This week on the podcast is part two of our interview with Dominic Moore-Dunson. He’s an award-winning professional dancer, producer, teaching artist and speaker. Dominic is the co-founder of Moore-Dunson Co., a holding company committed to producing companies and brands helping its clients unlock their stories. As an artist, he’s in the 2023 Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” list; a Top 40 finalist for the National Dance Project Grant; a 2019 Jacob’s Pillow Choreography Fellow; and a 2019 Cleveland Arts Prize Winner. He unravels the unique challenges of running a nonprofit, the flexibility an LLC offers, and the dance between his roles as a performer and a creator.
Artists and creatives often shy away from embracing entrepreneurship, a notion Dominic challenges head-on. Our conversation traverses through the evolving demands of the modern world that necessitates artists to take on entrepreneurial roles, often frowned upon by traditional mentors. We lay bare the fear of the 'hustle culture' and the risk of being branded a 'sellout', while emphasizing how an entrepreneurial approach can uplift the artistic community and build an engaged audience.
Capping off this enlightening episode, Dominic shares his wisdom on preserving artistic integrity while creating marketable art. He divulges key insights into community engagement, resonating projects, and revenue streams beyond mere performances. Listen in as Dominic candidly shares his journey towards embracing the entrepreneurial spirit, and underscores the importance of authenticity in art. A must-listen for any artist grappling to harmonize their creative vision with financial survival.
This week on the podcast is part two of our interview with Dominic Moore-Dunson. He’s an award-winning professional dancer, producer, teaching artist and speaker. Dominic is the co-founder of Moore-Dunson Co., a holding company committed to producing companies and brands helping its clients unlock their stories. As an artist, he’s in the 2023 Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” list; a Top 40 finalist for the National Dance Project Grant; a 2019 Jacob’s Pillow Choreography Fellow; and a 2019 Cleveland Arts Prize Winner. He unravels the unique challenges of running a nonprofit, the flexibility an LLC offers, and the dance between his roles as a performer and a creator.
Artists and creatives often shy away from embracing entrepreneurship, a notion Dominic challenges head-on. Our conversation traverses through the evolving demands of the modern world that necessitates artists to take on entrepreneurial roles, often frowned upon by traditional mentors. We lay bare the fear of the 'hustle culture' and the risk of being branded a 'sellout', while emphasizing how an entrepreneurial approach can uplift the artistic community and build an engaged audience.
Capping off this enlightening episode, Dominic shares his wisdom on preserving artistic integrity while creating marketable art. He divulges key insights into community engagement, resonating projects, and revenue streams beyond mere performances. Listen in as Dominic candidly shares his journey towards embracing the entrepreneurial spirit, and underscores the importance of authenticity in art. A must-listen for any artist grappling to harmonize their creative vision with financial survival.
Welcome to the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast. Making Art Work. We highlight how entrepreneurs align their artistry, passion and vision to create and pursue opportunities to capture value in the arts. The views expressed by guests on the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the podcast or its hosts. The appearance of a guest on the podcast, the venture they represent or reference to any product or service does not imply an endorsement or recommendation by the podcast or its hosts. The content provided is for entertainment and informational purposes only and does not constitute business advice. Here are your hosts Andy Heise and Nick Petrella.
Andy Heise:Hi Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast listeners. My name is Andy Heise and I'm Nick Petrella.
Nick Petrella:We're excited to have Dominic Moore-Dunson with us today. He's an award-winning professional dancer, producer, teaching artist and speaker. Dominic is the co-founder of Moore-Dunson Company, a holding company committed to producing companies and brands, helping its clients unlock their stories. As an artist, he's in the 2023 Dance Magazine's 25 to Watch List, a top 40 finalists for the National Dance Project Grant, a 2019 Jacobs Pillow choreography fellow and a 2019 Cleveland Arts Prize winner. Please see his website link in the show notes to learn more about Dominic and the variety of activities he offers to the dance community and beyond. Thanks for coming on the podcast, dominic.
