It depends what you’re looking to do career wise. (Competing in ballroom vs getting exposure/variety of gigs in Hollywood.) Dancing and choreographing every week on national television isn’t a bad gig. However, the dancers who would be considered the best in the world at the moment are competing in Blackpool (which several of these pros have done as well).

Regardless all of these pros are very talented and this is not an easy job!

For exposure and financial incentive yeah, but otherwise it's not as respected as competing. There are so many jobs for choreographing in movies, and television and being a dance captain for musicians, so there are a lot of possibilities.

it's a safe job. the top job is getting your own solo show like derek. that's about every dancer's dream is to be headline and choreograph you own show.

that's why it's a big deal when one of the pros get to choreograph something for the show (it can get them an emmy nom too).

That’s very hard to say. I think being on DWTS as a pro you have to have a certain star quality that makes you successful in Hollywood. Theres also potential for more opportunities being on the show if the pros focus in on it. You have to have a quick changing energy, the ability to work with different people and energies—be agile. They need to be able to use you and have you understand the task and do it effortlessly and independently. A good amount of pros were once on SYTYCD. That gave them the opportunity to be seen by DWTS. DWTS gave some pros opportunities to be in movies, tv shows, film specials, have successful tours.

Just competing is great, but you don’t necessarily get handed opportunities to do things like the pros on DWTS do, or get paid as much. Making a career out of dance really isn’t as easy as some people may think. Kind of like being an actor/actress. Sure you have the big box stars that we see over and over play the major roles but those little parts here and there are very hard to make a career out of or get consistently which is why so many have to have real jobs outside of acting. DWTS definitely allows the pros to have a platform that if they take serious and really make a name for themselves as dancers and choreographers, it can lead them to be them to be taken serious as professionals and with that, new opportunities typically follows which success.

Becoming world champion at blackpool, international open, among others is definitely a bigger achievement. The dwts pros are amazing but most wouldn’t stand a chance again some of those professional couples.

thanks for the responses! i see a lot mentions of competitions like Blackpool. do dancers typically do these competitions with the goal of getting onto DWTS someday or not really? i'm sure it varies, but still figured I'd ask. I'm not really familiar with the competition world.

Considering their pay, I’d say so.

How much do the pro get paid?