Career Transition For Dancers

Career Transition For Dancers is a nonprofit organization with offices in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago dedicated to helping dancers establish new careers when they have retired from their performing careers. Founded in 1985, the organization has provided over 46,000 hours of individual and group career counseling, with a dollar value of over $4 million, and awarded over $3 million in educational and entrepreneurial support. The organization has 4,600 active dancer-clients and has helped thousands of dancers in 47 states with their transitions through mobile National Outreach Projects. The organization helps dancers in all stages of their career whether they are students, pre-professional, or artists at the peak of their career. Its vision is to help every dancer reach their full potential.

In 1982, several foundations and unions including the National Endowment for the Arts, the AFL-CIO Labor Institute for Human Enrichment and the Actors’ Equity Association, led by Agnes de Mille, granted funding for a conference to discuss the need to assist dancers both during and at the end of their careers.

The conference took place on June 8, 1982 and was led by Project Director Edward Weston, Chairman Richard E. LeBlond, Jr., and Honorary Chairman Agnes de Mille. Exploring the trauma professional dancers face both during and at the end of their careers, the main goal of the conference was to consider how to better assist dancers with moving into new professions that would make use of their backgrounds, talents and skills. By the end of the conference it had been agreed that it was critical for dancers to begin exploring alternative careers at the beginning of their dance training and performing careers.

In 1985, nonprofit organization Career Transition For Dancers, Inc. was established in New York City with money from Actors’ Equity Association, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, American Guild of Musical Artists, and the Screen Actors Guild. Career Transition For Dancers is the only organization in the United States dedicated solely to the enrichment of dancers’ post-performing years.

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