With skills such as flexibility and originality increasingly required by an economy struggling to adapt to sudden and seismic change, there is renewed interest in what engagement in culture and creativity can offer. This author discovered that the difference such engagement can make to people's lives has long been recognised at Morley College.…

This article explores the extent to which aspiring entrants to the performing arts industry have to develop both the forms of "vocational practice" employers require and "social capital" to enable them to operate effectively in external labour markets (i.e. contract-based and networked-generated work). It focuses on the work of…