The Judge of it All

“Opportunity dances with those already on the dance floor.”

-H. Jackson Brown jr

Dance is different in comparison to other sports in several different fields, one being the way in which placements, scores and rankings are given to individuals, groups and teams. Dance is sport judged completely on opinion. This can lead judge bias, preference and appeal. Everything on dance is based on an opinion, so every score sheet you receive can be different, even if several judges watched the exact same routine at the exact same time. In that lays the fact that one judge does not see everything another judge may notice. Judges also come from many different stylistic backgrounds, leading some to have more knowledge in specific genres than others.

Having a dance routine based completely on a judge’s opinion has both benefits and downfalls. For starters you encounter interpretations, ideas and suggestions from a wide variety of people. You get more than one point of view, and it can refresh the dancers and choreographers what is most noticeable to an eye that has never seen the routine. The judges can help by giving beneficial insight into the routine, and it is unlikely that every judge has the exact same thing to say. On the other hand judges can sometimes be tired from a long competition day and weary to give you much comment other than on the score sheet. This can be frustrating, especially when given a lower score, yet you don’t know why, where or how that score was deserved. Another downfall to dance judgements is the variety. One judge may give you a nearly perfect score, while another gives you subpar and three more give you somewhere crazily in between. Judges can also show bias to certain teams, although this is to commonly used to blame a poor scored performance, it does sometimes happen. In most occasions however, judges are selected with a lot of time, effort and professionalism, so hopefully this point never actually comes to be true.

Dance uses a score system based on opinion, which is different than most other sporting victories. Just like dance being judged differently, the judges are all different o. You encounter new ideas and insight from them and they hold knowledgeable backgrounds in the many forms of dance genres. It’s beneficial to gather information based on judgement in order to progress a dance routine to its fullest potential.

~Julia Brewer

---

Bettering Yourself

“I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself.”

-Miklail Baryshnikov

In a previous blog post I gave insight on how a dancer is their own worst critic. With this being the case, the main focus of a dancer is to learn, grow and create new and better pieces, as time and age conquer. It becomes less important to beat out the opponents in a competition, because the satisfaction of bettering your own dancing ability and being better than the last performance you gave is much more rewarding. In my opinion the improvement of a dancer is most significant when they feel they have reached a greater potential, with more confidence and understanding than the time before. Improvement should be about bettering yourself, not comparing yourself to other dancers.

To better yourself as a dancer consider the focus of your own development as the most important effort. You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone, but yourself. With that, take the time to polish you weaknesses and develop them into strengths. This will better yourself as a dancer, as you are using your time to focus on yourself over anyone else.

The feeling you receive when you have accomplished something you once never thought possible is something that comes along with the encouragement of bettering yourself as a dancer. You feel you have reached the next milestone to be your greatest potential. You should start feeling better and better about yourself, before and after taking the stage. It’s shouldn’t even be the feeling of winning over your peers that makes you feel this way, but the joy of knowing you are better than you ever have been before. It’s such a rewarding pleasure to think about how far you are headed in the right direction, with respects to a dancing career. It improves confidence, and understanding of dance that only furthers a dancer for the better.

Every dancer is unique, and has their own style that makes them stand out. Dancers should be bettering those unique features, instead of attempting to compare their own stylistic qualities to another dancers, whose may be completely different. The improvement will come to a dancer, when they find how to improve their own style.

Dancing is about self-improvement. Bettering yourself to new heights, that make you feel more confident and improved. Always remember to take your own dancing and grow, learn and create from that. It’s about bettering yourself, not comparing yourself to be better than everyone around you. It will come faster if you use the motivation of bettering yourself, than trying to be better than every other single dancer. If you are growing, learning and improving yourself to your new best, that’s what counts. Bettering yourself is so vital and should be strived by every dancer, every day.

~Julia Brewer

Taking Corrections

“Dancing is just discovery, discovery, discovery.”

