Actors Pages Blog

Dance Audition – Handle and Leave Great Impression

We realize that audition is not for all time related to television and theater productions. There are other major audition fields which may interest you, for instance dance audition. In case you have certain ambitions to be a professional dancer, you will be required to attend this sort of audition. Similar to other auditions, you must bring a resume and portfolio. This includes a one-page summary of your skill, accomplishments, contact information, as well as some headshots and full body shots in a variety of dance-wears.

There are two types of dance audition, the individual and group. Out of these two categories, the most common one is the group dance audition. Do not let yourself sweating and dripping during the audition, be great on it. Let us just dive straight into some basic preparation tips.

Prepare Yourself

Both for individual and group dance audition, knowing the dance style is an obligation. At times, you should do research of what kind of dance style the panel prefer thus you are able to judge your ability. If you are up for RnB dance, it is better for not auditioning for salsa. Also, you should choose suitable dance attire. There are various dance-wears, such as tights and leotard for women, tights and T-shirt for men. Adjust with the dance theme; do not make a fool by wearing wrong style since you need to show the casting director exactly why they should hire you.

Identify the Group and the Dance Requirement

Get familiar with your group. Bunch of practices with them will do great. By doing so, you can observe the unique style of each dancer as well as find the dance style that will fit everyone in the group. The next step is to pick an attractive yet simple and respectful song. Not only it has to suit your group’s dancing style but also be acceptable for judges. While performing, be sure to avoid particular beats to start dancing. This will create “pause” and it is not good. Another tip is by checking the preferences of the judges so that you can adjust your dance style accordingly.

Leave Great Impression

The finishing touch is to leave great impression to the casting director. Dance audition is about giving performances, not just dance. In group dance audition, besides incorporating with your group, make sure you never break your eye contact with the judges while you are performing. Express your personality by enjoying every movement you make so they can see your skill. In addition, you need to get to the location on time to leave great impression.

We are giving away chances for you to request certain areas on auditioning. Hints and tips are available here. Good luck, actors!

Auditioning - How to Do Great at a Cold Reading

We have been giving away some tips about auditioning in last few weeks. But, we noticed that most of them are aimed to aid you auditioning on a theater production. Being an actor is a lot like being a temp worker. While auditioning for a role, you will be competing with a lot of prominent actors – it could be at least a six other actors or even as many as 6,000 actors. Preparing an audition for a theater production is basically easier than for a film, television, or commercial ones.

In a theater production, you should have been handed a script outline, containing the specific role and dialogs, weeks before the real audition. Thus, you will get sufficient time to memorize your lines perfectly. However, in a film, television, or commercial audition, you are expected to cold reading a script that you have never seen before. This method is called “cold reading”. Despite of the predictable awkward moment, the director seems more interested in what sort of personality we perform as the character. These are few things you can do to pass the nerve-racking audition through a cold reading.

 Pick the Line and Memorize As Much As You Can

The first thing you should do is pick up the script, gain the basic understanding, and commit to memory as much dialogs as you can. At first you probably can only memorize a few words but over the times, you will get used to remember few lines in a glance. Keep your face out of your script while you are saying your lines – this is acting not reading.

Pay Attention While Other Actors Performing Their Lines

While other actor doing his lines, it surely creates some spaces for you to peek at your script and read your part. This is a fatal mistake at auditioning. Acting requires action and communication. Listen to your fellow while he is performing his lines. After he finished, you can read your next lines within few seconds and respond him by looking straight on his eyes. In addition, if you find it hard for you to remember your lines instantly, you are able to utterly repeat the process until you remember the entire lines. Keep remember to stay in your character by not looking at the script.

Draw Less Attention

This is a simple trick but it works well when doing a cold reading. Hold the script using your left hand, at your chest level. This will ease you while memorizing your lines since you do not have to bury your face deeply in the script. Apart from that, this gesture will look like your body’s natural extension. The less you draw the attention of the casting director, the wider chance you open to get the role.

Melissa Leo Shares Acting, Audition, and Preparation Tips

Who does not know Melissa Leo? Debuted in 1985, this outstanding actress has got a lot of nominations as well as earned several awards, including for her role as Alice Ward in the critically acclaimed film, The Fighter, at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles. She co-starred the movie with Christian Bale and won an award as the best supporting actor.

Indeed, there is no doubt when you see Melissa Leo on the stages, TV shows, or movies; she will immediately uplift the project into a different level. This lady has immensely acting gifts which enable her to ground every scene she is in and making everyone around her better.

If you want to learn some acting, audition, and preparation tips from her, I have got several references here, such as couple interviews with her during filming days, the Academy Awards, and even on Oprah Show. I will summarize all of them to ease you in understanding what exactly to do to open Hollywood gate.

Actors Choose How to Portray the Characters

On facebook Q&A, Melissa Leo revealed one of her acting tips. Check a snapshot below.

I notice if it is somehow not exactly a hardcore tips but nowadays, many actors have forgotten this basic rule of acting and ended up by applying multiple characters – wishing to gain a perfect role. As what Leo has said, even when you achieved a stink character-detail written on script, you still can gain life-full depth just by how you choose to play them. Bring a role as little of you as possible. She later said, “The actor’s instrument is innate”. By reading the script, first and foremost, again and again, you will mostly get the point and that what makes you become a great actor. You need to remember that you turn to be someone else in the show.

Do Not Take Multiple Roles at Once

On a personal interview, Leo affirmed, “If an actor works too much out of their hopefully, vivid, imagination, they’ll veer from the project as a whole, and it can harm a project enormously, I’ve learned.” I can pull a conclusion here; working on multiple projects is absolutely a bad idea.

When The Camera Rolls, You Need to Focus

Here is what we can learn from her. She has promised to herself to never break a character while on the set of the movie. When the camera is going to roll, whether only for four minutes or five hours, she will be focus on the character. While filming, she clearly stated that “she is there neither to make friends nor to look good, she is there to work and it is just serious”.

Forget Your Auditions As Soon As It Ends

On Oprah Show, she unveiled an audition method called audition-forgetting. This is a great tip; however, you need an uncommonly strong commitment and self-discipline. Most actors, or perhaps even you, are obsessed about an audition or every audition and used to repeat every little micro-second of auditions. Melissa Leo, on the other hand, trained herself to forget about every audition after she left the audition.

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