A Career As A Dancer

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According to Agnes de Mille, “To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful. This is power, it is glory on earth and it is yours for the taking” (BrainyQuote). That statement is essential to a dancer’s, being 5% of the American population, career because they realize the sacrifice it takes to be successful (U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics). With that sacrifice comes great intelligence. The most successful dancers are the ones who apply the skills that they’ve learned in school into making their dancing more efficient and meaningful. Due to the intellectual demand of being a dancer, always thinking critically is essential to survive. Being a dancer brings mathematical challenges; intensive planning, calculating for …show more content…

For example, dancers have to eventually go on tour. Mathematical proficiency is needed because one will have to plan accordingly to know what materials they need and how to pack them with limited space.This is a skill of great vitality because, ultimately, what the dancer puts into their body will determine how they end up performing with their company. The way the dancer performs is ultimately sums up their career, which is ultimately the make or break for if the dancer continues to have their job. The math that lies in the touring of a professional dancer is ultimately by analyzing the weight limit of their luggage, the conscious balancing doses of essential medicines that dancers need, and the ability to read weather charts of their destinations so they can know what clothes that they should wear when they travel. The prime example of a dancer needing mathematical capabilities is shown in 10 Things To Know As A Traveling Dancer by Caleb Diaz. In 10 Things To Know As A Traveling Dancer, Diaz needed to use the mathematical skills of latitude and longitude to determine his pathway on the map so that he would not get lost in Japan. This skill is probably the most important because, when being a dancer, it is essential to always get to one’s destination at least 20-35 minutes beforehand. That particular 20-35 minutes is typically the time to warm up and perform conscious thinking because, ultimately, …show more content…

Especially, for women, the pointe shoes. The pointe shoe allows female dancers to dance on their toes to make them seem almost weightless. Pointe shoes tend to have a small lifespan, but a big cost. Due to this circumstance, dancers must apply their math skills to learn how to deal with money so that they can plan on providing shoes for themselves. Usually, companies pay for the dancers’ shoes, but if one is an apprentice with the company they may not have shoes provided to them until they’re promoted to another rank. Typically, in a season of ballet, a female dancer goes through 100-120 pairs of pointe shoes and each pair costs approximately $80 each (The Pointe of Shoes). When unpaid positions are filled, it makes it easier for the company because they can focus on providing shoes to not as many dancer; ones without the privilege of having shoes provided to them must learn how to budget. Budgeting is when one creates a process on how to spend a certain amount of money and it is important because one can start the procedures of living comfortably within their means (What Is Budgeting?). FIrst and foremost, a dancer must start a paper trail of all of their expenses; documenting them and checking back for numeric accuracy to make sure that no money, with a salary that every cent is needed, is being wasted (Dance Spirit). Another quality of mathematically developing a budget is to get an easy sidejob. The

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