Dominic Moore-Dunson:Thanks man.
Andy Heise:So was there a point in your dance career when you realized that you were acting or needed to act as an entrepreneur?
Dominic Moore-Dunson:Yeah. So I guess that was a dancer for 10 years, and so I got married in 2018 to my wife, who I've known since I was 16, through high school three-arts, and when we got married, I was in the dance company. I was like, yeah, I'm doing this thing, and we were like we need money, we're struggling. So at the time, I was making $230 a month. That was one of the senior dancers in the company and so my wife took a second job and she was like leaving the house at 7.30 am and coming home until 9.30 pm. And it's the moment when we got pregnant with our first child. I was like yo, I can't do this anymore. And I had started getting so upset and so bitter during my last couple of seasons there, because I just felt like I wasn't in control of my ability to bring money into my home and I was like this can't be the way. This is right. I was like I have to put my destiny into my own hands when it comes to providing for my family. So I quickly realized and it was a really hard decision like I can't be a dancer in somebody else's company. I can't spend my time bringing someone else's dreams to life, and so I think it was between that and then, yet, like I said, like being in the company and watching the executive director at the time in some ways, like struggle to figure out how to balance the business and the art you know what I mean and then realizing like, well, that's partly because you're running this nonprofit, the sector is asking you to do things that you don't need to be doing to accomplish the things that you actually want, right? And then ending up in like a lot of these national cohorts and these things like that, and continuously that same theme Artists starting nonprofits spending all their time talking about, like, how do I build a board? I'm like, well, do you want to build a board? No, I want to make my artwork. So then, why are you building a board? Like this is something that makes sense, right. And so I think I realized between those two things that, like, being an entrepreneur is the pathway because it just it allows you to make decisions for yourself and be flexible in those decisions. So then, as the market changes, you can just move to what the market needs.
Dominic Moore-Dunson:Yeah, and it's just. Like you know, sometimes it's easier. You know, I understand that. Like when you create a bigger boat. Right, the wake is such that you can make a greater impact on society, which respect all day. But speedboats move faster, right, you're right. Like, and at least for me in this season of life, I need to be on a speedboat, right, I need to be able to be flexible and moving, go where I want you. So then, if I decide one day I want to create a bigger boat, I'll do that, but I'll have all these skills Not trying to build a bigger boat. I've never built a boat before.
Andy Heise:You know Well, and the other part too, that I think people miss when they say, oh, I need to, I need to form a nonprofit to do this, is like when you do that, you you might not own the thing that you're creating Exactly. Exactly Because you have to be very careful about the position right, Because, yeah, by default, you don't own it. If it, if it's through the nonprofit right Exactly Versus if you're doing it as a, as a sole proprietor and, you know, as a LLC, your creation is yours.
Dominic Moore-Dunson:Exactly. Yeah, and you just yeah. You have to be really careful early on in the bylaws. But I go back to do you know how to make bylaws Exactly. If you don't know that you're looking for that, like you might put yourself in a position that's just you know, not in the greatest space in the end.
Andy Heise:So again, not what you intended to your point. It's not. This is not what I actually set out to do. Right, right, right.
Nick Petrella:So yeah, and you can. You can still have a board, you can have advisors, you can still have an informal still yeah with Greg.
Andy Heise:Yeah, and go find, to your point, go find yourself a fiscal sponsor, if the grant, if grants do make sense.
Nick Petrella:Exactly. It's my understanding that dancers typically begin dancing and then move into choreography as they get older. I know you do both, so how do you manage those roles?
Dominic Moore-Dunson:Yeah. So when it comes to being a choreographer and being a dancer, I am in this interesting point where, like part of the reason like I'm going to be furrow furrow, part of the reason dancers, when they become choreographers, still dance, is because you ain't got the money to pay more dancers, so you need to use yourself, right? That's like that's how it starts, right? But I've gotten to a place in my business where I don't have to dance and things all the time anymore. And the other part is that my artworks got into a place where I think it actually suffers when I'm in it because I'm not on the outside looking at it 100% of the time. So I have to do this weird juxtaposition where, like, I have a camera in the studio somewhere just on the entire time and then I'm in the piece like doing the stuff, and then I gotta go home and watch like two hours of film. Basically, like I feel like I'm on a football team, right, but trying to figure out like, how to do stuff and I gotta type all these notes and it's just creating more work at this point. Then if, like, I can just pay dancers and I can sit on the outside, now I can see things the whole time and I only have to record for the time in which I need it to record and all of a sudden things get easier. So part of it is like I'm looking out my career in a way. I'm privileged enough to be like how can I work more efficient now? And if I want to dance, that's an intentional choice, right? Not because I have to and now I'm just doing all this extra work.
Dominic Moore-Dunson:But in the other part that's really hard at this point is like I'm not a company dancer anymore, right? So I don't have people teaching me class anymore. I don't have to go in the studio if I don't want to, right? So there's like. There's a self-discipline of like no, take your butt into that studio, get in there and warm up, right, keep yourself limber in all the things you need so you can dance.
Dominic Moore-Dunson:But going back to like the difficulty of the two is like when you become a choreographer, your brain is working differently than when you're a dancer. When you're a dancer, you're just thinking about the details of what somebody told you and trying to figure that out. As a choreographer, you're literally making something that hasn't existed before. So sometimes what ends up happening is like you're the last one to really get your role good, because you're trying to make sure everyone else is good first and then you figure out your stuff. So it's a balancing act, right, it's a balancing act that I think I've gotten really really good at, but I'm in the place now where it's time to start transitioning to like no, I'm a choreographer and sometimes I dance right.
Andy Heise:You know, as I talked with artists and creatives, oftentimes they don't identify as entrepreneurs, even though they are acting as one. They're doing the things that entrepreneurs do. I'm curious to know your perspective on that. Why do you think there is sort of this reticence to accept or identify as an entrepreneur? And I guess even furthermore, like is it even important that an artist or a creative identify as an entrepreneur, as they're doing the things they want to do?
Dominic Moore-Dunson:No, I think that artists have such a hard time feeling like people take them seriously as artists. To call them anything else feels like an insult, right, they're like I'm just trying to create art. That's all I want to do in life, right, and it's hard enough to go home at Thanksgiving and be like yeah, I do this. And people would not be like where are you actually going to do for work? Right, like, so it creates this like resentment towards anything else except the word artist, because you're like that's what I've trained to do my entire life, that's what I want to do, right. And the other part, frankly, is like. We have a lot of mentors, especially from the 20th century, like in terms of like, when they were in the prime, who talked to us about your job is duty of the art. Go find a business person. And the thing I always say is like in 2023, that's a pretty short-sighted thing to say right, like I don't have money to just go pay a business person. Like to just run my business for me so I can be in the studio and like be some like creative genius. Right, like, I have to do both Now. At this point, both also are doing this cool thing where they're starting to inform each other, which you know, it's a whole another thing. But we have all the our mentors telling us not to do it too. So between like being like I want to be an artist and then your mentor saying, confirmation, just being an artist, it's really hard to get people to be like you're not apreneur.
Dominic Moore-Dunson:I think in today's world too, part of the resistance to it is some of the imposter syndrome. Like I didn't go to business school. I don't know, I'm not good with numbers. Like I'm not. Like we've decided what an entrepreneur looks like, right, and I hate to be the like yell at the cloud social media guy, but like you know, we know how like hustle culture is with social media, right, like entrepreneurs are like super dapper. Right, their hair is always done real nice. Right, they got nice offices, they got two vacations a year, four day work weeks. Like like what we've decided an entrepreneur looks like being an artist doesn't look like that. Yeah, so we're like well, there's obviously space between these two experiences, and if that's what an entrepreneur is, I'm obviously not that. So I think that's some of it and I think the other part of people people are afraid to enter this space of entrepreneurship because I think people are afraid it's what takes over. People are afraid it's what takes over your time. And people are afraid of being called a sellout.
Dominic Moore-Dunson:Right, like, there's a dance company in our country named Momix. Momix was started by a choreographer who was with another company called Palablas, which was very, very famous for, like, their partnering and stuff. So when he disbanded, he became a for-profit entity using Momix. Right, so he was having investors. The same way Cirque du Soleil has investors into their shows. That's what he decided to do and his shows are big and massive and beautiful. And there is some like it's different when you have producers who are like I don't like that. Right, that's different than a nonprofit thing where you're literally the only one who can say I don't like that. So, no, his shows weren't as artsy anymore, right, but he was making bank, but then he's a sellout.
Dominic Moore-Dunson:It knows to be called a sellout either, right, like people wanted to be respected by their fellow peers and as soon as you start making too much money and people were like, well, you're not serious about the art and now you're afraid how that's going to affect your trajectory, your artistic career, because if you've got people saying they're about the money, man, they ain't really about the art.
Dominic Moore-Dunson:Even if that's not true, all of a sudden, when you send out those grants nationally and those people know you or have heard of you and they're on the decision committee of who gets the grant and you don't get the grant just because you make money, that's like all those things start swirling in your brain and you're just like you know what. Let me just not right. You know, those are things I think about, I don't care, but those are things to think about. Like OK, I could get to a point where people will say no, because they're like well, he doesn't need this, though he makes money, he doesn't need this grant, he could pay for it himself, right, and that's a very real thing. Like just bias, that's very true. I think people are afraid of that too.
Nick Petrella:Yeah, the sellout comment is very frequent and it's really short-sighted, because you know what? It's just a change in customer segments. But the fact that you can maybe meet people at a different level and help grow the audience, everybody benefits. Yes.
Dominic Moore-Dunson:Yep, rising tide brings up all boats. Yeah, that's right. If I'm making work that has a lot of people in our region coming to see dance. When you make dance, guess what More people are going to see it because they're like oh, I like dance, right.
Dominic Moore-Dunson:But people still have this kind of like siloed, like competitive nature about like who's going to be the next Martha Graham, who's going to be the next genius in the field, right, which I think that's also a part of it, right. Like there's this hierarchical where everyone's trying to climb this ladder and the people can decide that you don't get to go up because you make too much money or you figure something out in your sellout, then they'll do that to get where they need to go. But I think there's all these factors, that kind of like organically turn into this ball of why people don't want to be called an entrepreneur, because some of it's I don't feel like I'm one of those people, because those people are special people and I'm not special. Or I do know how to do that, but I'm going to keep it on the low because I don't want to be judged that I know how to do this.
Nick Petrella:Yeah, well, for sure, you said some pretty astute things earlier in your answer, dominic. What are some barriers to entry for others who want to do what you do?
Dominic Moore-Dunson:Information. I think it's a lot of information. Kind of what we were talking about in the last question is that there are a lot of artists right now individual artists right now, especially like post pandemic A lot of artists decide they want to kind of go out and do their own thing and everyone trains us how to do plies in the studio. Everyone trains us about how to create work in the studio for the most part, but no one is teaching any of us how to run a business or start a business or create a product or anything like that. So you get out here and you're like I want to do this thing, let me just Google stuff, and you have no concept of it. And so I think part of the issue right now is I gathered information since 2015,. Sorry, gathering information early, I think some of it is.
Dominic Moore-Dunson:My granddad was an entrepreneur. He was like a jack of all trades. He did everything. So I saw that.
Dominic Moore-Dunson:So it's always kind of been in my ethos to just learn a bunch of stuff all the time. But I'm also very aware that I'm particularly driven. I know what I want, so I get the information I need to get the thing that I want to do and not everyone's like that. And it's not that I'm some special person, it's just people are built different. Some people need a person to tell them you do A, then B, then C, and there's just no one giving that information.
