So when she got the call at 25 to help train Olympians, it was a dream come true that didn’t require a stretch of the imagination. Becoming a full-time choreographer did, however, require a leap of faith.
“I knew I had enough potential work and opportunities in the pipeline, [because] I had invested the time into building my business and craft over many years,” she explains now. “By the time I left my steady job, I had built my business to a sustainable level. Now, ‘sustainable’ is relative to each person. I rented a room from my older brother for a low price, stayed with friends while on the road for work projects, etcetera.”
In order to continue building out her business, Hill knew she needed to find a place to store her past work and future creations.
“Dance and choreography is kind of a weird product to have for a business. It took a lot to explain what I do,” Hill says. “In dance, live performances can be lost forever unless you make the effort to record and save the footage. I wanted to be able to look back at my work and have something concrete to show for it.”
Hill wanted to keep her body of work somewhere safe that could also be accessible to future collaborators: video editors to create reels, designers to build props and create costumes, and clients to practice and show their take on routines. Once friends told her about Dropbox, she knew she’d found the right tool for the job.
Up until that point, Hill says, “I just wasn’t finding anything that I felt was super secure, and I felt like Dropbox… I could count on it. I’ve had hard drives crash; I felt most confident with [my life’s work] on Dropbox. Dropbox is the studio where I hold all of my past works of art.”
Using Dropbox had the unexpected side effect of helping Hill feel more confident in her business, too.
“Instead of sending an email with a grainy video, it was like, I use this product for my business. In those very early days, it legitimized it,” Hill says.
The creative is the product
Soon after, Hill found her groove. She partnered with her future husband Ben Agosto on Cirque Du Soleil’s second ice-skating show “Axel,” a hip-hop-and-rock-infused love story. She shaped the movement, style, and skating for Lei, the lead female character and Axel’s love interest.
“While working on the Cirque project, there was this beautiful creative confidence that everyone knew who they were, what they were hired to do, and their expertise,” Hill says. “And because Cirque du Soleil ‘s brand is what it is, you knew that they were the best in the game. You didn’t have to question it.”