I have decided that I would like to persue a career in dance teaching. I am 20 years old and I live in the UK. I am completely new to dance, I have not taken any previous dance exams and have had very little dance training. I decided to go back to college last year, I will be starting my second year of the BTEC performing arts national diploma in september. Although I have very limited dance experience, I really do love it, and studying the performing arts course has confirmed that for me. I would love to be able to teach dance, particularly ballet and possibly modern dance. I have no clue where to begin or how to go about this. From what I have found out so far, I understand that I will first need to train in my chosen dance genres to at least intermediate level, but I am unsure of where to go from here. I have read about the ISTD courses- FDI and CDE. How and where would I study these courses, approximately how long are they in duration/ how many hours per week? How much do they cost approximately? I'm not even sure if that would be the best way to become a qualified dance teacher. As I'm sure you can probably tell by now, I am completely clueless and pretty confused, but I know this is something I definately want to do. Any advice would be very much appreciated. Thankyou.

Any ISTD teacher will be able to help you get started, this link on the website explains this,
www.istd.org . . .
This will be any teacher who enters candidates for exams.

Get in touch with the ISTD and ask them about teachers in your area. From what I understand of the new qualifications you'll need to go to one of their centers for a portion of your training, you'll need to ask them this too. Here's a link that will help.

www.istd.org . . .

But your prioity is to get some dance training, again get in touch with the ISTD for this, you don't need to go to a big college, all you need is a qualified teacher

I am not familiar with the certification process, although I do believe for you it will be necessary. However, I wanted to throw out there that this is not a small commitment. You will not be teaching dance for YEARS. It took me over a decade to obtain my dance training (actually, I feel that I am still training, so it has been much longer.) While you are an adult and some things will come faster (and some things will come slower), you should not underestimate the time involved. You will be paying financially long before you start to see any income. You are going to want to plan accordingly. How will you pay your bills and find money for classes? If you don’t have a family or spouse willing to support you, then a “second” career may be necessary. (I apologize in advance if you have this worked out, but there are some considerations beyond the training that you will want to think through.)

I really want to be a doctor...but until I commit to the training and completing my education in that field, it's not going to happen.

You have to train before you can teach. If you are genuinely serious about this you need to take on a serious course of study as a dancer, and then train as a teacher. This means you will not be teaching for sometime, but all good things come to those who wait right

The first thing you need to do is find a school where you can train yourself as a dancer, being in the UK I'd highly suggest you take advantage of training with a ISTD Cecchetti teacher or RAD teacher. You can work through the syllabus as a dance student until you reach the required level to enter the teacher training. For someone without a strong background in dance I think this would be the best way for you to realistically gauge your progress, it will also give you a more specific time line for achieving and reaching your goals.

I certainly want to agree with the above posters but want to just reinforce some things.

The first thing you have to do is ask yourself a few questions:

1 Why do you want to be a dance teacher? Are you looking for something that is going to be loads of fun and a simple field to get into? If so then you are probably on the wrong path.

2 Are you willing to spend thousands (yes thousands) of dollars on the proper training with no guarantee of a job or any income at the end?

Dance training takes years (especially in the disciplines that you want to become involved in). The fact is with your age (and I have worked with adults that is why I say this) who have had little technique in the past most things come slower. Are you ready and willing to spend 10 plus years learning the proper technique? This also includes taking classes for hours at a time 5 or even 6 days a week. Depending on where you study you may also be taking classes with children. This was true at one of the ballet companies I studied with.

The next question is how will you fund this training? This can add up very quickly which will mean you will need a relatively well paying job during the day so that you can support yourself dancing basically throughout the evening.

Now let's think it's been 10 years you are 30 years old and you are close to finished with your training. Has your training stuck? Have you turned into a dancer willing to execute well enough to understand the technique so you can pass it on to others?

If yes (which might not necessarily be the case)it's time to work on learning techniques to teach others. This starts with the youngest students in most cases. Depending on the studio that you are looking to work with and your history you might be picked up as an assistant before you are allowed to teach classes on your own. This usually comes with very little pay and a lot of hours. This is followed by taking seminars, courses, getting certifications (more and more money with little pay). Assuming all goes well maybe in 2 or 3 years your SO might think that you are ready to take on some beginner classes by yourself.

Now you're 32 and just started teaching beginner classes. This is tedious, involves a lot of movement and demonstration. It also requires a great deal of knowledge of the technique that you have learned so that you can break it down for the kids. The pay is not necessarily promising. The choreography is simple (and the reason I say this is because a lot of time those who want to become teachers when they had not had a lot of dance training want to get involved with the advanced students and create some SYTYCD type choreography right away which is not the case). Are you willing to keep up your own training during this time so that you can continue to learn new and updated techniques? Remember most of us continue to train ourselves through workshops or in some cases still taking classes.

Of course this goes on and on with no promises HOWEVER if this doesn't sound feasible to you then you might want to reconsider what it is that you are thinking about doing. Remember also being a dance teacher also has a LOT of years (for most of us at least) getting involved with the right dancing school. For me in particular I it moved around to 3 or 4 studios. Some of them I was with for just a year others I was with for a couple before it was apparent that things were not working out. All of them were learning experiences for me and made me a better teacher, however it is part of the realities of this job.

