• 
• 
• 
• 

When he's not beating the streets selling property, Lawrence Liew is busy building up the popping street dance scene in Auckland. And while the 27-year-old wouldn't give up his day job as a real estate salesperson, for love or money, not a day goes by when he's not dancing or teaching others.

In the latest NOT my day job series on The Big Idea, highlighting creatives with multiple careers, Lawrence tells us how he juggles his.

Qualifications:

Dance teacher; Real estate licensed salesperson (real estate agent); New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountant

Tell us about your day job

I am a licensed salesperson – which is generally referred to as a real estate agent! My full time job entails selling and buying properties for my clients particularly in the Eastern bays in Auckland.  I have been doing it since March 2014 after I quit my accountancy job at the Serious Fraud Office.  The reason for a career change is because the real estate industry fascinates me.

Tell us about your creative work when you're NOT doing your day job?

My creative work is related to dance - specialising in a dance style known as popping.  I also have strong interest in other dances ranges from House dance to Salsa.  My dance work is mainly focus on building the street dance scene here in Auckland and we have successfully achieved constant growth in number of dancers especially for the popping community here in Auckland. 

How do you manage juggling both?

It’s certainly a constant challenge juggling both but I am getting better at my time management as I am now more efficient in both.  I am lucky in the sense that my dance work in most cases is relaxing for me, with a few exceptions such as performances which requires constant coordination with other members in choreography and rehearsals.

Tell us about your creative background.

I guess I come from a family that encourages creativity a lot.  My mom is very creative at her field of expertise which is baking and I guess growing up seeing her intense curiosity in what she does has a great positive effect on my creative background.

What has inspired you? Who or what keeps you going?

What’s inspired me in terms of dancing is seeing how well established the dance scene is in countries like Japan and France.  I have always believed that New Zealand will be able to reach that level and that’s why I am very passionate about growing our dance scene. The people that keep me going are definitely my family, students and friends.

Would you like your creative work to be full-time?

No.  I strongly believe that in street dance scene, you don’t need to be a full time dancer to reach world class level.  Personally what’s stopping me from doing creative work full time really is the income it generates.  The underground dance industry is just too cruel when it comes to rewarding us in terms of money.  

What would help you achieve this?

I don’t intend to work on creatively full time. I am however very interested in helping others who’d like to and that’s one of the reasons why a few of us have invested a reasonable sum of money and time in building our community.

If you had the chance to start your creative career or path again, what would you do differently?

One of the things I regretted doing was that I took a year off completely from teaching popping when the dance style was booming.  I’d have kept teaching and growing the scene if I could rewind back to 2011.

What advice would you give to someone pursuing a similar creative career or pathway?

Understand what your main goal is not just in dance but life in general because treating dance as a career whether as a teacher or performer is very different than treating it as a hobby. I have seen too many dancers lose their way because of that.   

Tell us about your recent or upcoming creative projects.

I’m teaching at Bandstand Under The Stars (as part of Summer in the Square) on the 13th December in Aotea Square – so if you would like to learn some popping you should come down on that night! Apart from that we’re just working on our long term goal - to grow the popping scene here.  So, our upcoming projects will involve some dance workshops and competitions to challenge our dancers. 

Why are you involed in Summer in the Square?

To promote and educate the dance to the general public.

Do you still teach dance and tell us about your training

Yes I do.  I teach beginners popping every Friday 6:30pm at City Dance.  I dance and practice almost everyday.  For training, I have a rule which is to practice two songs everyday regardless how busy I am.  I also practice frequently with my dance mates who lives in North Shore.  I like practicing with them as we can feed off and learn from each other.

What’s your big idea for 2015?

Travel to Sydney with the dancers in our popping community and compete in the most prestigious Australasia street dance competition known as Destructive Steps.  It will be both rewarding and challenging for all of us and will certainly take us to the next level.