Audition Room

(🇬🇧)

By Martin FRENETTE

Every dancer dreams of being remembered for more than the height of a développé or the number of turns they spun out. They long to be seen as artists, as storytellers, as individuals with something that is unmistakably theirs. And yet, the first thing dancers must do at an audition is pin a random number to their chest. In one an eye blink, their entire identity seems reduced to a few digits.

The first professional audition often feels like arriving too early to a story whose first chapter hasn’t yet been written. There’s always more to prepare: more technique to refine, more confidence to muster, more wisdom to gather from teachers and mentors. However, a dancer’s life is no waiting room, but a series of arrivals and leapis of faith, ready or not. Aspiration demands action. The sooner you begin — submitting the résumé, lacing the right shoes, showing up — the sooner the possibilities can unfold.

Each graduating class brings new faces to the audition room — eyes wide with hope, limbs honed by years at the barre. They enter spaces