All the world is a stage: auditioning abroad requires tenacity and a sense of adventure, but the reward may be the job of a lifetime.

It sounds so easy. Load your suitcase with dance stuff, bring videos documenting your barre, adagio, and allegro work, or perhaps a well-made film of your high-octane performance. Pack some glossy headshots, a resume, and your passport (stuff a Xerox in a hidden place). Carry your driver's license and a wad of Euros to get you out of the airport. Maybe you have a contact--perhaps in Paris, possibly London or Berlin. If you don't, you know someone who knows someone who took class with a European company and was then offered an audition. That could be you.

Or could it?

The Pina Bausch Tanztheater Wuppertal website recently read like a page from a dire German fairy tale: "There are no auditions for the season 2004/2005. There are no private auditions. Taking class with the company and attending rehearsals is not possible. We do not offer workshops." You can almost hear the ogre's door slamming shut.

But what if you were to rush ahead to Wuppertal now, months later, and knock at this forbidden door? Would you be eaten for supper? Maybe. But then again, according to California-bred Hally Bellah-Guther, who scoured Europe for work and then danced with Die Komische Oper in Berlin for five years, you never know when that closed door might open, or when a company, one day certain of its roster, suddenly needs a dancer exactly your size and style.

"I was 27 when a friend of mine and I got this idea to go to Europe," she explained one afternoon by phone. "I've never done anything so scary in my life, but it was time to either think about quitting or to further my career. My friend and I searched through anything we could get our hands on, like this magazine and international dance directories. We got the phone numbers of companies, and dates for auditions. But we didn't have anything set up in advance."

Bellah-Guther braved dozens of obstacles before finding a job in the eastern end of Berlin that fit her needs by combining an interesting rep with big city amenities. (Die Komische Oper ballet company has since merged with the other two Berlin opera ballet companies; see "The Malakhov Era," Dance Matters, August, page 26). It was also a company that by American standards offered lavish benefits: a 13-month contract, six weeks paid vacation, bonuses at Christmas, a sauna and cafeteria in the building, custom-made pointe shoes at the company's expense, up to a year's maternity leave, and the opportunity to work with an array of guest choreographers from all over Europe.

Occasionally, as in a sweet fairy tale, a dancer suddenly finds the magical door swiftly opens for her. Gabrielle Zucker was one of those rare dancers who, once her application to the First Job Audition of the Monaco Dance Forum was accepted, found that everything from plane reservations to airport pick-up, housing, and meals, was arranged and paid for by the Princess Grace Foundation. There was nothing to organize.

Zucker, who trained with David Howard and Eleanor D'Antuono in New York, discovered First Job by accident while browsing the web. "I knew I had to do it," she said. "I didn't know whether I'd get shot down, or if it was worth the trouble." The list of requirements was long and the July 30 deadline was near.

The four-year-old First Job Audition is a young dancer's dream: 100 selected applicants, ages 18 to 20 for women and 18 to 21 for men, who have never before had a full-time company contract, are invited to be seen by a slew of artistic heads from dance companies across Europe. Zucker submitted her application at the end of July and was sent an e-mail in September to notify her that she had won a spot. "Then they simply ask where you are coming from, and they make your itinerary."

Megan Keough, now with the Tulsa Ballet, had quite a different experience. Like Zucker, she was also at the beginning of her career when she and her mother set out for the continent to make the rounds three years ago. Keough, who trained at the Houston Ballet Academy, chose the two-week break after The Nutcracker to go to London, The Hague, Dusseldorf, Amsterdam, and Frankfurt. "Trains that were supposed to run didn't," she says. "Hotels that were recommended were nonexistent."

But even if all the links had meshed, Keough was in for a bumpy ride when she discovered that Europe's performing season and hiring schedule differ from the U.S.'s. "I'm not sure what the right time to go is, but we went at the wrong time," Keough said. "The only company auditioning was Nederlands Dans Theater." While there is little better advice than to be very organized before you go, you need to be prepared for adventure--not even a perfect itinerary can keep the unexpected at bay.

Keough and Zucker both came home empty-handed, discovering that American dancers are often regarded as a bureaucratic burden requiring a flotilla of paper work that would spell doom in almost any fairy tale. Still, neither regretted her experience. A Czech director sought Zucker out during her week in Monaco, while a company director in Germany thought Keough would have been a great match, if only he had a job to offer. Each young woman returned having gotten blitzed by other cultures. They learned that timing, luck, and an endless supply of fortitude are as critical to a career in dance as talent.

These are a few of the benefits in store for an American dancer going to Europe, according to former Batsheva dancer Martin Kravitz, an American who left for Germany and France 20 years ago to teach and dance. But to get the goods, he said by e-mail, you have to want more than a dance job; you have to want the cultural experience and be willing to fight the odds to get it.

Bellah-Guther couldn't agree with this last point more. "What helped me to be successful," she said, "was really not stopping. Even if a company says to you 'No, we're not interested.' You have to ask: 'Can I take company class?' You never know when they might say, 'We want you.'"

For more information on First Job Audition, go to: www.monacodanceforum.com, click on "Programs" and then on "First Job Auditions" or contact Liliana Peric Lambelet at: [e-mail]; Tel [phone].

Ann Murphy is a Berkeley, California-based writer on the arts.