People ask me all of the time for advice.. You’d probably even be surprised by who asks me for advice!  Sometimes it’s my peers, and sometimes it’s Emmy Award Winning Choreographers.  Here are some tips that I hope help you..

1)  Identify your goal.  What do you want?  Do you want to teach internationally? Do you want to choreograph for commercials?  Do you want to book commercials?  Do you want to book a movie?

For the sake of this entry, let’s it assume it’s the latter.  Let’s assume you want to book commercials or movies…

2)  Find out who is choreographing the jobs you want to book!  Duh!  What this industry looks like and what it actually is, are two COMPLETELY different things.  Just because someone is popular and has 100,000 followers does not mean they are employable and/or that they can employ you.  They may feed your soul, but can they feed your belly?

sidebar:  I feel like it was easier when I was growing up to cut through the crap.  When I was growing up, we all knew who was choreographing the videos, tours, commercials; it was obvious!  Nowadays, there are people who can put together cool steps but can’t choreograph a 2 minute dance.  why? because choreographing a 2 minute dance requires a deeper understanding of choreography composition.  I swear, if I get asked to re-choreograph another dance that a dancer from “So You Think You Can Dance” taught I’m going to hurl.  Just because you’re a great dancer doesn’t mean you’re a great choreographer.

3) Once you’ve found out who’s choreographed that movie, seek them out!  Duh!  So much of this industry is common sense.  And if they aren’t teaching (which is likely, because the people that can employ you are probably too busy choreographing legitimate jobs), find out who their assistants are, find out who they employ, which agencies represent them etc.

It’s so easy to get caught up in who’s “famous” and who has a large “following.”  I did it too.  I challenge you to look at the bigger picture.  A lot of “dance celebrities” are like “Real Housewives.”  They have these huge followings and names but what do they do when their show isn’t airing?  Nothing really. They make appearances, release concept videos, but no major film company, production company, director, choreographer will usually hire them.  At one point you have to decide, do you want the fame or the credibility?  Is it possible to have both? I’m not sure…  It’s possible the two aren’t mutually exclusive.  Still, you can’t deny the talent and skill of these choreographers:

Nick Florez

Margueritte Derricks

Michael Rooney

Rich and Tone

Fatima

Hi Hat

 

They are running the game.  They are the heavy hitters.  They are running the industry.  And check out how many followers they have… Having followers means nothing in Los Angeles.

xoxo