DancerResume Example & Writing Guide (2026)

One page, always. Print it on standard paper, trim it to 8x10, and staple or attach it to the back of your headshot so the two never separate at the audition table. Use a single column, a readable serif or clean sans-serif at a size a director can read at arm's length, and generous white space. No graphics, no color blocks, no photo embedded in the document, and no dense paragraphs.

Drop the corporate furniture entirely: no objective, no professional summary, no "references available upon request," and no month-by-month employment dates. A performance resume is a credit list, not an employment history, and gaps are normal in a project-based career. Order the sections header stats, training, credits, special skills, then education or awards. Keep a separate digital PDF of the same file to attach to online submissions, and keep the file name professional — your name and the word resume, not "resume_final_v3."

Your name goes at the top in the largest type on the page — larger than anything else — followed by contact information. Use a professional email and a phone number, plus city and state only; never a street address, since the resume circulates widely. If you are agency-represented, list the agency's contact instead of or alongside your own, and add links to your reel and dance-focused social profile on one short line.

Then the performing-arts specifics. Union status belongs directly under your name if you have it — AGMA for ballet and opera companies, Actors' Equity for theatre, SAG-AFTRA for film and television, AGVA for variety and live venue work — and "non-union" or "Equity Membership Candidate" is worth stating plainly rather than leaving blank. Height is standard on a dance resume because partnering, lifts, costume, and ensemble matching depend on it. Weight is increasingly omitted and many dancers leave it off entirely; include hair and eye color only if you are pursuing commercial or on-camera work. Never list your age or date of birth.

On a dance resume, training sits high on the page — often directly under the header — because panels read lineage. Organize it by discipline rather than by date: ballet, contemporary or modern, jazz, tap, hip hop, partnering, and so on. Under each, list the teachers you studied with by name, the school, conservatory, or company school, and the years or duration. Teacher names are the point; a director who trained in the same lineage instantly knows what your technique looks like before you take the combination.

Include summer intensives, company trainee or apprentice programs, workshops, and named syllabi you have trained in. Be precise about technique vocabulary — Graham, Horton, Limón, Cunningham, release-based, Vaganova, Balanchine, Cecchetti — because those words tell a panel exactly what your body has been shaped to do. As professional credits accumulate, trim the studio-level training down and let credits take the space instead.

Credits are traditionally laid out in three columns: the production or role, the company or venue, and the choreographer or director. That last column is the one panels read hardest, so never leave it blank — if you danced a piece by a choreographer whose name carries weight in your niche, that name is doing more work than the venue is. Group credits by category when your background spans several, using headers such as Concert/Company, Musical Theatre, Commercial, and Cruise or Theme Park, and lead with whichever category matches the job you are auditioning for.

Do not list every performance you have ever given. A dance resume is curated: strongest and most relevant credits first, recital and competition work removed once professional credits exist, and student work labeled as such rather than disguised. Featured, soloist, principal, ensemble, swing, understudy, and dance captain are meaningful distinctions to a panel, so use the accurate one — inflating a credit is the fastest way to lose a room, because the dance world is small and choreographers talk.

This section is not filler — it is frequently the reason one dancer books over another with the same technique. Be concrete and be truthful, because everything here can be asked for on the spot. List partnering and lifts, pointe work, tumbling with the specific passes you have (back handspring, standing tuck, aerial), aerial apparatus such as silks, lyra, or straps, acro and contortion, and any style you can pick up quickly in a call.

Then extend past dance. Singing with your voice type and range, acting and dialects, ice or roller skates, stilts, fire, puppetry, stage combat, teaching and choreography, languages spoken, a valid passport and driver's license, and swim ability all appear in real casting breakdowns — cruise and theme park contracts in particular screen for passport, swim, and vocal ability. Keep the list to skills you could demonstrate today, not skills you had in high school.

A teaching resume is a conventional resume and should be written like one. It can run one to two pages, uses a chronological work history with employer names and dates, and often passes through an applicant tracking system at a studio chain, school district, university, or recreation department — which means standard headings, a single column, plain text, and keyword matching all matter again. Your headshot does not belong on it.

The content shifts too. Lead with teaching credentials and safety: CPR and First Aid, background check and fingerprint clearance, child-protection or SafeSport-style training, and any teacher certification such as ABT National Training Curriculum, RAD, Cecchetti, Progressing Ballet Technique, or Acrobatic Arts. Then quantify the teaching itself: age groups and levels taught, class sizes, weekly class load, syllabus or curriculum you built, recital and competition choreography, competition results, student retention and enrollment growth, and parent communication. Performance credits still belong on the page — they are your authority — but they move down and shrink to a short highlights block.