I get asked it far too often…”what’s it like being a professional dancer?” Our job is one of the most physically, emotionally, and mentally challenging careers, yet many people are inquisitive about what it really entails. I LOVE answering this question because, personally, I feel that others can only truly understand how and why we do what we do if we take the time to explain it AND if those who are listening can feel the passion with which we explain it. Dancers don’t do what they do because of the compensation or the status. We are driven by the pure love of the art and the challenge and growth it brings to our everyday life.

Every professional dance career looks a bit different – some are gig based, some dancers are part-time around another career in an unrelated industry, some are company contracted with different schedules than ours. But here you are at southchicagodancetheatre.com, so I’m going to write what I know and give you a full glimpse into a week in our life, most particularly what we’ve been up to this month!

Alarms go off at a different time for each of us…I’m an early riser and require a lot of coffee to function, so I’m usually up around 6:15am to prepare for my day and allot myself enough time for traffic along my commute to Hyde Park School of Dance where we rehearse Tuesday through Friday each week. Arrival time at the studio is around 9am in which we prepare for Pilates warm-up from 9:15-9:30am. The wonderful Sam Dauer has created a 15 minute Pilates warm-up routine to prepare us and activate certain essential muscle groups for us as dancers. Next up from 9:30-10:45am is Company Class (to those of you dancers – our company classes are open classes! Come check them out, you won’t regret it!) Tuesday we have Modern with our Artistic & Executive Director, Kia S. Smith, Wednesday is Ballet with Sarah Schaefer, Thursday is Ballet with Kia, and Friday is Contemporary with Ethan Kirschbaum. We are privileged to have such wonderful teachers and I can’t tell you how important it is for us to train in a variety of styles with the repertoire we have!

After class is complete, we typically take a short break and return to the studio around 11am to begin rehearsal. Rehearsal can include a multitude of things. Recently, we were preparing for our upcoming shows, so we would find ourselves doing full runs of pieces we are familiar with while also reviewing or teaching previous repertoire to our emerging and guest artists. Rehearsal runs until 2pm and if there’s one thing I can guarantee you, it’s that it is SWEATY and a lot of hard work – but us SCDT dancers love to make it an upbeat environment and never fail to have a good time. Later this season, rehearsal may include residencies from our 5 new commissioned works this season in which we would learn new pieces created on our company by outside choreographers. Regardless of what we do with our three hour rehearsal chunk, it is productive and challenging.

Post-rehearsal, we have jobs outside of the studio. Many of us, myself included, teach at local dance studios for children. It’s exciting to share our love and passion for dance with the next generation as I know I gained my love for the art form from my inspiring teachers growing up! Others work at local gyms, restaurants, reception desks, coffee shops, etc. We even have a few dancers who are in school working towards more/prestigious degrees. If there’s one thing to know about dancers, it’s that we are not lazy humans! A body in motion stays in motion, and rest assured…we are ALWAYS moving!

Hopefully you have more of an idea as to what we do on a daily basis – our career is anything but ordinary, but it’s our “normal”. We’ve all grown up with hectic schedules and are used to managing our time well and giving our all to whatever we do. We’re all out here just living the dream!!