Home Choreographer Resume template
Choreographer resume template
A clean starting structure with example content grounded in what choreographers actually do day to day, not generic filler. Download and replace the bracketed placeholders with your own details.
Which resume format should you use?
Reverse chronological
You have a steady work history. This is the format almost every recruiter and ATS expects by default.
Functional
You're changing fields or have gaps in your employment. Leads with skills rather than a job-by-job timeline.
Combination
You're early career or have worked consistently but for only a few employers. Blends a skills summary with a shorter chronological history.
This template uses the reverse chronological format: the one most choreographers should default to, since most Australian recruiters and ATS software expect it.
Professional summary
Choreographer working across contemporary dance, musical theatre and screen, moving between mainstage seasons and short-form film shoots. Experienced in leading a rehearsal room of dancers and collaborating with directors, composers and designers from early creative development through to opening night. Strong at translating a director's intent into movement that reads from the back of a theatre and holds up inside a camera frame.
Key skills
- Movement design and sequencing for stage and screen
- Rehearsal direction and dancer coaching
- Auditioning, casting and running selection calls
- Adapting choreography for different venues, sightlines and camera framing
- Creative development collaboration with directors, composers and designers
- Project management across short-term contracts
- Event coordination for festivals and touring productions
- Dance notation and reconstruction (LabanWriter)
- Video editing for rehearsal and pitch reels (Adobe Premiere Pro)
- Music editing and cut timing (Ableton Live)
- Rehearsal scheduling and stage management tools (StageWrite)
- Safe Dance practice and injury prevention
- People leadership, written communication and attention to detail
Experience: example bullet points
- Designed and sequenced movement for a mainstage dance theatre work, running a six-week rehearsal period with a company of twelve dancers
- Directed rehearsals and coached dancers through character-driven movement, resetting individual phrases so understudies could step in without a full re-block
- Collaborated with a composer and lighting designer during creative development, restructuring two sections after the first preview to tighten the transition into the finale
- Ran audition calls across two cities, casting a ten-dancer ensemble and maintaining a standing shortlist of performers for future contracts
- Adapted an existing stage work for a regional tour, re-blocking group sections for a shallow stage and reduced wing space
- Translated stage choreography for a multi-camera shoot, breaking sequences into shots and adjusting eyelines and floor marks for the camera
- Coordinated scheduling across dancers, musicians and venue staff for a festival season, keeping rehearsals on track through three venue changes
Education
Typical pathway is a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance) or Bachelor of Dance through a university or performing arts school such as WAAPA, the Victorian College of the Arts or QUT, or a Diploma of Dance (Elite Performance) or Certificate IV in Dance, with postgraduate study in choreography common for those moving into directing.
Keywords an ATS is likely to scan for
Applicant tracking systems match your resume against terms in the job ad before a person ever sees it. Only include the ones that actually apply to your experience, but if a term below matches something you've done, use the same wording the job ad uses.
- Choreographer
- Dance direction
- Movement director
- Rehearsal direction
- Creative development
- Audition and casting
- Dance notation
- Labanotation
- StageWrite
- Adobe Premiere Pro
- Ableton Live
- Safe Dance practice
- Ausdance
- MEAA
- Live Performance Australia
- Creative Australia
- Working with Children Check
- First aid certificate
- Musical theatre
- Contemporary dance
- Touring productions
- Screen choreography
Getting past ATS screening
- Match the specific skills, certifications and terms used in the job ad, not just your own wording for the same thing.
- Keep formatting simple: no tables, text boxes, columns, headers/footers or graphics. Parsers frequently drop content placed in these.
- Submit as .docx or PDF unless the job ad specifies otherwise.
- Use standard section headings (Experience, Education, Skills) rather than creative alternatives.
- List your core skills and technical competencies in their own section so a keyword scan can find them instantly.
This is a starting point, not a guarantee of interviews. Tailor every bullet point to your own real experience and the specific job ad.