How can I start a career as a psychologist?

Help! My dancing career?

• I am a teenager which means I have to start making my decisions. I have 2 options to chose from.... 1) Train train, and more training for ballet/pointe dancing. I have this goal where I want to dance in the corps de ballet at the New York City Ballet. Background: Did balle since I was 2, and pointe since I was in about 3rd or 4th grade. I grew up dancing at Vail Dance Studio, NJ. Then when Ut was going to shut down, I started dancing at Mainstage Center For The Arts (at Camden County College) In a few weeks I am gonna go to Nancy Mulford Dance in Mt Ephraim, NJ. 2)Or I'll work more in a mix of all the dances. My favorite is still ballet- and will always be, but I also like lyrical. At Vail dance, I took acro for a few years but at Mainstage, they didnt have acro classes. I took broadway classes for maybe about 5 years (still doing it) an tap since I was about 4. That way I could possibly work in compettions. Questions: Which career lasts longer? How much training will I need for option #1? For option #2, is that more of a kid/teen thing? Like I said before, ballet and pointe will always be m favorite and will also probably will always be what I'm best at. Oh and BTW, I understand a dancing career doesnt last very long and retire at early age. Question: What excactly is that age? 20s? 30s? Etc. Anyways, after my dancing career, I want to go to college and study to be a psychologist. If you could answer all the questions and your opinion that would be helpful. Also links could help! THANKS!

• Answer:

  You are going to hate my answer, but I will give it to you straight. My answer is based on my experience in the world of professional dance. Other answers you get may be based on wishful thinking of dancers who are in similar circumstances as you are, but they really don't know how things are. They just hope they are the way they wish it to be. I think you may be too late for option #1 if you are already a teenager. The only way into NYCB is through the feeder school SAB unless you are an already well established dancer and Peter Martins invites you to join the company. I really hate to put it this way, but the fact that you were put en pointe at age 8 or 9 means that not only do you have poor ballet training but that your feet most likely are ruined for ballet. I hope you were exaggerating on the age you went en pointe. Your bones were not ossified at that age and they cannot hold the weight of the body without doing damage to them. Not to mention not being able to hold your rotation at that age (physically not likely that is possible) as well as not enough ballet technique. There is a reason that SAB doesn't put dancers en pointe until age 13 after years and years of training. #2) There is no such thing as professional lyrical ballet. That is only found in recreational dance schools that do either recitals or competition dance. You mentioned working in competition dance. The people who make money out of that is the organizations that run the competitions and the competition schools. Ballet dancers in serious training take 20-30 hours of technique classes a week year round (including summer intensives) in feeder schools to major ballet companies. They dorm at their ballet academies if they don't live close. They are often home schooled or take their academics as arranged by their ballet academies in order to dance that much and to graduate high school early. Training is expected to be complete by age 16 when you apprentice with a professional ballet company and then are asked to join as corps de ballet about 6 months later. In order to be able to train in a school like this, you need to be screened for body, facility and musicality. Only 2% of the population is born with what is required and no amount of training can change those things. Even of the dancers who have all born with all the gifts required, who started the right training at a young enough age at a top ballet academy, not all reach the professional ranks. There are so few jobs and many well trained dancers. Most ballet dancers retire in their late 20s or around 30 if they are not injured first. There are a few that can even go on dancing to 40 but they usually retire before that. Corps de ballet retires in their late 20s generally Often their contracts are just not renewed.. Principals seem to be able to dance longer. For other types of dance you still need strong ballet training. Anything less than 15 hours of technique classes a week and double that in the summer months is considered recreational training. You would then need a codified modern training like Graham or Horton modern. If you wanted jazz then you would add that too. This would be for contemporary dance and/or commercial including theater dance. Because so much depends on your youth and looks for this form of dance, careers are also very short. Concert contemporary dance is the exception and dancers can go on longest in those careers. Keeping in mind that only 10% of the best trained dancers get work and only 10% of them can make a living at it. For training for that you would have to attend a dance conservatory program at a top school like Juilliard or NYU Tisch. To get into a school like that you have to be one of a very select few. For example, Juilliard takes only 12 girls (and 12 boys) into their freshman class out of all who audition. There are dancers trained at Juilliard that are struggling to get work. (Schools like Point Part or Marymount Manhattan have a triple focus and include Jazz.) I really don't know what to tell you. Your training up to now, has not been at the level to make you competitive for a dance career. If you can get yourself into a good academy and get the right training and you are still a young teen of 13 or 14, perhaps you can have a career in either commercial dance or contemporary/modern dance. It would depend on your natural gifts for dance and if you can get professional training. If it doesn't work out for you, remember that you don't have to get paid to enjoy dance. Dance for the joy of dance and dance can always be a part of your life. I hope I haven't ruined your day, but my guess is that I have. I didn't answer this to hurt you but to save you from years of going down the wrong road and perhaps to give you a last chance to turn things around and get better training. I hope you think of my answer as an opportunity to change things for the better for you and not to just put you down.