Congratulations! Graduating with a dance degree, whether it’s a BA, BFA, Associate degree, conservatory program, or grad school, is a major accomplishment. And I know, people have been hounding you with the “what’s next?” question all year, and you’re probably just glad to finally be done with school! But if you’ve finished celebrating and you’re ready to hit the ground running with your dance career, read on!
Possible Career Paths
Here are some of the many possible next steps you can take after graduating with a dance degree!
Grad School
Dance majors can go on to get graduate degrees in fields such as dance movement therapy, physical therapy, dance education, and dance performance/choreography. (As well as any number of similar fields!)
Teaching
While you don’t need a dance degree to teach, you are a lot more marketable as a dance teacher if you have one! I currently live in a major city in the US, and the majority of studios in my area say “dance degree preferred” in their job descriptions. Having a degree is also a good bargaining chip to ask for higher pay as a dance teacher.
Performing
Even if your dance major program focused primarily on one style of dance, there’s nothing stopping you from auditioning for everything under the sun! Dancers in my graduating class went on to perform in every style, from modern dance companies to theme parks to musical theater.
Choreography
It may require a lot of travel, and you may need a side hustle to pay the bills in-between gigs at first, but with your dance degree, you can get jobs choreographing school musicals, theme park shows, competition dances, and more.
Arts Admin (or other dance-adjacent field)
Graduates with dance degrees are well-qualified to pursue jobs in arts administration, such as dance program coordinators or office managers at dance studios (yes, that can be a full time job!).
Other Entertainment Jobs
Maybe you got halfway through your dance program and realized you actually wished you’d majored in theater, sound tech, or costuming instead, but it was too late to switch. Now that you’ve graduated, this is your chance to find some additional education and pursue your passion!
(Learning other entertainment skills is a great thing to pursue on the side anyway. I started learning puppetry a few years after college, and it helped me get some pretty cool opportunities!)
FIRST: Take Advantage of Time Sensitive Opportunities
There are some potentially beneficial opportunities that you will miss out on if you wait too long after graduation. Think internships, summer intensives, trainee programs, anything that’s specifically geared towards dancers in higher education. Here are a few that come to mind:
- Broadway Dance Center’s Professional Semester used to have an age limit of 27. Their website doesn’t explicitly state that anymore as of this writing, but it’s something to keep in mind as far as your likelihood of getting accepted. I know that might seem like a long time from now if you’re graduating at the average age of 22, but if this is something you really want to do, start saving up, start auditioning (because it might take you a few semesters of trying to get in), just start planning for it now.
- The Disney College Program As of this writing, their website says you can apply up to two years after graduation, and they do let you audition for roles in entertainment. If Disney is on your radar as a potential career path, this program is probably a good thing to look into while you can!
- Any kind of internship, whether dance-related or not, will probably only accept you up to a year after graduation. Jump on those applications, especially if you’re interested in the arts admin side of things. Look for internships at major dance companies (especially those with a school attached), programs such as the American Dance Festival, dance centers such as The Dance Place in Washington, D.C, and large theaters/performing arts centers.
- Ballet trainee programs tend to have very strict age limits. The traditional path into a trainee program is to join straight out of high school instead of going to college. So if you’ve already finished college, and you have dreams of joining a professional ballet company, audition for trainee programs this year. Do not wait. You may already be “too old” for some programs, but they’re a lot more likely to make an exception for someone who’s just one or two years above the age limit, rather than someone in their late 20s.
Figure Out Your Living Situation
There are three ways to make a living in the dance industry:
- Single full time job with benefits in one location (the rarest, unfortunately)
- Example: assistant coordinator of education at a major ballet school
- One type of job, many locations
- Example: chorus dancer in musicals at regional theaters and/or national tours. Your job takes you all over the country/world, but you’re doing pretty much the same work everywhere you go.
- Many types of jobs, one location
- Example: you live year-round in one place, and you have a “piecemeal” income. You teach and work the front desk at a dance studio, choreograph school musicals, do gig work with a production company, dance with a small company that only pays you for shows, and commute to the next town over to perform at a theme park every summer.
Your living situation and finances are important to consider, because if you’re hopping from gig to gig around the country, you may not want to rent an apartment that you’re not going to be living in. Same if you’re trying to book a cruise ship gig. In those situations, you might want your parents’ house to be your home base. Or maybe you can find a cheap multi-roommate situation in a location that’s convenient to lots of auditions, and won’t be too much of a financial hit if you have to be gone for a few months. You’ll have to figure a lot of this out as you go, of course, but these are some thoughts to get you started.
I’m not suggesting you do any of these three options over another; they’re all perfectly valid, and your career may include all of them at one point or another. This is just a good framework to help you decide what you want your living situation to be.
How I Spent My First Year Post-Graduation
From the day I walked across the stage in that funny-looking square hat (and poncho because it was pouring rain), I gave myself one year to book a professional dance job. If I didn’t succeed, I would get a job related to my other major and resign to dance just being a part-time thing. I didn’t really know what I was doing, I just knew I had to audition for everything and give it my best shot.
I spent the summer after graduation at the American Dance Festival, hoping to network and maybe even make a connection that would land me a job. The job part didn’t happen, but I did meet some awesome people in the dance industry who I’m still in contact with almost 10 years later.
Then I moved back in with my family and got a part-time retail job while I searched for performing work. This was the hardest part of the year. Well, for my ego at least. Fresh out of college, what’s my first job? Cashier at Toys R Us. I was thoroughly embarrassed and told as few people as possible. But it was a humility check that I desperately needed. If you’re going to make it in the performing arts, you need to let go of any preconceived notions about certain jobs being better than others. You’re going to have a lot of side hustles and part time jobs at different points in your career, and you’re not going to enjoy all of them. What you can’t do is be that employee who thinks they’re better than everyone else. That attitude will get you nowhere.
So I plugged away at my retail job, auditioning for everything I could. I didn’t live in an area that had a ton of auditions, so this included many trips to New York City and lots of travel expenses. I took my own headshots with my phone and compiled a dance reel full of terribly blurry footage. I was very much faking it till I made it.
January came, and with only 4 months left in this year that I’d given myself, I was starting to think a dance career might not happen. I attended a dance call for a nearby theme park and got cut after the first round. They told us to stay and get measured even if we got cut, but I almost just left. Surely they wouldn’t hire people who got cut in the first round. What was the point of getting measured?
Well, it’s a good thing I stayed and got measured, because that March, my dream came true. With only 2 months left in the year that I’d given myself, I booked my first performing contract.
How did I get booked after getting cut? They had a costume character performer quit at the last minute, and they needed a replacement who could dance. Presumably, they went through all the dancers who hadn’t gotten cast and found someone who was the right height – me!
In hindsight, I probably should have given myself two years to book a dance job, because a year only gives you the chance to audition for everything once. But I made it happen!
You’ve Got This
Dancer, wherever your next adventure takes you post-graduation, my best overall advice is to put yourself out there for everything you can, and let the right opportunities find you. Nothing happens by accident, and everything is going to fall into place as it’s supposed to, as long as you put in the work. The beginning of adulthood is one of the most challenging and the most exciting chapters in your life. You’ve got this!
