Facing Rejection: How to Overcome Audition Anxiety as a Dancer

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By KitKat Brown

I hate auditions. As a former dancer, I have auditioned for various things many times in my life, and the process is something I do not enjoy. However, being a dancer means that you are most likely going to have to audition for something at least once. Whether that is a certain dance team or group, a program, or a performance, auditions are basically unavoidable if you want to evolve in the dance world. I personally do not like auditioning because that feeling of self-doubt always creeps into my mind…that feeling of “What if I don’t make it?” I think the reason that these thoughts affect me so easily is because I’ve only auditioned for something a couple of times and actually gotten the outcome I wanted. The rest of the time, things unfortunately do not go my way, and it’s hard to let go of that rejection. But I’ve come to develop a good mindset for dealing with auditions and the fear of rejection. I want to share this mindset to hopefully offer some advice for other dancers.

A big part of this mindset is being okay with the idea of moving forward. If an audition does not go your way, all you can do is try to learn something from it, and move on. Now, I’m not saying you should never try again. If that team or group is holding more auditions and you have the ability to audition again, then by all means you should. What I mean by move on is to move on from the fact that you got rejected. Rejection has less of a hold on you once you realize that truly, audition results mean nothing about who you are as a dancer or even your abilities. I know that might sound contradictory, because the basis of an audition is that people are, in a sense, judging you based on skill and ability. But, it all depends on how you choose to view the situation. Auditions can be a limited depiction of who you actually are as a dancer. I mean this quite literally, in the sense that there is only so much time in an audition and only so many times you get to dance. Now, obviously you are still perfectly likely to get the result you are hoping for, which is amazing. But if you do not, it does not mean that you’re not a good dancer. Casting directors haven’t seen the hours of effort you’ve accumulated outside of that hour-long audition. They don’t genuinely know everything you are capable of. If YOU know yourself, then you know that this rejection doesn’t negate all of the passion and devotion you’ve committed to dance. Of course, even though you might know this in your head, the fact still remains that audition anxiety can be overwhelming and hard to overcome. The most important thing is that you try your absolute best. Then you will be secure in the knowledge that you did everything you could. Auditions are an opportunity for dancers to push each other to be better, and to go beyond our comfort zones. You already know who you are and what you can do, so go show that to the world.