Rachel Schmidt began her dance training with Santa Cruz Ballet Theatre under the direction of Robert Kelley and Diane Cypher. Upon graduating from Butler University in 2015 she moved to San Francisco, California where she danced as a trainee with Alonzo King LINES Ballet and later as a company member of dawsondanceSF, lead by Gregory Dawson. In 2019 she moved to New York City and performed with Brooklyn Ballet, Dance Lab New York as part of the Alchemy Lab Cycle at the Guggenheim Museum, and Visions Contemporary Ballet before moving to Chicago at the start of 2022. She has performed in works by Alonzo King, Sidra Bell, Maurya Kerr, Gregory Dawson, David Harvey, Robert Dekkers, and Susan McGuire. This is her third season with Chicago Repertory Ballet.