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Choreographer

Career Advice on How to Become a Choreographer

General Career Information

If your job search includes looking at becoming a choreographer, then it is probably safe to assume you were already a dancer at some point and know a lot about dancing. Otherwise, stating that you are fighting an uphill battle with your career planning is an understatement. Most choreographers are old dancers that have had no choice but to get out of dancing because their aged and broken down bodies simply couldn’t handle it anymore. This usually happens around the wise old age of thirty! Yes, dancing eats its young and enjoys doing it.
 
Choreographers can hold a wide-variety of positions, ranging from teaching little would be ballerinas how to dance like swans (no matter how fat and out of shape they may be), to teaching borderline prostitutes how to shake their backsides more efficiently and elegantly in music videos. Of course, there are Broadway musicals and musical theater jobs as well.
 

Career Facts:

Yes, by the age of thirty, you are seen as a relic in the dance world. By the age, the dance world has gobbled you up and excreted you out. Since most dancers began dancing at a very young age (to help their parents work out issues from their own childhood or help them impress their “friends”), most dancers don’t really have too many other career opportunities. As a result, these ancient wise women and men are pointed in the direction of training the next generation of flowers how to dance like flowers, bees, birds, cats and other objects.
 

Some choreographers may open up their own school, as the overhead is pretty cheap. After all, you mostly just need a big room and some mirrors. Others will work in a wide assortment of musical productions.

 

Career Opportunities and Job Outlook-Poor:

The job outlook for choreographers is poor. Between 2006 and 2016 the expected level of growth is only a mere two-percent.
 
Job Outlook is Poor
 

A Day in The Life:

Most choreographers will awaken at the ripe old age of thirty-one and wonder where it all went so very wrong. They will wonder how their youth escaped them so quickly and look at highly toned, sculpted and near perfect bodies with optimal ratios of body fat to muscle in complete disgust. 
 

After an emergency session with their psychiatrist, they will eat their daily allotment of calories, one cup of yogurt, and proceed to a long day of instructing dance students on the finer points of dance. More than likely this process will result in causing permanent psychological damage to all those involved. All the while, the theme music from Fame will loop over and over in their heads.

 

Average Salary:

Unlike dancers, choreographers actually make enough money to survive and have physical possessions. The average choreographer can expect to make about $35,000 a year, with the top-ten percent seeing a salary around $64,000.

$35k – $64k

 

Career Training and Qualifications:

Most choreographers began dance training at an early age, and many will have likely studies dance in college.