It’s that time of the year again. When university applications have been sent in and people are now choosing where they would like to spend their future. 

 

However, for dancers there's an extra stage that they must undergo: auditions.

 

I had the opportunity to speak to aspiring triple threat Jess Coleman, to find out the true extent dancers have to go through to secure their spot for the future and the difficulties they face.

 

The first question I asked to get an idea for what the audition process looks like is what does the preparation involve and what does the day look like? To which she stated, “for every university they ask for a different number of pieces to prepare, so overall I had 3 songs, 2 monologues and a dance routine prepared that I altered to match the length and genre requirements for the specific auditions. For some aspects of the audition, mostly dance, you are taught choreography to perform on the day, so you cannot prepare for that part. But the purpose of this is so the audition panel can see how fast you can pick up and adapt to new choreography”. 

 

I was then curious about the difficulties regarding the process, so asked what the hardest part of the process was for her. However this is subjective to the individual and their strengths and weaknesses. Jess told me about the difficulty that comes from high competition to “not overthink and compare to others as it will make you doubt your own performance. The best way to go into auditions is confident with your ability and with a positive mindset throughout so you don’t self-sabotage”.

 

As with everything, there are many things that are perhaps not talked about enough and so is surprising when you face this. Jess had her own experience with this saying that “there aren’t a lot of places and over a thousand people audition”. Due to this, the competition for dancers is more fierce and therefore more difficult to secure their spot on the course to be able to study their passion.

 

Jess Coleman auditioned for 4 universities and has decided that next year her place of study will be Bird College in South East London. She chose this university because of the welcoming and friendly nature of the faculty, the different aspects of dance and musical theatre covered by the course, their focus on producing strong dancers and triple threats, and their successful alumni. 

 

Her ultimate goal is to “go into the performing industry in theatre”. This could be on West End, UK tours, international tours, cruise ships, or many other places for musical performance. 

 

The difficulty surrounding the auditions are supposed to not only make sure you are right for their course and their university but to imitate what you should expect after, as there will always be large competition and you can never be certain whether or not you get the role.