-Martha Graham

When taking corrections it is important to always keep your cool. From experience and in human nature, we don't like when others pick out all of our negative flaws. At times it can be frustrating to learn you have made a habit to a correction you are now trying to overcome. Taking corrections is a stressful task, but one that has to be accomplished for team and self-improvement. Approaching correction taking is either going to tear you down to your breaking point, or leave you feeling more confident in knowing the correct sequence and execution of the dance.

As a beginning note in correction taking, try having an open mind and keeping your cool under the stressful networking of it all. It can be long, tedious and repetitive, but in the end it's about fixing what is wrong in the routine and perfecting it to its best, so that there are high impressions of it when it reaches an audience. You may feel like breaking down, but if you keep your cool and stay open minded, I can only hope that it will leave you feeling more confident in the dance and with yourself as a dancer. This can be achieved by being courteous to the correctors, motivating yourself and taking breaks to calm yourself down, if feeling completely overwhelmed.   

Having someone or a group of someone's looking over your every move, telling you all the things you are doing wrong is like a stab to your confidence in every bit. I challenge you to take it in slowly and focus on the progress you want in order to succeed. It becomes a frustration to learn what you have been doing all along is completely wrong, and needs a total renovation. It's difficult to break a habit, but with the help of a positive outlook, confidence in yourself and an understanding corrector you should find yourself correcting moves accordingly.

Yes, getting an outstanding amount of critiques is hard on a dancer, it can leave you feeling hopeless, stressed and not good enough. I want to stress that that’s not how the critiques should be making you feel. If someone is willing to take the time to give you a critique, they are giving you their attention, and they want you to be successful. To be honest it is much easier to give a correction if you know it will be applied, so by someone giving you a correction they are telling you that they believe in you, and truly just want to see you take it, and make it better than it was before. They are giving you the correction for your own self-improvement, which may later lead to the improvement of a team, if it's a group dance.

The point to remember is when your peers are giving you corrections, keep a steady ground of focus, they don't want you worked up, they just want you to be doing the moves correctly and fixing them now and instead of finding out later when it's harder to break the habit. They are taking the time to help you become a dancer, so you should show respect and be courteous, even if you disagree or are feeling overwhelmed. It's natural to feel frustrated when others point out your errors, but if you take corrections as a positive over a negative the whole process will feel so much better, and run smoother as well.

~Julia Brewer

H2O

“If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance.”

-Anonymous

Staying hydrated is important in all competitive sports, dance is no different. You need to help cool down the body when it is becoming heated or dry. To stay hydrated you should be drinking lots of water, especially during an intense rehearsal. Drinking water helps relax and fuel muscles, reducing spasms or tensions within them. If the dance studio doesn’t have a drinking fountain, be prepared to have a water bottle, and if refills are needed don’t feel like the bathroom sink isn’t an option for a replenishment. It’s important to drink water when you are dancing, you are sweating and burning off calories. Treat yourself, by giving your body fluids for hydration. It will reduce tiredness and stress on muscles.

~Julia Brewer

 

Pom Foundation

“To dance is to challenge the body which is also the self. To generate an action which has a force of its own and allow the movement to penetrate the inner sensibilities, or to calculate the action and try to tune out--this is difficult, perhaps impossible.”

 -Katherine Litz

Pom is a type of dance that is performed at the high school dance team level, as well as by college dance teams. It is a completely foreign studio genre that is not practiced much or at all, unless the studio is specific to it. Poms combines elements of jazz technique, such as turn, leaps, extensions and jumps, and combines it with hip-hop levels and dynamics. Setting it aside from other dance styles the distinguishing factor of poms is in fact the use of poms during the dance. Poms takes the different jazz, hip-hop, upbeat styles and incorporates them with motion of poms in the hand. It’s a very fast pace, team collaborative, and if properly executed, clean style of dance.

