Camille Spence: An Inside Look on Keeping the Room Focused

Camille Spence has been dancing since she was eighteen months old, which means rhythm was never something she discovered. It was something she grew into, early enough that her body learned music before her brain could explain it.

She grew up in Burlington, Ontario, inside a world where dance was not an occasional activity. It was everything. Her mother, Stacey Carrigan-Spence, owns a studio called Dancers Burlington, and Spence remembers being obsessed with music, moving, and entertaining almost immediately.

“I do not remember a version of me that did not want to move,” she says. “Music felt like a signal to my whole body.”

By age ten, she had already decided she wanted to be a professional dancer, even if she did not know what that meant yet. She started researching, looking for pathways that could pull a kid from a small city outside Toronto into a bigger professional world.

“I wanted to be one of the few who made that jump,” she says. “Not because Canada is small, but because the industry map is real, and you either learn it or you pretend it is not.”

There is a long list of early recognitions that reads like a timeline of a kid who did not wait to be older before aiming high. She was 1st Overall Mini Soloist at Starpower National Talent Competition in 2012. She was 1st Runner Up Junior Miss World Dance at World Dance Pageant in 2015. She received an Artistic Dance Exchange Spain Exchange Award and performed in Benicassim at the Cita Con La Danza Festival in 2018. She toured as a Wild Dance Intensive Assistant from 2018 to 2019. In 2019, she earned a World Dance Pageant scholarship, plus Discovery Spotlight Winner recognition. She was named an Artistic Dance Exchange All-Star Assistant in 2020 and received a Complexions Contemporary Ballet summer intensive scholarship through NYCDA, along with an Artistic Dance Exchange Argentina Exchange Award that same year.

“I was always chasing the next room that would challenge me,” she says. “I did not want to stay comfortable.”

That drive followed her to Pace University, where she enrolled in the Commercial Dance program with a concentration in choreography and a minor in business. She earned her BFA in May 2025.

She describes Pace as the place that changed her as a dancer and as a person. It was not only the training. It was the ecosystem of choreographers, faculty, and peers that demanded greater focus and confidence.

“When I arrived, I had moments where I did not feel like I belonged,” she says. “You are in a new country, surrounded by incredible dancers, and you have to decide whether you will shrink or rise.”

At Pace, she was signed with Clear Talent Agency on a bi-coastal basis in New York City and Los Angeles. She worked with choreographers including Al Blackstone, Jillian Meyers, Ellenore Scott, Scott Jovovich, Lauren Gaul, Jess Hendricks, and Shay Bland.

She also found herself in leadership roles early and often. At her home studio, she was repeatedly named team captain. At Pace, her peers voted her class representative. She helped run auditions for incoming students, often staying after hours to support faculty during the process. She says she was told on her first day by program director Rhonda Miller that she needed to learn how to step into that role because the capability was visible right away.

“I learned how to be the bridge,” she says. “Not the star. The bridge. The person who makes sure people have what they need and the room stays focused.”

You can see that skill set show up in her recent professional work. In the past few years, Spence has built a résumé that moves between concert dance, commercial work, and major productions. She workshopped the pre-production of Ragtime as an ensemble member for both Lincoln Center and New York City Center, with Ellenore Scott.

In 2025, she was chosen as one of 15 finalists at the A.C.E Awards and selected to present work in New York City in front of choreographers including Kenny Ortega, Derek Hough, Justin Peck, Nan Giordano, Al Blackstone, and Brian Friedman.

“That one felt surreal,” she says. “Not because it made me feel finished. Because it made me feel seen in a room I used to only read about.”

Her screen and commercial credits include being featured in the Warner Bros. and Disney+ film Clouds, directed by Justin Baldoni and choreographed by Marinda Davis. She was part of a LoveShackFancy x Hunter Boots commercial choreographed by Marcella Hymowitz in April 2025. She performed in an MLB opening performance with Pharrell Williams, choreographed by Charm LaDonna in October 2025.

Since 2024, she has been part of Treadfast Dance Company in New York City. She also works for Star Dance Alliance through Dance One, judging competitions, teaching at the Wild Dance Intensive Convention, and serving as a team leader at Power Pak Dance, a week-long intensive with students across the United States. She currently teaches and choreographs at competition studios across the United States and Canada.

“I want younger dancers to see a real example of what it takes,” she says. “Not perfection. Real work. Consistency. Respect for the craft.”

She is honest about the internal pressure that comes with being the person who always delivers. She says her parents had high expectations for academics and life, but she eventually realized the pressure was amplified by her own drive.

“I was the one turning it up,” she says. “And once I named that, I could start building a healthier kind of ambition.”

Her advice centers on confidence, not as a slogan, but as a practice. She talks about learning to lead with confidence even when it is shaky, and about not waiting for the perfect moment to feel ready.

“Timing is on your side if you keep showing up,” she says. “You cannot wait until you feel fearless. You just keep doing the work until your confidence catches up.”

When she talks about the future, she keeps it vivid. She hopes to live in the United States and dance for artists like Beyoncé, Rihanna, or Doechii. She wants to dance at the VMAs and the Super Bowl Halftime Show.

“I do not see the ceiling yet,” she says. “I see the next room. And I want to earn my way into it.”

Camille Spence keeps her audience up to speed on her Instagram.