Dance Accompaniment is one of the lesser known fields in music where the musician(s) provides music to accompany dance. The more known or visible aspect of this field occurs in a performance setting where the music can be provided by a solo instrument, an ensemble or an orchestra. However, a huge part of dance accompaniment happens off stage - during the training and rehearsals of the dancers. This page will be discussing this off stage aspect of dance accompaniment, specifically for classical ballet or contemporary/ modern dance.

In this setting, dance accompaniment can be further divided into two aspects - accompanying for technique classes and accompanying for rehearsals. In both scenarios, the piano is most commonly used although sometimes percussions are also used to accompany modern technique classes.

During technique classes, the teacher or ballet master/mistress devices a series of short exercises to either train or warm up students or professional dancers. The class can range in length from an hour and a quarter to two hours and usually consists of about fifteen or more exercises. The accompanist's role is then to provide suitable music for these exercises. As it is common for the facilitator of the class to devise the exercises on the spot, the musician must be versatile enough to produce these music almost instantaneously. Hence, the accompanist must either have a wide repertoire of suitable music coupled with the ability to adapt them accordingly to the exercise's needs, or to be able to improvise suitable music for the exercises. Furthermore, the accompanist must have an understanding of ballet terminology and more importantly, a firm grasp of the relationship between music and dance.

During rehearsals, the accompanist is to assimilate the actual performance music with usually, a piano. This can be acheived by playing from reduced scores but very often the accompanist has to make some alterations to highlight musical elements that the choreography needs, which may not be present in a conventional reduction. The accompanist may also be needed to play under the baton of a conductor, in order to negotiate a tempo and eventually to familiarise the tempo for both the conductor and the dancers. This is to ensure a smooth transition from rehearsals to stage performance especially when an ensemble or orchestra is involved in the performance.

The accompanist hence has to possess a varied array of skills - competent technique to be able to play reductions, ensemble skills to work with dancers and the conductor, improvisational skills, a wide suitable repertoire, a knowledge of ballet terminology, a grasp of dance and music relationship and very importantly, an empathy for dance. It is probably because of the last few skills which are not easily transferrable that led to the field's absence in most schools. This absence in turn caused aspiring musicians not to know about dance accompaniment as a possible career path thus leading to its obscurity.

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