A Career Development Plan
For Your Dream Ballet Profession

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Do you want to fulfill your dreams in ballet? Do you want to make it your career? Follow this career development plan which are the gradual stages to becoming a professional dancer.

Self Assessment

In Ballet you have to be honest with yourself and know your own ability. Dancers have to be realistic with themselves yet still follow their dream with ambition and determination.

If you have dreams to become a professional ballerina then firstly you have to evaluate yourself first. You need to look at your body type. Are you tall? Short? Slim? Round? Observe yourself.... Look at the shape of foot, look at how you move.

This self assessment is a very important factor to do first because throughout a dancer's career it will be taken in consideration your appearance, body type and aesthetic line.

If you pass your own self assessment then you can start getting some external opinions.

Have Potential Assessed

Either people will notice your talent or you'll have to make yourself get noticed. Tell your teachers, talk to your parents, ask everyone around you to assess your potential.

Get more than one opinion because one person may or may not tell you the right thing. You need a second opinion.

If you believe in your potential and are thoroughly determined then don't stop looking until you've found someone who can support you.

Take Action

Where is the best place for you to train, study, learn?

There are many vocational dance schools around the world that can train young aspiring dancers. At a vocational school students can start training from the early age of 11 right up until they are 18.

In my case, I had to travel to a different town and board at a vocational ballet school to get intensive training. But that's considered lucky - I have known many dancers who have had to travel across the world to study at an elite school.

However, I have also known of dancers who have trained rigorously within their hometown until they reach perhaps the age of 16 and still managed to pursue a career in ballet.

Dedicate Your Training

Committed training is a huge part of the career development plan.

Dancer's train vigorously for many years, it's a gradual process of hard work and endurance.

Ballet is something where you need to use all that time to develop and gradually improve on an all round basis.

Devote yourself to the training. Work hard, remember your corrections, push yourself and keep striving.

Every dancer will have to go through this process to become a great ballet dancer. Find out more about what true ballerinas experience.

Think Professional

Around the age of 16, 17 and 18 is the time when you need to start thinking more seriously about professional ballet career. If it's what you want to do, you need to now think of ballet as a career, not just a hobby.

This is the age when you should be trying to get noticed, researching ballet companies, discovering your style and identifying who you are as a dancer.

A lot of vocational dance schools have an association with a ballet company. If this is the case for you then try to get noticed and position yourself with the company.

Audition

To truly pursue a career in ballet you have to be within a dance company. You have to audition to reach this stage which usually means going all around the world until you find a job. Through what can seem like a never ending procedure, you just have to be patient and persevere.

Before you even begin going places to audition you have to evaluate yourself again and decide which companies you are suited to. Try to watch the company dancers perform, perhaps even ballet videos on youtube, and ask yourself - Am I up to their standard? Could I fit in with the dancers?

Get top tips on auditions by reading audition tips for dancers.

Your Career Itself

Having secured a contract within a dance company you have made ballet your career. Being in a dance company will mean performing endlessly each night and being in the limelight all the time.

You need to know how to survive within a ballet company because to get to the top it is hard work.

You'll need to be able to get on with the people in the company - be kind and good natured. You have to become your own mentor and independently keep on track with what you need to work on.

You goals don't end there; once you're in the company itself you gradually work through the ranks of the company. It most commonly goes something like this -

Artist (This is the position of which dancers begin in a company - within the corps de ballet)
First Artist
Soloist
First Soloist
Principal

By reading this career development plan you have taken one step closer to your career - it's partly about taking action and making things happen!

This career development plan has informed you of what you need to do, now you can follow it and start the journey for your career.

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