What do you love and enjoy about arts administration?

I love the badass choreographers I work with! They pay such deep attention to the world around them. It's a different sort of mindfulness (or bodifulness) to commit to processing the world through the body and through dance. It inspires me to slow down, listen to and hone my own bodily and artistic instinct, and to take risks, because art is where new visions of the world are rehearsed. I also really enjoy grant-writing. I enjoy the challenge of working with the artist to find just the right way to communicate what the artistic project is and what it is trying to do. Clearly articulating what the art is and what it is doing holds the art accountable to the community it is coming from in a different way. Grant-writing has also broadened my perspective on where and how the artistic process can be "creative;" are our methods of outreach interesting? Is how we evaluate impact fun and relevant for the people involved? How can artistry infuse all aspects of the project, from the performance to the administrative details?

What skills or topics are you focusing on this year, as you continue to grow as an administrator?

Everything I do can stand to improve, and I'm grateful that the people I work with respect my opinion and ask me to try things I admittedly don't have a lot of experience in. So, with that, I am ALWAYS focusing on finding the best organizational/schedule model for each choreographer, understanding their timelines and priorities, using Excel and Quickbooks properly, and evaluating the role of social media and how much it really needs to be involved. Particular to this year, I've been focusing on how all aspects of a dance company can represent its values. Akin to what I described in my love of grant-writing, I am interested in how artists let all of their choices reflect their values–i.e., in addition to the art you put out in the world, how does your company's programming, partnerships, descriptive copy, graphic design, etc. support accessible, radical work? How do all of the details and administrative choices support your mission?

Advice to dancers who are interested in arts administration, but have little experience in it….where and how to begin….. 

What seems to have gotten me anywhere is offering what skills I have to people I respect ("Hi, my name is Julia. I like what you do. I write grants pretty well. If you ever want some help with that, let's meet up."), then following up, being kind and on time, and slowly offering to take on more work. I tell people (friends, family, teachers, person sitting next to me in the audience) what I do and what that entails so that if they or someone they know is on the hunt for an arts administrator, they have my name, face and skill set in mind. I do pro bono work for friends. I go see lots of different types of artistic work to learn about local presenters, spaces, programming formats, funding sources, and I keep programs as resources on language and what funding bodies are supporting particular kinds of work. "Administration" and what that entails means different things to different companies — my different "arts administration" hats have included website building and upkeep, production management, graphic design, research, copy-writer, and grant-writer among other duties — so while I think there are some good catch-all skills to have, I think solid "arts administration" is dependent on a mutual understanding of how  the relationship between administrator and artist/organization can support the art-making.