We recently connected with Eloise Harpas and have shared our conversation below.

Eloise, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

Risk is a powerful thing. It can change a persons life in an instant. Taking a risk for me means growth and growth means knowledge and knowledge is power. I believe you learn from taking a risk to only become the best version of yourself for life.

In my career as a professional performer i’ve taken many risks one of which was moving across country to pursue a dream, but recently i took the biggest risk of my career so far. I decided to change course within the entertainment industry or should i say expand myself within the industry. Not only do i call myself a professional dancer but i can also call myself a new addition to the production realm of the industry as a well as a contributor to the magic industry. Yes! thats right i now work in production and the magic world as well as dance!

I took a huge risk in accepting a job offer into a world i knew nothing about. MAGIC!
I was going through a dry patch with dance. I didn’t have a lot of dance work arising and my agents were letting me know that the industry was quiet. Well i knew i couldn’t just sit back and wait so i decided to take a job that was completely different from what i normally do.
In 2023 i was offered my first role as a professional magician assistant not knowing what i was getting myself into. Two years later i’ve worked with some of the most renowned magicians and traveled to places id never thought i go. I would never have known about this new interest of mine if i never said yes.

Given my extensive career and experience in the dance industry i’ve been able to creatively approach the stage in such a new light and i’ve grown to unlock a new passion of mine being production work. Recently on my last tour around North America i was offered the position of ASM (assistant stage manager) as well as the role of magician assistant.

A new love was discovered and i believe that all of this wouldn’t have been possible if i didn’t take that risk of saying yes to a job that was so different from what i normally do.

Now so many more opportunities have arose from this and i couldn’t be more grateful.

Eloise, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Im Eloise Harpas a professional dancer from Sydney Australia who packed up her bags and moved across the world to Los Angeles to expand on her already epic career.

I’ve been a supporting dancer for some of the worlds most iconic artists such as Dua Lipa, Katy Perry, Jay Balvin, Sam Smith and Rita Ora just to name a few.

Starting out as just a little Aussie girl who wanted to be on stage, at the age of 3 i knew dancing was my passion. I trained in all styles competitively and competed all across Australia. I became a dance teacher as well as having my professional career and have been teaching for over a decade now.

After graduating high school i got my cert IV in professional dance and won a scholarship to Broadway Dance Center in NYC! This is what made me want to jet set to the USA to reach even bigger goals of mine. I signed with one of the top agencies in the USA (MSA) and when my visa was approved in 2022 i was off and running. I said goodbye to my life in Australia, goodbye to my family, goodbye to my students and i decided to risk it all!

3 years later after countless auditions, many rejections and a million self tapes, i can confidently say i have found my feet here and i’m super excited to keep my entertainment journey going.
To say the journey has been smooth sailing would be a lie. There were rough days and many moments i thought of just changing my career all together but the fire i feel when i’m on a stage keeps me coming back for more.

Im so proud of the performer i am today and grateful to have been able to expand my creative being. I can proudly say i’ve learnt so much about the creative arts whilst living abroad and i’m still learning. Keep and eye out because i have a lot more in the tank!

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

Anyone who is not in the creative industry with my experience has never fully understood the risks that i take to get to where i want to be.
Sometimes i find myself having to explain that at nearly 30 i’m deciding to go stand in a room full of hundreds of dancers to try and get a job, or that i could potentially be completely free on a Tuesday!
A 9-5 in my world doesn’t really exist.

I think the hardest thing for people to understand is that its a very unconventional lifestyle. We have to be flexible to allow room for work that comes up and flexible to allow ourself to be creative.
We have structure in our lives in a different ways. For example our personal wellbeing like the gym, there are some non negotiable we apply to our lives everyday so that we stay on our ‘A’ game to make sure we are ready to move at anytime.

For most people this seems risky. To wake up in the morning and not have an exact plan everyday is something that most people don’t experience. It sounds daunting but really for a creative it means time and space to grow, develop and execute whatever creative plan they have in their brain weather it’s choreography, writing a song, designing new costumes for a performance or building an entire world concert.

As a creative you learn to find your own particular form of stability in life. It’s different and unique.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Growing up in the entertainment industry, as a dancer i was constantly being compared to others around me. Other girls, other women, other men. Well that is the nature of dance. You get put in a room full of hundreds of dancers and your told to try and stand out.
The lesson i had to unlearn was to not compare myself to others. The judging panel or audition panel can do that, That’s their job but for me its not.
It’s taken years for myself to try and unlearn this.
I can only compare myself to me and only me. Its really tricky when you bet your whole career on a job that is so full of unknowns. Of course your going to step into a room and look at the other dancers and start analysing all the things, we are only human but the more experience i had and the older i got i started to shift my mindset into a place that wasn’t of comparison.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @eloise_harpas
• Facebook: Eloise Harpas

Image Credits

Alissa Rose Studio