Dance Studio Advice

I ran a studio for a YWCA, a not-for-profit corporation, strictly as a volunteer director in parallel with my day job with a goal to bring dancing school to a lot of kids who otherwise would not get to take lessons.

We set up scholarships, apprenticeships, helpers, classes of all types. We made volunteer work into more volunteers.

I learned most of this collection of tips and tricks from experience, having gone to dancing school the year before kindergarten as my social readiness drill from mom. I never stopped.

I may be an old babe by dancer standards, but I shake a leg, and still embarrass some out of shape teenagers. Well, one leg at a time, at least.

My last dance teaching and choreography gig at the local YWCA was very special, because we did succeed at bringing in kids from domestic violence shelters and other abusive situations. Make learning anything fun, and kids flock to it. Give them some great exercise and music, and watch them enjoy.

We ended up referring to the project as "The Un-Dancing School" because, although we made some profit for the YWCA, we solved a lot of the "issues" that most dancing schools face.

One of the secrets was very creative, nearly out of your closet or re-usable costumes. The kids looked even better than other studios with those one time expensive deals. Teachers rarely make much money on selling the costumes anyway. Almost every kid has a pair of black pants and a pair of jeans.

So why not find ways to make life easier on the parents? Parents won't mind that $1 per lesson price increase so much at a for profit studio.

Each August, the YWCA Un-Dancing School publicized extremely inexpensive lessons. Some parents also to donated YWCA in addition. Other children were present free of any charge.

Find unusual dance recital costume tips, and more about the Un-Dancing School keys to success, as we dance on down the road.

The easiest way I know to put pizzaz into a costume is careful color selection and juxtaposition.

Seriously, shoot for one hour for recital duration. Many studios run way too many performances. I know, it is done so everyone each student knows can see the show, and the students have perform more frequently.

I don't know any adults who love sitting somewhere much longer than it takes to watch a really good movie. This is especially true when that adult really only came to see six minutes of a three hour show. Most hometown talent rarely tops a really good movie. That is not said to imply your show won't be great. Just be realistic about the length of the show.

Shows do not need gobs of solos to show off your great students. I am not anti-solo. A solo needs to fit the performance, not be there for the sake of it. The common theme gets the spotlight.

Believe it or not, we don't rehearse forever at the venue either. We do the whole deal in one Saturday. The student's are prepared at the studio. The venue's floor is marked with tape as was the studio.

Professionals tape floors, so my students work with it in the studio first. We rehearse in the studio facing away from the mirrors as preparation as well. Your can paper mirrors over for a similar effect. As the year progresses, tape the studio floors as you will the stage. Use cheap room-painting tape so you don't have to scrub later.

Recital is always the weekend in May between Mother's Day and Memorial Day. When you go later, you risk absences. June is so wild. Finishing a bit earlier avoids unnecessary conflicts. Besides, it is the end of the school year, and I think the kids have enough going on.

I really get better help with the production, if I use that date. I use volunteers and older students to organize back stage. I made my family play stage crew. Let me confess, it took me years to perfect that.

Everyone has already taken their costumes home from class to bring to the rehearsal and show. Minimize your own load to transport.

Collect craft glue and guns, paper glue, cardboard, things from the closet, wig heads, elastic, notions, old junk jewelry, sequins, feathers, noses, masks, stuff from the dress-up box, cheap buckets, large paper, spray paint, ribbons, tape of all sorts of stuff.

Use what you have, find ways to re-use what you have made. Find simple ways to make new things.

One's own beach towel and bathing suit can be fun with a Beach Boys song. Mom is probably planning to buy the size for this year around recital time, Communicate this, and you are likely to get a new bathing suits for the beach scene.

Depending on the theme of the recital, pick the music, create the characters, think about the sets, stage transitions, and costumes.

Sets can be as simple as a few bales of hay from the farm a student's farm. I hit up one dad for a couple small bales of hay, and he showed up with live chickens In large cages, of course.

Another dad built a "barn" the kids could assemble on stage during their performance. One year he made us a popcorn stand for a circus scene.

Refrigerator and appliance boxes have endless uses. Tempera paint, cheap wrapping paper on sale after New Year, colored tape, tricks you use in wall painting are was to transform boxes to build sets.

A really fun way to simplify sets is to make posts for two students to hold, creating a door or any portal, holding it open or closed to create the sense of entering and exiting a room or a place. This works with light cardboard window frames, or shutters too.

Big styro-foam boards can be purchased at building supply stores. I have cut them, glued them, and formed them into pieces to build a court building, a museum, any big white, marble looking buildings. Use some of those other craft and art supplies to create shingles, brick, wood building looks.

Remember that the stage is very forgiving of imperfections. Don't worry about everyone matching perfectly. It gets redundant any way. Not to mention that one size does not fit all in most studios. They certainly may not fit boys.