Dominic Moore-Dunson:If they are giving that information, it's in these really well-intentioned kind of like arts entrepreneurship cohorts where they have an accounting person come and teach you about QuickBooks, but they're speaking a language no one in the room understands, as opposed to an artist who remembers what means to be broke, teaching you about QuickBooks. It's just a different vibe. So I just think that it's really information, because information is what really set me free on this path in my own entrepreneurship journey and creative journey. So I was like, oh, that's all it is, and then I feel comfortable trying things. But when you just feel like you're in this foggy room just trying to find your way, it just feels like a giant obstacle and you just end up stopping and leaving the field altogether.
Andy Heise:Yeah, you said something that kind of stuck out to me, which was your product, thinking about your artistic practice as a product that needs to get out into the world. I think just that mindset, that shift in thinking is also doesn't happen naturally, for everyone, yeah, and that it's a product that can be out in the world either.
Dominic Moore-Dunson:It's a product that can be out in the world Because I think a lot of artists feel like I'm going to make this thing, it's going to be personal and cool and I'm going to love it, but no one's going to really like. My friends and family will come and see it, but there's no way someone's going to want to buy this. So it's another idea and that thinking that you're making something that is a product that someone else will buy if it's good, but you have to allow yourself to see it that way and see that it can serve somebody really yeah.
Andy Heise:Yeah, and to your point, that is not the message that most artists get in their classes or from their mentors, right? No, it's evident from your website that you've spent a lot of time thinking about who you are as an artist and as an entrepreneur. Is that something that happened gradually, or was there a point in time where you said, okay, I got to figure this out and figure out what I'm doing and where I'm going?
Dominic Moore-Dunson:I think it happened gradually. I think I'm a dreamer by nature. Also, when I started to be a professional when I was 19, 20, I was like I'm going to be a Tony-nominated blah, blah, blah, blah. My brain is always somewhere far in the future. I'm not competitive, but I like achieving things. I have to create achievements in my brain in order to keep me focused.
Dominic Moore-Dunson:Over time, I think what happened to me is I started doing the community engagement work, this work of starting a community and talking to people and being with people and really allowing people to speak into my artistic process, the product I ended up making. I realized people were jiving with it because they are part of the process of me building it, even if it was just them talking to me about a subject matter. Then, pretty soon, I realized I was like, oh, that's actually no different than creating a product. You create this idea. You get a bunch of people. You start asking them about that idea, getting their thoughts, getting their whatever. By the time you premiere that thing or put that product out to market, you have people who will buy it because they're ready to go.
Dominic Moore-Dunson:I realized the connection decently earlier and I was like, oh, this is the same thing. It doesn't have to be this weird I work four days a week entrepreneurship thing. It can be the nitty gritty community engagement philosophies used in business, and that's what I do. When I'm creating a product and I start talking to people about it, I don't feel like I need to talk to you about this new product so I can make it, so I can make money. I feel like I'm having real conversations and making real relationships and really asking people about their pain points. I really really do care. I deeply care. If I don't deeply care, I won't make the product in the first place by the time I come out with it. I'm so passionate about this thing helping people that people are like yeah, I'm going to buy this thing because I know you care about me and us. That's how I started realizing that this is what Amazon artists in the entrepreneur and they're really the same thing.
Nick Petrella:Yeah, that's a great way to sell. When you and someone else are on the same side of an issue, they know you have. That empathy makes selling a lot easier.
Dominic Moore-Dunson:Oh yeah.
Nick Petrella:What's the most challenging part about being an arts entrepreneur in the dance space?
Dominic Moore-Dunson:When you're in the process and I think this is probably all entrepreneurship in the arts and culture space right. When you're in the process of building something, it makes no sense to anybody else. This business you're building makes no sense to anybody. They're like why aren't you just doing it the way that we're supposed to do it? I just had another conversation with somebody last week about you should really get a nonprofit. You'd really get it. No, man, I'm not doing it right, but there's this pressure because when people can't see the vision that you have, they'll do anything, and not intentionally, but they'll do anything. That came because they care about you, to try to keep you on a traditional path, because they feel like it's safe. The arts ain't safe. You should just get rid of that. If you decide you're going to the arts, no safety net. It is what it is right. Yeah, it's illusion, just ride the wave.
Dominic Moore-Dunson:I often find myself spending a lot of time trying to help people understand why I'm doing the things the way that I do them, especially when it comes to mentors and older creators that come into my life who are just like you're such a talented artist, how are you doing what you do? And I start telling them they're like well, you're spending too much time worrying about products. It's not a product, it's your art. I'm like okay man, yeah, I mean and now I'm getting a little bit older, I'm getting a little bit more bold saying I hear you, though, but I have two kids that need to eat. So at some point my reality sets the tone for how I have to do this work, and that's okay, right.
Nick Petrella:It's not either, or it can be both.
Dominic Moore-Dunson:It can be both Right, like, I see it as my art. I also know when this is done, this thing is going to sell to somebody. That doesn't change what I make, right, right, and I think that's the fear of a lot of artists that like well, if you see this as a product and you're selling to somebody, you're going to mess with your artistic process and you're going to make it to try to be whatever they want Not necessarily, yep, if you make a project that you know people are interested in and you do what you want with it, it's going to sell and you just have to be okay. Maybe it sells a lot, maybe this one doesn't sell as much, and you just have to be okay with it, right? But even frankly, even if you do do that, even if you are like I'm going to make stuff that I know I'm going to sell, also cool, you know what I'm saying. Like, so I'm just yeah, it's just.
Dominic Moore-Dunson:I think the hardest thing is like I have this vision that's so clear to me Like I can draw it on a piece of paper of what life looks like and what this business looks like in five years, 10 years, 15 years. But it's like when you start talking about it and you start sharing what it is or you start sharing with other people how you're doing, so maybe they try something. It's the pushback of, like you shouldn't be worried about that. And then my high horse is, like a lot of people who say this you were in your prime during the 20th century when the NEA was really giving us you money, right, like, so you didn't have to worry about it because you had a $50,000 check coming every year to pay for your art. I don't have that, yeah, right.
Andy Heise:As we've been discussing, most, if not all of your work is centered around community. What does community or community engagement mean to you, and why is that one of the driving forces in your work?
Dominic Moore-Dunson:Because people don't care about dance, like, let's be honest, like people don't really care, and I learned that really early and was okay with it, right. And then Northeast Ohio on Sunday people love the Browns. Don't have a show on Sunday, ain't nobody coming Right Because they're going to be at the Browns game. They're going to be watching the Browns. Again, your reality dictates how you move in these ways and I realized well part of the reason people don't care about dance because they don't understand how it connects to them. So it's our job to get them to realize like y'all, we all care about the same thing. You know, nick, it's like you said, we're both on the same side of the fence.
Dominic Moore-Dunson:So when I make a project idea about safety and talking to your children and things like that, it's not about police brutality, which is the divisive thing. It's about parenthood. What parent isn't trying to have a discussion about how to be safe, exactly? So it's understanding and strategizing. How do I talk to these people about this thing in a way that they care about it and I care about it, and we find that mutual peace.
Dominic Moore-Dunson:And then we go from there and the reality is people realize like, oh, I like dance, I just didn't know I didn't like dance because no one was making things that I cared about. Right, like, not everyone's down with, like people being on stage being snowflakes in, you know, every Christmas. Right, like not everyone's down with that. Like, not everyone wants to see fairies on stage and stuff like that. Like some people are like, no, show me something real right, or show me something that entertains me, show me something that tells me you understand me, and so that's. I think that's why it's really important to me, because dance you know Alvin Ailey famously said like dance comes from the people and it's our job to give it back to them.
Nick Petrella:We discussed the topic of revenue streams in one of my classes this week, so would you mind telling us all of the revenue streams you and your companies have beyond performing?