Poms uses hip-hop, jazz and fast tempo music variety in performance. The hip-hop elements dig deeper into level changes such as; going from a high v to a low v, giving a bending of the legs verse a releve, knees to a standing position, or having a jump sequence that ultimately travels to a landing split. These hip-hop assortments give the pom routine a breakdown section, which adds diversity into the overall performance. Jazz features bring the pom, technique options like turns, leaps, extensions and jumps. You need the foundation of jazz for small things too, like pointing the feet, turning out from the hip and engaging the core. Pom has its own style as well, new components are clarified and specified to make the dance look like one, in a collaborative team effort.

Pom in itself has to have a fast tempo base, and watch out for pom technique. Moves are done very quickly and need lots of cleaning to get them precise. Arms are important for hyperextending purposes, as are the placements of wrists, one cracked wrist could be detrimental as it bends the poms the wrong way in the hand. Pom also requires a team collaboration, members have to work together to look like one common union. Dancing as one is important for the overall “look” of a pom routine because everyone is wearing a solid uniform and is meant to look exactly alike, like a uniform. Teams clean pom routines to get this effect, not only to look the same, but to display key small group spotlights. One last note about pom characteristics is the need of crazy, outrageous, dramatic faces. Faces are meant to keep the energy flowing between dancer and audience, also to show excitement and school spirit. They get crazy because the dance is exhausting, but they need to be kept up for performance standards. Faces are crucial for a competitive pom routine.

The most distinctive part of poms is the use of poms in the hands during the whole entire dance. It’s an element that brings color and dimension into the routine. The movement of them is the base grading of how a pom routine is scored. The execution has to be done clean, without sloppy wrists or arms. Breaking is usually a do, to make the movements go by faster. Cleaning the poms to the body is also an important note for making the routine look clean. Finally it is key to remember that you should never under any circumstances let a pom fall from your grasp. Dropping a pom during competition is a deduction to the team and easily avoided by holding them in a correct position.

Pom is a difficult style to master and is typically only performed by high school and college dance teams. It pushes the body to its limits, with the speed and precision it requires. It is forceful and difficult, and not easy to just pick up and compete. It requires a foundation in other dance styles, time to clean and clarify, and a commitment to a new thinking level for a style that is not common to a dancer before any dance team experience.

~Julia

 

Dance Prodigies

”You must have chaos within you to give rise to a dancing star.”

- Friedrich Nietzsche

Dancing starts at a young age. Some dancer’s already have natural talents and others don’t and have to grow into the new customs. Musicality, technique, energy, emotion, flexibility, dedication, determination and memorization are just a few components that you may see in a young, aspiring dancer. The characteristics show the great potential of the dancer, setting them aside from their peers in a positive, look at me sort of way. Such talent does not come around all the time, so when a studio sees this type of talent being demonstrated by a young dancer they help shape them into a new technical, stylistic dancer that will help bring a brilliant visionary to the stage.

These young dancers may be looked at as dance prodigies, standing out in the eight talents of dance; musicality, technique, energy, emotion, flexibility, dedication, determination and memorization. Discovering the arising elite dance force in the studio is most likely going to be visible in the early ages of dance. Teachers can see the talent the young one’s expose in class that identify with high understanding of the eight dance components. For example they can find the eight counts, down beats and tempo changes in music. They take time to correct their technical movements like a sickled foot, or inverted knee. Energy and emotion fir the style of concern, they hold their poise in their face and body language. The young dancer’s hips and back have natural stretch. The prodigy dancer above all with show a love and commitment to the artful sport, and longs to be doing it whenever and wherever they are, wanting to reach a fuller potential and master all moves given to them. Finally the component of memorization speaks for itself, either you can remember what the choreography calls for next or it comes at a slower rate, for the type of dancer we’re talking about it is going to be the quicker picker upper.

Young dancer’s that compose all seven components of dance are a small and strong power in the dance industry. Displaying talent that some experienced dancers, choreographers, judges and everyday people admire and want for themselves. These young prodigy dancers have so much ahead of them and it is an exciting experience to dance among them and share their love and passion for the field. It’s rare to come across such a dancer that excels in musicality, technique, energy, emotion, flexibility, dedication, determination and memorization alike. This type of special, young dance prodigy is rare, but influential to watch, the natural talents they behold are breath taking and a personal favorite of mine to see.

~Julia Brewer

Performance for the Performance

"Dance is a little insanity that does us all a lot of good."

 -Edward Demby

Weight lifting is one of many ways a dance team keeps up with yearlong season training. Weightlifting challenges the body’s strength in several positions and tasks. It builds muscle and power to the body which is useful to every sport, including dance.

My high school dance team is required to take a weightlifting course, called Performance P.E. as a class period for at least half of the school year. We also have to do weight lifting over the whole summer, this lasts twice a week and is in the morning right before practice. The final part of our weight lifting commitment is during our “off season” we are required as a team to go in after school twice a week to get stronger and max out on all of our skills.

Although there is some complaining that goes into weight lifting, the results are showing and our dancing bodies are becoming better accustomed to it. Other sports are beginning to accept the fact that dance team also has a reason to do weight lifting, as pom requires a great amount of arm strength, also dance itself requires its need because it helps to make it easier to get our dancing legs off the ground on leaps, jumps and kicks.

Unlike other sports we are not trying to “get big” or set school weight lifting records. Dance team uses weight lifting as a way to train our bodies for what we have to do in practice. It’s conditioning our bodies to engage and use the strength of our muscles that we have gained from weightlifting, and use them while dancing. It’s about setting personal bests for a dancer’s body, not maxing out the school record, that’s not what dance team is training for, nor what their goals need to be.

I think dance team has every right to use the same training as other sports, it challenges the body to become stronger and more toned. Weightlifting builds muscles that dancer’s need to grow stronger in order for them to execute skills with ease. Although dancers are not usually looking to max out school records or “get big” the results are still obvious, as jumps become higher and arms get stronger.

                ~Julia Brewer

Issues with Ears

“Leave a little sparkle wherever you go.”

-Anonymous

There is a lot of preparation that goes on before a dancer takes the stage. A small part of a dancer’s appearance is her ears. To assist the face in popping, dancers wear earrings. It adds an extra sparkle onto the stage, which only helps the audience draw the dancer in closer to their attention.

For dance team competitions you are not allowed to wear actual earrings, for safety reasons. That means no bellybutton, nose, ears or any other piercings are allowed. It doesn’t matter how new or permanent they are, they are not tolerated and can result in disqualification if worn. For that reason some teams do not wear any earrings. Which makes sense, because what else would they do? Well there is a solution to do this that my dance team uses. For competitions and performances we always want to make our faces shine even brighter so we glue on diamond like earrings that are most likely supposed to be used for scrapbooking from a craft store. Other dance team’s also use these diamonds on their face, following their smile line along their eyes. This helps their face pop with lots of sparkle on the face.

On the other hand competitions for studios do allow you to wear earrings. Therefore all studios should take the opportunity of putting earrings on their dancer’s as it really makes a difference on the stage. My own issue with earrings is that I do not have one of my ears pierced from a problem with the sensitivity of my ears, so I have to wear clip-ons. Clip-ons are just as effective as normal earrings, as long as they match the size of all the other earring’s the studio uses. Clip-ons can be used for those who don’t have their ears pierced, but still need to match the rest of the team.

Earrings are an important aspect to the appearance of a dancer on stage. They really help to pop the features a dancer shows in their face on stage. All dancer’s should wear earrings, and find a way that works for whatever competition they are attending.

                                                                                          ~Julia

High School Dance Team

"The nice thing about teamwork is you always have others on your side." 

