Tips for applying professional stage makeup for dancers
When applying stage makeup, the trick to a professional-looking makeup is to always look exaggerated or over-make-up. The reason for this is that you will be performing in front of an audience that will be further away from you, and so you will need to accentuate your features more than they normally would for greater impact on your audience.
If you’ve never worn stage makeup, you’ll feel as though you applied too much the first time. With stage makeup you can go wild. The people you’re performing for will sit farther away from you, and the makeup will make you look more flattering, and make you stand out, especially for those people mid-stage to backstage.
Another aspect to consider when applying professional stage makeup is the lighting in the stage. If the lighting is too blue or red, your features will disappear on stage. Only good makeup will correct this problem, and enable the audience to see the features on your face.
Under bright stage lighting, use cream instead of white. Use brown instead of blue and purple, and avoid yellow, because it looks like white.
If you’re a dancer, this is how you should use makeup to enhance your eyes on stage:
First of all, you need to have a defined brows, so you need to define specific lines on the eyebrows.
The red dot in the inner corner of the eye will help your eyes stand out.
Boldly applied blue, purple or brown eyeshadow. The color will depend on your look. Try not to use blue on blue eyes or brown on brown eyes.
Draw lines on the outer corners of your eyes starting with a blue or black line coming out of your eyes at the top, then white, then red, then white again, then a blue or black line coming out from the bottom of the eye.
Some false eyelashes on the outer corners of your eyes add effect.
Stage makeup for male dancers will be very similar to that of female dancers. He would use the same colors, because lighting would affect facial features in the same way. Obviously, men wouldn’t wear artificial eyelashes, nor use bright lip colors like the bright reds worn by female dancers.
When applying stage makeup, try to avoid the following mistakes:
Lining the eyes in a solid black eyeliner, a shimmery foundation, or a very dark foundation, leaving the eyebrows undefined, applying plenty of blush to the apples of the cheeks,
When dancing on stage, also keep in mind that you will sweat a lot, so remember to use waterproof cosmetics as much as possible.
For more ballet food, visit: