Elena Prokopets
Claire Briggs Webber, CPRW
With the dance, the majority of the world only sees the final product. They don’t see the training, auditions, rehearsals, choreography, or the business side of things. They may also see dancing only within the context of major stars, not realizing that there are working dancers everywhere.
As a professional dancer, you know better. You know that landing a dream job in your field involves auditions, but also more standard paperwork. This includes your professionally composed, attention-grabbing resume. We’d like to help you with that.
This post includes a professional dancer resume example, paired with helpful writing tips.
Dazzling Dancer Resume Example (Word)
Dancer Resume (plain text)
Jane Sway
Professional Dancer | Choreographer | Supporting Actor
Phone: 000-000-0000
Email: janedancer@email.com
YouTube + Instagram
Professional Summary
Athletic, artistic, and versatile dancer with four years of highly-varied experience in cinema, musical theater, and live events. Specializes in contemporary and ballroom dancing. Possess choreography and teaching experience. Featured dancer appearances in “Dancing with the Stars” and “Atlanta Ballet Series”.
Talents
Dance styles:
- Ballet
- Contemporary
- Ballroom
- Latin
Dance skills:
- Choreography
- Movement theory
- TV production participation
- Acting and singing
Professional Experience
Staff Dancer and Choreographer
Conservatory of Contemporary Arts
St. Louis, MO
August 2020 – Present
Currently employed as a staff dancer, instructor, and choreographer at the oldest fine arts conservatory in the Midwest. Duties and accomplishments include:
- Performed as a dancer in a variety of in-house productions including the critically acclaimed “Atlanta Cats” musical.
- Collaborated with the city’s theater troupes and arts organizations as a choreographer and performer
- Provided dance instruction to junior ballet dancers and contemporary children’s dancing squads
- Spearheaded CityDance! — an intensive 3-month dance workshop for underprivileged children
- Coordinated auditions and rehearsals for upcoming in-house productions.
Professional Dancer
Self-employed
June 2018 – Present
Worked as an independent contractor in a variety of stage, film, and cinema productions in Atlanta, Los Angeles, NYC, and Paris. Successfully landed and completed both featured and ensemble roles including:
- Ensemble appearance in an award-winning video for a globally recognized hip-hop artist
- Featured dancer in three major televised sporting events (Rugy Global Fest 2022, Pan-European Basketball League)
- Ensemble performer in local and national television productions including “Dancing with the Stars” and “Atlanta Baller Series”
- Minor acting/acting roles in three major film productions by Netflix and Hulu, due for release in 2023.
Education
Webster University
St. Louis, MO
Master of Fine Arts
Emphasis: Dance Performance
May 2020
Dean’s List
Co-President Society of Dance Professionals
University of California
Los Angeles, CA
Bachelor of Fine Arts
Emphasis: Dance & Theatrical Performance
Memberships
Sag-AFTRA
Actor’s Equity
American Guild of Musical Artists
Dance St. Louis Gold Member
How to Compose a Dancer Resume: Must-Know Tips
Most dancers have varied backgrounds and balance a ton of gigs. So when it comes down to resume writing, it’s easy to have your head spinning. To best organize all your work experience, grab a professional resume template first. This way, you get formatting out of the way and can concentrate on organizing your personal details using the following tips.
Be Brief and Direct
Hiring managers spend maybe seven seconds reviewing resumes. You absolutely must be concise in order to be seen. Set a target length for your resume — one page.
Next, consider each work entry. Remember that you are providing the highlights only. You don’t need to provide full details of every production or performance. Therefore, it’s okay to bundle some of your work experience under a single “self-employed” entry and add some more permanent contracts as regular work entries.
Keep in mind that you will likely have an audition, video portfolio, and interviews to fill in the details of your career.
Stick With Relevant Skills and Experience
As a professional dancer, you may have worked a variety of jobs outside of dance or other fine arts. These jobs are certainly character-building, but they aren’t really relevant to your current career goals. So, scrap all restaurant and retail jobs off of your resume.
OK, but how do I then explain employment gaps on my resume? Again, there are several strategies: List only employment years or leave notes that you were often hired on a contract- or project-based basis. This is frequent in the industry.
Provide Social Media Links
The standard resume contact information needs an update, particularly for people in the arts. Chances are, you have a strong social media presence featuring highlights from your performances and showcasing your talents. If your social accounts aren’t up-to-date, add some new content and add these to your resume. People will be looking you up online anyways!
Tune Your Language
Use words in your resume to paint a picture. For example, if you want to emphasize the artistic side of your capabilities, use words like “create” or “inspire”. Are you interested in a leadership or featured role? Use words like “built”, “developed”, “taught”, and “coordinated”.
Need a quick linguistic brush-up? Check these posts next:
Final Tip: Optimize For Scannability and ATS
ATS (applicant tracking system) is software that electronically excludes or prioritizes resumes, based on their relevancy. To pass judgment, the system scans for keywords.
For example, if the job calls for a dance instructor with five years of experience teaching ballroom dance, then those words should be somewhere in your resume.
So go back to the job posting and scan the candidate requirements section. Then transfer some of the required qualifications to your resume (unless you haven’t mentioned them already!).
