How to Become a Professional Backup Dancer

Video Transcript

"Now I am going to talk to you about becoming a professional background dancer. Step one, go to class take a lot, a lot of class. It is so important I cannot stress to you how important it is to take a class, take ballet, take jazz, take hip hop. Even if you are a hip hop dancer it is not going to hurt you to take a jazz class or a ballet class because you never ever know what they're going to throw at you in an audition, you have no idea so that is the most important thing. Step two, get yourself an agent. Ways about getting an agent, there is no right or wrong way about getting an agent, you might want to put yourself on tape. Send in your tape to an agency or five agencies or ten agencies, it doesn't matter. You can try to go into an agency, knock on the door. I don't know how likely it is that they'll see you but you can try it or you can leave your video with the receptionist. Another way you could, you might know someone that is with a really good agent. You might want to get together with them and have them set you up a meeting, that's always a good way but yea, there is no right or wrong way like I said so just try to get yourself a good agent because that is just really important, that's just really important. Step three, is you getting an audition. Your agent would have most likely made a phone call or sent an e-mail to some producer or casting director and gotten you into this room and when you walk into this room you want to walk in with confidence. I mean you have to be on fire. The audition starts from the second you walk in those doors, o'kay, not from the second you start dancing, not from the second you start lining up or stretching. It literally, you need to walk in that door and make a statement and already be noticed, that's number one when you walk into an audition. So a lot of times at auditions they will ask you to freestyle. To freestyle you want to stand out and be specific in your own way and be you. You need to stand out in a crowd of 50, of 100 of 300 so do something that is unique and different. People can tell if you are not comfortable people see that and they see it more than you feel it so definitely just stick with your style and if it is going back to those classes that you took before that you perfected I mean bring some of that in the room and bring some of you know just your own whatever you are feeling at the moment emotionally let it shine, just throw it out there. Step four, are we on step four? I think we're on step four. Step four you book the job or you don't and whether you book it or you don't you want to leave an audition feeling good and you want to leave an audition feeling that you brought everything that you had in you to the table and if you stood out enough in this specific audition but you didn't book it a casting director or producer or director might remember you and call you back for another project and that happens a lot so don't be surprised."