Boys are a whole different subject in themselves in costuming. Most dads are having a hard enough time not seeing his son in a hockey uniform much less anything age inappropriate or too feminine.

If his son is dancing, he may wish you made him more like Gene Kelley than well, you know. Lots of Dads are enlightened enough to get that portraying a thing by wearing a costume is not too weird. Suits and pants and shirts seem to be the path of least resistance.

Simply selecting a genre of music can supply your theme seeds. Yes, Nutcracker is everywhere. It won't hurt them a bit to learn it, but it really is seasonal. Better to pick a genre or a particular artist. Using a single musician is risky at recital. Generally it is better to vary selections in a genre, unless it it one prolific master composer.

Sometimes your theme will dictate a wide mixture of music like Art Museum. For each painting or gallery scene portrayed, music of the painting's era was used resulting in an very nice, eclectic mix from classical music to the Beatles.

In Art museum we did the Andy Warhol Soup Cans. We made the dancing cans from hula hoops as ribs, taped with paper around the ribs. We made eye holes and handles inside. It created a hilarious effect, dancing soup cans tapping to The Beatles "Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm 64..."

Yes, who knows why, but the recital BEFORE September 11th I chose the theme "America." The following season many studios went with patriotic themes.

I had a student's bother dressed up in his Cub Scout uniform, hold the flag, and lead the pledge. We used standards and even some rock with America in them, folk music like "This Land is your Land" to even more contemporary songs, and plenty of John Philip Sousa.

We did "Boogie Boogie Bugle Boy from company B" by the Andrew Sisters in army fatigues. Some students got them brothers, dads, uncles, or aunts in the service. one girl had a sister go to Afghanistan.

I worked our Veterans Day, Pearl Harbor Day, and Memorial Day holidays into lessons. It turned out to be serious family hit, since there was a little something for any taste.

Red, white and blue can make choices simple.

Under the Big Top gave me great latitude for choreography, and costumes. The music was public domain, no ASCAP fee.

Did you know that Frank Zappa wrote orchestral music? Yes, but recognizable music engages the audience. Even eclectic recognizable music works. Perhaps, I should say music which speaks for itself is best.

I like to teach little parts as an extra for students. Then I like to hornswoggle them into performing at nursing homes and other events.

Caution: Parades are not really a good option. Wreck shoes much, and have you ever tried to move around on a rolling truck bed? Not good.

Keeping a box of not too badly used dance shoes can be a real help, as most young students do not wear the shoes that often, and they generally grow out of their shoes well before their usefulness is gone.

Yes, I know about sweaty feet. A good cleaning and Lysol will do. They do it in bowling alleys, don't they?

There is only one rule, if you adopt a pair of shoes, you have to leave the pair you out grew. If you borrow only, ask that the shoes be left in the box.

When I hear, "I don't have my shoes," I send to the box. If they bring a new friend who wants to "Try it," the friend can use the box. If none in the box work out, I ask "Do you have feet with you?" or "If you brought your feet with you, you can dance."

Remember that some children are at the other parent's house on the weekends for visitation and may not have the dance bag. They don't need any more stress than you do over shoes.

I got a big boost for my Box when a student needed to do a service project at a private school. She collected a garbage barrel full of donations of barely used, outgrown dance shoes. After a thank you note from me, I was invited to talk to tan assembly about pubic service. Afterward, more donations poured in, including costumes, hats, and all sorts of useful dance items to use, re-do, reuse.

Used shoes can be colored, taped or painted to resemble lost of things , too. Make your own wing tips with tape. Don't send them out to spend the $75 or more.

While the extra box of shoes works well for taps, jazz shoes, and soft ballet shoes, it really won't really work for pointe shoes. The shoes in the photograph are pointe shoes which a dancer works carefully to "break in" to the shape of that dancer's particular foot.

I like to have dance magazines in the foyer
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Always keep a special space to display art students bring into the studio. Everything goes up, no matter what, thank you. Include the homemade cards you inevitably get from students, if there is room.

Put up some good art of dancers, even if you have to blow up a public domain an image at the copy store
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Keep a small library of decent dance technique and dance history books, if you can. Older kids will ask to borrow them. If the books don't always come back, so be it. You can put some control on borrowing, but don't be a collection cop.

Have a tripod and camera on hand with play back. Use it most sparingly. It isn't pro football. Yes, it is handy to take photos and save on the big photographer set up at the recital. We took video at the recitals. Videos can be copied to discs as keepsakes on DVDs quite inexpensively.

Recite the teacher mantra constantly: useful correction, never criticism.

Use quiet and whispering wisely. In addition to music, use a drum. Use a metronome. Sound, and how the teacher uses sound can change everything.

One indispensable part of the Un-dancing School was use of the public library to introduce things in class.

I borrowed art history books for gathering paintings and teaching them to the class during creation of their number for the recital.

Don't forget you can borrow music and videos, too.

The great part is free recital and lesson planning material.