How Dance Classes Can Help Actors

There are so many actors out there vying for the same jobs that unless you're a savant you'd better be doing everything in your power to market yourself and continue to improve your skills. Nowadays there are classes for every aspect of the craft; cold reading, scene study, improvisation, commercials, audition technique, and a variety of voice-over situations.

While these are all wonderful classes and things that will definitely improve the way you speak and relate both to the camera and the other actor, only improvisation ever really deals with physical elements. In improvisation classes since there is no script a lot of what you do naturally comes from your body and it's own natural actions and reactions.

If you watch enough actors work you'll start notice the small differences in how they use or don't use their bodies. Body language is powerful and a lot of the time actors get so caught up in the lines they forget what their bodies are doing or what they're saying with their bodies.

Ever see a scene where someone was lying about something but their body language completely gave away the truth if you were observant enough to notice? Little details like these are what will ultimately get you more jobs. One thing I recommend all actors do besides get in a good improv class is to take some dance classes.

Dance classes are not only helpful in the industry for the very fact that there are a lot of jobs (commercials, music videos and musicals) that need actors who can dance, but they help an actor learn how to use their body and truly become comfortable in their own skin. Often times I have been in classes watching other actors or sitting in on casting sessions and I see these amazing actors.

People who tell everything with their eyes. The kind of actors I could watch all day and believe every word they say....but only when they're in a close up shot. It kills me. These amazing actors probably aren't even aware they have bodies when they're acting, they are so engrossed in the lines and the backstory, it's captivating, but not enough. Unfortunately for them all film isn't shown in close-ups and you have to know how to use your body.

Remember the scene in Talledega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby? The one where Ricky Bobby is interviewed for the first time and he continues to awkwardly lift his hands around his face because he doesn't know what to do with them? It's kind of like that. Except these people can talk. He was terrible at that as well the first time around.

What dance classes teach you is how to move. So that one day when a director gives you a moving sequence instead of stumbling through it you'll be able to hit each mark with confidence. Jump into a jazz class at a local studio. You'll learn to move and sweat off a couple pounds. Just remember that acting is not just about what you say and how you say it, it's also about what you do and what those actions, however small they may be, mean.