5 Ways to Go from Student to Professional in the Ballet Industry
Today, it seems like the ladder from student to principal dancer keeps getting bigger. The days of baby ballerinas like Irina Baronova , Maria Tallchief ,and Gelsey Kirkland starting their careers as teenagers is over. Now ballet companies, much like companies in every industry, want to see experience. They want to see the laundry list of prestigious schools, summer intensives, YAGP placements, and variations you have performed. Then, once you have been selected to train with a ballet company or academy, you must make your way through the student ranks like trainee and second company before landing yourself an apprenticeship years later. It is exhausting and expensive, and many dancers cannot sustain this. At 18, dancers feel the pressure to find a job now or never, as it only gets harder the older you get with no professional experience on your resume to get hired by a company. So, how can ballet students fast track their way through all these levels and years of training if they feel that they are ready to start their professional career? As someone who started training late compared to my peers at 17 and still managed to land her first company position at 20, I will tell you how. While timing and luck always come into play in the ballet world, there are several concrete practices students can implement to help get noticed in auditions and climb their way quickly up the ladder.
Start Dancing Like a Professional
There are countless books, podcasts, and interviews talking to famous actors, politicians, business leaders, and professionals in every industry who all contribute their success to their mindset. Just read this blog by Dr. Michelle Cleere, “Fake It Till You Make It”, where she addresses how reframing your mindset can make all the difference. Any dancer who has had a bad turn day in ballet class knows how your mindset can affect you physically. “Fake it until you make it” is a popular saying in the dance world for a reason, because if you have a professional mindset, you can achieve what a professional deserves. Students need to start training and dancing like professionals in their ballet class. You would be surprised at how quickly adjusting your mindset from student to professional changes your dancing and your attitude in the studio.
Dancing like a professional can look like choosing to focus on artistry over adding pirouettes. It could look like taking time to correct yourself in class or practicing technical skills you know you need to work on after class. This also includes how you take care of yourself before and after class. Implementing consistent warm-up and recovery routines primes your body and improves your ability to bounce back quickly after a long day of rehearsals. Start fueling yourself like a professional. Start dressing yourself like a professional, whatever that means to you. For myself, I always knew I was not an exceptional technician, but I focused on what could set me apart as a student like my artistry and musicality, and I practiced that in ballet class and rehearsals.
I also chose to actively try not to compare myself to the students around me. When you are training in an academy, where everyone is in uniform, standing in line, facing the mirror, dancing the same steps and variations, it is very easy to look at yourself and wonder why you’re not the same as the dancer next to you. The reality is that artistic directors are not looking for what makes you the same as everyone around you. Directors are drawn to what makes a dancer different from those around them, and so is the audience. So, I urge young dancers to implement a professional mindset, and instead of judging yourself based on the skills of those around you, judge yourself on how you improve each day. A professional dancer of course uses healthy competition to improve themselves, but they also know that to be unique is to be exceptional.
Utilize Every Opportunity
Once you have incorporated your professional mindset, you will start looking at your daily ballet class and rehearsals at the studio differently. Students should utilize every opportunity given to them as a steppingstone to starting their career. Every role, big or small, is stage time and will prepare you for company life. If you can practice the role you are understudying in the back, do it! When else will you be able to practice your steps if not then? And, what a “professional” move it is to go into the role unexpectedly and do an excellent job. That exact scenario has skyrocketed so many corps de ballet members to soloists and principals. Understanding that every opportunity that comes your way as a student will only make you a better professional will give young dancers a new perspective on the sometimes-mundane routine we fall into at an academy.
Personally, I have had to go into a role at the last minute a lot in my career, not just for performances but for rehearsals leading up to the show when someone calls in sick or is injured. These in-studio rehearsals are almost more important than actual performances for dancers covering roles. Going in knowing your music, counts, and steps shows directors your work ethic, intelligence, and makes an unforgettable impression. Who would not want to be known as the dancer who a director can always rely on? These reasons are why students should start treating every opportunity as your big moment and use your professional mindset to evaluate the lesson or skill that can be learned.
Connect with Other Professionals
In every job, it is about who you know, but in the small world of ballet, it is even more important that you make good impressions and build connections. To help move your career forward, think about those teachers and peers in your life who may have a connection to a ballet company and a job, and reach out to them! I encourage young dancers to express their desire for a job with their ballet teachers, academy directors, and fellow dancers because chances are, someone knows a way in and up.
I got my first job as an apprentice through my partnering teacher. My current directors called him after I auditioned and asked his opinion on me. They were friends and peers back in the day. My partnering teacher had nothing but good things to say. I was a professional, I was a hard worker, and that is how I got the job. I have since proven myself and was promoted in my first year with the company, all thanks to word of mouth. This article from Dance Plug.com is a good read for any dancer who may be nervous to connect with professionals around them.
Understand Your Worth
While every student would do anything to accomplish their goals and make their dream of being a professional ballet dancer a reality, it is important to remember your worth and not lose yourself in the pursuit of a professional career. It is important for your mental and physical health as well as the overall betterment of the ballet community that young dancers know their worth and choose to work with directors and artists that value them as humans. Often, dancers endure mistreatment, harassment, and even punishment from directors and teachers simply to hold on to their job. While yes, it is important not to give up on your dream, remember the reason why you started dancing in the first place. If your workplace or a job opportunity takes the enjoyment away from your craft, know your worth and walk away. There are always more opportunities out there! I encourage every dancer to read principal dancer with New York City Ballet Megan Fairchild’s book The Ballerina Mindset: How to Protect Your Mental Health While Striving for Excellence as it offers useful tips, tricks, and anecdotes for all ballet dancers.
Take a Chance
Finally, I want to encourage all students who are training to become professional ballet dancers to take a chance! Take a chance on a small opportunity, a big opportunity, and most importantly yourself! Everyone’s ballet career trajectory and timeline are different, so it is important to recognize that taking a chance on a job offer or to decline one can make all the difference. It can be very easy to get caught up on only wanting to dance at this company because it is world renowned and famous, but by writing off other opportunities because they are not the ones we originally envisioned, we can lose potentially even better ones.
As a student at Ballet West’s Academy in Salt Lake City, I was hopefully to climb through the ranks there at a top ten company in the United States, but when I received a job offer from Nevada Ballet Theatre, a smaller, lesser-known company, I took a chance and accepted that position. It was the best decision I could have made as I started my professional career years before my peers and was able to perform the same roles as a soloist or principal dancer at Ballet West without waiting anywhere from 5 to 10 years. This is where timing, knowing your worth as a dancer, and faking it until you make it come in. I hope all dancers who are reading will recognize how these five ideas will help them on their journey into the professional ballet world!
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