Finding Dancers for Work There are different avenues you can pursue when you want to have dancers working at your event or project. The most professional and most expensive option is to get dancers from an agency. Cheaper options including putting adverts up in dance schools and dance studios and deciding the fee you would be willing to pay them. Students generally do not expect the rates professional dancers receive but they can still be very good dancers, certainly better than plucking anybody off the street. Unless you want them dancing routines together (in which case you'll also need a choreographer) you probably want dancers that can dance on their own without being given too much instruction. It is possible to contact dancers directly for these kinds of jobs in this day and age via social networking. Many will be happy to be contacted. Dance is a competitive career and many dancers are always happy to be contacted for work opportunities. Just be sure to offer them a decent wage otherwise they may become very unhappy. Dancers see their job as a skilled one and most of them have been training since they were kids to become dancers. If you need the best dancers possible, a dance agency will be one of your best options. These dancers usually have to pass auditions to join an agency in the first place. So only the really good dancers will get through. Naturally of course to hire dancers from agencies will cost more money and agencies will try to negotiate a good fee for their dancers because it will mean the agents get paid better too. If you can offer a good fee in the first place then this is less likely to happen. Agencies are normally able to offer choreographers as well if you need one to devise routines for the dancers. They will normally command the highest fee so be sure that you need one if you're going to hire one. If you go through an agent you can get them to arrange an audition for you so that you can pick the dancers that you want. If you are going to find the dancers on your own without an agent then you'll have to arrange the audition by yourself and make sure that enough people see it to come to the audition. Sometimes you may even like to look at their videos or show reels and pick dancers on the strength of these. This is good if you are pressed for time or do not have the funds to arrange an audition in addition to hiring dancers. However not all dancers have footage of themselves dancing. If you want an easy route then get in touch with some dancers who are willing to do the job and ask them if they have any friends that would like to do the job too. It is almost certain that they will because dancers are always looking for work. This is the fastest and easiest option and you can at least be sure that there will be a good vibe between the dancers because they are friends. However this option is limited somewhat and if you want to cast from a wider range of dancers it is not the best option.
If you can afford it, then going through an agency is probably going to get you the dancers of the highest quality for your project. Picking a few dancers and their friends will do the job most of the time and sometimes may even be better than going through an agency if the dancers work well together. More info is at http://www.hiredancers.com/