Make the movement other people perform. Almost everyone in this job danced first.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Good for a wall or a guidance counsellor.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Established
$85,000
Starting out
$46,000
In demand
$146,000
Job Bank's national median is $41.03 an hour, about $85,000 a year at full-time hours. Very few choreographers bill full-time hours. Work comes as projects with a creation fee, so the honest reading is that the rate is good and the number of weeks is the problem.
A creation fee, then royalties
A fee to make the work, plus a payment each time it is performed
Under the live performance agreements negotiated by the Canadian Actors' Equity Association, which represents theatre, opera and dance, a choreographer is normally paid to create the work and then paid again for performances. A piece that stays in a company's repertoire keeps earning.
About $70 an hour at the top
Roughly $146,000 a year at full-time hours, Job Bank's high figure
Television, awards shows, music videos, tours and large musicals pay day rates well above concert dance. Concert choreography pays less and is often topped up by public arts grants.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
There is no licence and no required school, so the low end is continuing class fees and a few hours of studio rental at $15 to $40 an hour to make your first work. The high end is a university or conservatory dance degree plus years of continued training and the studio time and dancer fees that making new work costs. Years of dance training before you finish high school are the largest real cost in this career, but they sit outside what it costs to start from school leaving age. Independent choreographers usually fund creation through grants, including the Canada Council for the Arts Explore and Create program and provincial arts councils.
Independent choreographers usually fund creation through grants. The Canada Council for the Arts runs programs such as Explore and Create for the research, development and creation of new work, and every province has an arts council too.
Companies commissioning new pieces
Ballet and contemporary companies buy a set number of new works each season.
Musical theatre
The steadiest contracts in the field, with a rehearsal period and then a run.
Screen and commercial
Film, television, music videos and live events. Short, well paid, unpredictable.
Your own company
Many Canadian choreographers form a small company to make and tour their own work on grant funding.
Teaching and setting work
Restaging an existing piece on another company, or teaching at a school.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Nobody hires a choreographer with no body of work. The route runs through dancing.
Train and perform as a dancer
10 years or more
Almost every working choreographer in Canada danced professionally first. You learn what bodies can do by using your own.
Make small pieces early
From your teens
Student shows, choreographic workshops, festival slots. Nobody needs permission to start making work.
Dance degree or company mentorship
2 to 4 years
A university dance program or a company's emerging choreographer program, which gives studio time, dancers and a showing.
Build a body of work
3 to 8 years
Pieces that have been performed, filmed and reviewed. This is your portfolio and the only thing commissioners look at.
Commissions and contracts
Ongoing
Companies, theatres and screen productions hire you by reputation and by who has worked with you.
Dance
Where it exists. Otherwise, studio training outside school.
Drama
Choreography for theatre and screen is storytelling with bodies.
Music
Counting, structure and working with composers and music directors.
Business or accounting
You will be self-employed, invoicing and applying for grants.
There is no licence or registration. What structures the field instead is a mix of union agreements and public funding. The Canadian Actors' Equity Association, the union for live performance in Canada, negotiates the terms under which choreographers are engaged by theatres and dance companies, including creation fees and performance royalties. Grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and provincial arts councils pay for most independent creation.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Writing grant applications
An unglamorous skill that decides which Canadian choreographers get to make work.
Working on camera
Choreography for screen is framed and cut differently than for a stage. Screen work pays better.
Movement direction for theatre
Plays and operas hire movement directors even when nobody dances.
Notation or clear filming of your work
Pieces that can be restaged accurately keep earning royalties for years.
Rehearsal director experience
Running someone else's work teaches you how a company actually operates.
A regular teaching post
Steady income, studio access and a supply of dancers who want to work with you.
DTRC membership
The DTRC (Dancer Transition Resource Centre) supports dancers moving within and out of performing careers, which is exactly what becoming a choreographer is.
A good video reel
Commissioners and producers decide from footage before they ever meet you.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Studio from about 10am with a group of dancers on the clock, which means every hour costs money. You arrive with material, try it on real bodies, throw half of it out and build the rest. Afternoons go to music edits, notes and talking with designers. Evenings are admin: budgets, grant deadlines, scheduling. Closer to opening you are in the theatre all day doing spacing, lighting and cue-to-cue work, and the making stops.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
A dance work is protected under Canadian copyright law like a piece of music or a script, as long as it is fixed in some form such as notation or video. That is what makes performance royalties possible.
The Canadian Actors' Equity Association has represented theatre, opera and dance since it became independent in 1976. Choreographers sit inside that agreement alongside performers and stage managers.
Independent choreography in Canada runs largely on grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and provincial arts councils. Writing a strong application is as much a part of the job as being in the studio.
Last checked September 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in Canadian dollars, based on Government of Canada Job Bank wage data and published salary grids. They vary by province, employer and experience. Tuition is for domestic students.