Dominic Moore-Dunson:Yeah. So obviously there's like teaching, there's like university teaching speaking, and then obviously you have like the grant funding and the individual contribution. But I also run a leadership and team consulting business with my wife, and why that makes sense with the dance part of me is she comes from a trauma informed care background, so she knows a lot about the brain and understanding the executive state and the survival state and things like that, and obviously I know a lot about the body and nonverbal communication. So for about a decade I'd already been doing like corporate workshops with organizations like Goodyear, rubber, entire Company and some others, just like going in there doing movement workshops talking about different leadership and team subjects, and it was like a side side thing. I did Like I really didn't take it seriously, I just did it every once in a while when it fell into my lap and then me and my wife were working on two different clients across the table and she was like, why don't we do this together? So we started, you know, this company called Thrive and we do that together. We create we, you know, gamify team dynamics by making it really fun.
Dominic Moore-Dunson:But you know, on my side of things I'm using movement dance to help, you know, as I would call it, pedestrians talk about things that happen every day in a workplace when it comes to interpersonal communication, but doing that through nonverbal movement games, right? So we end up having these really deep conversations about, like, how do we communicate inside of, like our team, like, because you know what's true in your brain is true in your body, right, what's going to what you're thinking and what you feel always shows up in your body. Because communicate you know, nonverbal communication is mostly how we communicate as humans. So when you get these businesses to see what they experience every day from this very like creative to them vantage point, all of a sudden now you're having these conversations that you wouldn't normally have, right.
Dominic Moore-Dunson:So then you know, and, as you guys know, you go into a corporate space and do something that I do in the studio all the time, for free, basically, with my dancers. Now they're paying thousands of dollars, right, yeah, so that's another kind of another one that really, really, you know, reasoned out a lot of revenue for us. And then, right now, speaking about, like, giving information to other artists and other dancers, I'm working on an online course business to do just that, to start helping specifically, like, the dance professionals in terms of like artists and administrators. They just better understand this information around like how do you run business? Where do you start? How do I pitch an idea, how do I make a profitable project? So I'm like actually working on that right now and hopefully we'll launch that in January, february.
Andy Heise:Great no-transcript, dominic. We've reached the part of the interview where we ask all of our interviews the same three questions, and the first question is what advice would you give to others wanting to become an art entrepreneur?
Dominic Moore-Dunson:Look into your creative process and see what skills you already have and see how those skills can transfer into the business that you're trying to make. You don't have to become someone different or become someone new in order to be an entrepreneur, like. If you're thinking this way, it's already inside you, so just find that and roll with it.
Nick Petrella:What can we do to ensure the arts are more accessible and reaching the widest possible audience?
Dominic Moore-Dunson:Figure out what the audience cares about. Right Like, don't go into your hole and make your dance and then come out with it on the other side and be upset when no one shows up. Right Like, be with the people, make with the people, the people will show up.
Andy Heise:Lastly, what's the best artistic or entrepreneurial advice you've ever received?
Dominic Moore-Dunson:I sent him my presentation at Akron sorry, my presentation at Kent, but I had a mentor say to me after I did this artistic thing for him and he looks at me and he goes well, that effing sucked. And in that moment I was like yo, what Like this is crazy, participation prize here, right, none right. And what he said was like you're so concerned about the idea of being an artist, you've forgotten what it takes to actually be one. Stop the BS and be yourself. And it's the exact same thing for entrepreneurship. Like you don't be so obsessed with the idea of being an entrepreneur Again the four-day work week, like all that stuff that you forget what it actually takes to be one, which is just be yourself and get rid of all the BS and just do the actual work. It takes to connect with people and serve people with the thing you're trying to do.
Nick Petrella:That's great. It's great summary. It's also great to hear your story and your creative approach to grants and subject matter and, of course, attention to detail. Thanks so much for being on the podcast.
Announcer:Thanks guys you.