Best Venues for Student Dancers

Best Venues for Student Dancers

Thinking about conversations regarding the best dance venues for dancers, I think it’s important to continue focusing on skill levels.

I feel that STUDENT RECITALS are just that- student recitals, and are the place for students to perform and get all the benefits of performance training.  A recital serves several purposes, as I have already written in another blog:  To hone student performing skills, help students learn to deal with public performance pressure, teach students how to interact with, and connect to, an audience and help students develop confidence in themselves.

A recital is perfect for this because the “audience” knows they are seeing students, knows  they are seeing people in training, who are learning, not professional dancers. A recital is also something that a studio or teacher presents to encourage more students to join classes, because it is not just a showcase of the students but of the teacher’s training ability.

A HAFLA on the other hand, is an informal event, or party, in which all participants can relax, feel free to dance without judgement and gain performing experience as well as see different styles and meet other teachers. At a hafla, I am going to see students, hobbyists (many of whom can be as good as pros), and even professionals, because it is a party- I expect to see presented dancers and troupes as well as having times during the evening when the audience can get up and join in dancing. For this reason, I also expect to see folkdancing at a hafla, too…

A SHOWCASE is another type of public event in which dancers can perform. In most dance forms, a showcase is just that: it showcases, or highlights, the best dancing available. Showcases serve as an inspiration to teachers and students both, help good teachers demo their best works and allow students to meet other teachers. There are also showcases that present amateur dancers only (these are usually studio showcases, in which various studios meet annually to exhibit their work) and showcases that present a mix of skill levels, depending on what the sponsor wants to present.

Now we come to PUBLIC PERFORMANCE– and by that I mean professional quality presentations of dance in a public venue, from clubs to full stage shows. And in those, I expect to see professional level performances, with proper technical staging (lights, sound, etc) if possible, and I expect the producer/director to understand stage craft, proper licensing, proper programming, proper crediting and the whole gamut of public performance.

So, there are proper venues for different levels of dance, and they should not be clearly defined and presented accurately. We owe it to both students and the audiences to understand the differences and present ourselves and our art accordingly.