Please do not misunderstand this post, I am not trying to discourage you from being a dance teaching if that is really what you want to do, however it is important to remember that even for some of us with a strong background and training this job is almost like a gamble. There is no real way to find out that your training will pay off and no real way to know that you will even get a job as a dance teacher. Being a dance teacher does not happen over night and it take a lot of training and a lot of dedication. If any of these factors are not in place and if you are not giving your 100% then you are doing nothing more than wasting your money.

^ This is definitely food for thought.

As a backup plan perhaps you might look into teaching other styles or classes? Perhaps Ballroom or social dance, or becoming a fitness instructor. While those still take a substantial amount of training it's not quite as intense as becoming a ballet teacher.

Also, what is it that you do now.

Thankyou for all of your advice. I completely understand that this is not something that is going to happen over night. I am currently working part- time in a nursery and waitressing whilst I finish my diploma course. I love working with children and so teaching younger students would not be a problem. I have found several dance schools in my area which are currently closed for the summer break. What forms of exercise and what other things should I be doing in the mean time until I can start taking regular dance classes? Thanks, again.

It's not just that it doesn't happen over night, it's going to take a long long time with no shortcuts (and speaking as an SO we know when someone has tried to "cheat" their way past the training)

So you are interested in working with children? Have you thought of pursuing another field that might be better paying than a dance teacher or have a more consistent income? I am not sure what the rules and regs are in the UK but you might find just as much enjoyment with better pay at a preschool or daycare center which will have a lot more job security.

As far as exercises I would think that getting yourself in basic physical shape is best. The rest of the exercises you will learn when you start your training.

Also keep in mind too (and I meant to post this up earlier but I had to do to work so I didn't have enough time) you can't be a motorcycle coach if you do not know how to ride a motorcycle. The same goes for dance. Even with the little ones.

I agree that it might be best to tackle things by finding a solid child-oriented (non-dance) career path first. Work at a daycare or as a school teacher, as this will not only gain you lots of great experience, but you will also be building a fantastic career. Certainly, begin and continue with your own dance training, as well. Then several years from now when you are at a point where you can begin your teachers' training, you can reevaluate whether this is something that you want to do. You won’t be in a situation where you have invested YEARS into a career path that you have decided is no longer for you and have nothing to fall back on. You will always have a backup in place. Plus, working with children on a consistent basis will be helpful in knowing if working with children truly is what you want to do.

Another concern, you mentioned that all of the schools around you are on “summer break”. To obtain the sort of training that you are looking for, you will want a school that offers year round training. (Certainly, there may be sufficient schools that you can study with and supplement the “off time” with training elsewhere. However, in most cases, a school offering a solid professional program will be doing so on a consistent basis.) I am just concerned that you have not truly found the right type of school.

DaDancingPsych wrote:


Another concern, you mentioned that all of the schools around you are on “summer break”. To obtain the sort of training that you are looking for, you will want a school that offers year round training. (Certainly, there may be sufficient schools that you can study with and supplement the “off time” with training elsewhere. However, in most cases, a school offering a solid professional program will be doing so on a consistent basis.) I am just concerned that you have not truly found the right type of school.

This is very true!

Another thing to remember is that with this job you will be out of work during the summer months and you will not be making enough through the year to not have to work during the summer.

^ The financial aspect is a huge one. Dance teachers can make a decent living but the majority don't and usually have to find other ways to supplement their income. It's a passion job and this is for teachers who have been dancing their whole lives and have certifications and/or years of experience.

The likelyhood of you teaching dance full-time is slim to none because you won't be able to compete with a teacher who has the training background and years of experience in the art form to back up her resume.

Most dance teachers teach part-time and have another job that really pays their bills. There are exceptions but....those are exceptions, not the norm.

I think it's great you have a passion and interest in dance and I think you should pursue taking classes and enjoy it as much as you can, we just want to help prepare you for what lies ahead. It's not a glamorous career by any means and it's a very difficult line of work to actually make your full-time career.

DaDancing gave some great advice

There is a thread about how it's never too late to start dancing but there are times that it is too late to pursue dance as a career. I'm bot saying you're too late just keep in mind most teachers have had as many years of training as a doctor or more in many cases. If you don't have a natural ability it may be even harder than you expect. And at the end of it all even if you are a great dancer it doesn't mean you'll transition to a great teacher. You need to be able to not only execute the steps but eloquently dissect them and correct them as well as formulate them into choreography.
Good luck on your journey if you do choose to pursue this path. It will be a long rigorous process and you will in the end work 10 hours/ week and spendaby more doing uncompensated prep work. You'll never be appreciated or rich but you might be happy.

J1ll wrote:

You'll never be appreciated or rich but you might be happy.

And even then sometimes you won't be.

A lot of us have the passion, years of training and teaching experience and still run into problems. You can take a look on here at some of the threads posted and get a better idea of the challenges that some people face often and get a better feel for the job also.

People will go through periods of burn out in any job. Any job becomes monotonous if you do it day in and day out. And part of why we dance teachers burn out so often is our dedication and passion to our jobs. But in the end we could all do something different but choose to do what we love.

J1ll wrote:

People will go through periods of burn out in any job. Any job becomes monotonous if you do it day in and day out. And part of why we dance teachers burn out so often is our dedication and passion to our jobs. But in the end we could all do something different but choose to do what we love.

Absolutely!
I point it out though because (as I am sure you know) there are a lot of people out there who think that because we do something that we love there is no "roller coaster" effect which is ultimately not the case. It IS just like any other job.