a combination of different kinds of activity, and they are sensitive to the needs of others in all working relationships.
It is an ongoing process for us to try to find the right conditions for working effectively with a range of collaborators. We are constantly developing this approach to hopefully be more equitable for everyone, and we learn a lot from our freelance collaborators about how to do this better. Sometimes, and perhaps more now than ever, we face financial constraints as an organisation, and not all of the options that we would like to have in place are available to us, particularly in terms of being able to offer paid opportunities for professional development. However, we are constantly striving towards an ideal situation in which all of these elements are in place.
Five ways we support freelancers:
- Being respectful - taking care of each other and creating a safe space for collaboration
- Putting in place equitable practice
- Communicating clearly
- Working flexibly/cooperatively
- Offering opportunities for professional development
Some examples of how we put this into practice include:
- Being considerate and accessible in application/audition processes
When we have opportunities to meet new artists who are interested in our ways of working, we aim to create application/audition processes that are safe and which make people feel welcome. When we hold auditions we try to only invite a smaller shortlist of people with whom there seems to be greater likelihood of a match for a particular project (or for a future project), as we’re really conscious of the time we’re asking of people to attend an audition. We run the audition like a professional development workshop as much as possible, so the people involved feel like they come away with something as well.
Where there are tasks or questions involved, we share those in advance with all participants and also try to give some sense of why we’re asking those questions or what we’re trying to find out from the tasks.
We try to cover travel expenses for those attending wherever possible and we will offer feedback on the process for those who ask for it. Sometimes it’s very hard to give feedback as it’s clear that everyone in the room could do the job brilliantly, but there are nuances around how the cast might work together, or someone might just have more experience than someone else, which is hard for someone to do anything about! But by being honest and transparent about the thought processes involved, we’re being respectful to the time someone has contributed to be there, and showing that we have taken notice and taken care.
After an audition process, we’ve found in the past that just having a sense of who is out there and interested in the work can also lead to us also offering other new projects to people who we’ve seen, recommending dancers to other people, or sharing callouts from other companies with the group of shortlisted artists, so hopefully it feels like the audition isn’t something in and for itself, but the beginning of a relationship.
- Accommodating what people need in order to feel free to create their best work
We are always trying to find better ways of working together within our team, including regular ‘check-ins’ and creating a safe space to share relevant information about the accommodations members of the team might need on a daily basis. This means our collaborators feel supported to do their best work, which impacts on the quality of our work overall and of our interactions with our participants and audiences.
- Being clear and working around other commitments
We try to be as open as possible when sharing potential opportunities coming up for example, and the dates/terms of the work/what will be expected.
We endeavour to be clear (and flexible) when these are provisional, and when they are confirmed we will put in place a letter of agreement so that both parties know what is expected of them. It feels like it is increasingly challenging to be able to offer confirmation about a schedule with good notice, especially as we collaborate most frequently with partners who are not regularly programming dance/theatre events, and sometimes things are changed at relatively short notice. We recognise that the process of pulling together a programme requires patience and understanding from all parties involved, and will do whatever we can to bring all the pieces together in the best way. We will never expect artists to hold large blocks of unconfirmed dates for us, but will try to maintain an open exchange of information about availability so that we’re in a good position to find dates that work when opportunities arise. We often try to double- or even triple-cast our regularly touring pieces, so that there are several dancers who could be called on to perform a role where necessary.
- Offering development opportunities
We try to open up opportunities for our collaborators/other freelancers where possible e.g. sharing details of company warm up classes where we have space in the studio, or training that others could opt into. We are committed to sharing our learning about new ways of working with a view to supporting others to launch their own projects that could build on that learning. On a more personal case-by-case basis, we respond when other people (e.g. other artists) get in touch to ask questions, or to enquire about shadowing opportunities for example, even if it’s just to say ‘I’m sorry I’m really busy but please bear with me and I will come back to you’.
If collaborators require additional development/resources for work undertaken while they are with us, we will cover or contribute to the cost of enabling them to put those in place as appropriate.
- Be social
Taking breaks, cooking and eating together are really important during rehearsals, teaching and touring; a time to unwind and check in. We celebrate each other, we listen, we are each other’s support networks when we need to be, when we’re in a creative process together and when we’re working with other people.
Wherever possible, we try to have opportunities to get together outside of the working process. This can be very hard to orchestrate given everyone’s schedules, but it’s so valuable for building a sense of community, when being a freelancer can sometimes seem very isolating.
We would welcome your thoughts about other things to add to this list (contact katie (at) madebykatiegreen.co.uk) and will keep honing these 'Freelancer Friendly' guidelines in the future.