-Margaret Carty

Dancing is not only carried through studios, but it is also brought to high school athletics. Being on a high school dance team helps in opening doors to college dance teams, giving you prep if that is what you want to be involved in at college.  It’s also a great way for a dancer to expand their horizons as it comes with learning new styles and making new friends. Dancing in high school gives you the opportunity to show school spirit and be involved in many different sports, while still letting you participate in the one you love the most. It’s a sport that takes a lot of time, energy and commitment, but in the end leaves you with countless happy memories that you will never want to let go.

If a dancer is looking to dance on a college dance team they should definitely tryout and be on their high school dance team. High school dance team gives a background of the new styles they will need to be a part of a college team. Jazz is different than ever before, hip-hop is more team based and pom is a whole new style most studio don’t teach. Some high school dance teams also perform hoopla, kick and military which are styles that most dancers are not accustomed to.

Being a part of a high school dance team is a great way to learn those new styles of dance and make new friends along the way. Because dance team is an all year sport, you become very close with all of your team mates and form several close friendships amongst them. Dance team in high school brings together the best dancers from every studio that go to your school. It is awesome to be able to come from all different dance backgrounds, but still work together in the high school setting, using all of the talents you have learned from dancing at a studio and incorporating them into your new team. You may never have the chance to dance with people from other studios, so it’s a great way of getting to know and have the opportunity to dance with them on a high school dance team.

Dance team brings a lot of school spirit into the high school. They wear the school colors, perform to the school fight song, represent the school at events and competitions and support them at school sporting events. Typically dance teams do half time performance and dance on the side lines at football games. They also perform at basketball games. Point being that one of many jobs of a dance team is promoting school spirit, which is super fun, you get into sporting events free and get to participate in parades. Dance team’s also get offered special opportunities to promote school spirit all around the school and community.

It’s true, dance team takes up a lot of time, energy and commitment. It can get very stressful and emotional, but in the end it is all totally worth it. It’s a lot of pressure on the body and mind, but the satisfaction of being a part of the team as a whole is an experience that only few get a shot at in high school. Stressed and emotional memories will be trumped by the better, fun, exciting and happy ones. High school dance teams have the ability to form some of the closest relationships compared to other sports, having team mates that truly care for you and share the same passion as you, dancing.

~Julia

 

Supportive Parents

“Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.”

-Carl Sandburg

Dancers rely heavily on their parents support and it is important for them to know that they are in the audience on their side. Dancers also rely on their parents for financial reasons, because dance is such a costly sport. Having supportive parents is important because they are the people who love you the most, and who want you to succeed.

Facing the facts, it is apparent that dance is an expensive sport with the costs of shoes, costumes, choreography and competition stacking up in the checkbook year after year. Not to mention doctor’s visits for injuries as a result of dance. There is no doubt that a dancer relies completely on their parents for the expenses that dancing brings. Due to dance being so expensive it is only just that dancers are appreciative for their parents working hard to pay all of the dance bills and give them thanks for allowing the dancer to do what they love.

The support of your parents is vitally important at the time of your performance, knowing your parents are there for you can make the level of stage confidence so much stronger. The fact that the people who love you the most are there for you can make all the difference, whether that is if you feel awful after the performance, nervous before or need relaxation on stage, they are there for you and think you are the very best one out there.

Parents watch their children dancing and only grow with love for them, in their mind you are the best one on the stage and the light of their life. No matter the cost of dance parents should be happy that they are bringing their children a passion so great it is teaching them discipline, desire and confidence. To get the most out of their money they should do their best to attend all performances of their dancer as it can only help give comfort to them when they are on and off the stage.

I have grown up extremely lucky to have two such supporting parents who help me to keep my passion of dancing alive. They support my dancing financially and affectionately and I am so grateful for that. Just knowing that you’re two biggest fans are in the audience gives a sense of relief. It’s such a great feeling to have them on your side no matter the outcome.

Thanks mom and dad!

~Julia

Learning from Professionals

“Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul's weather to all who can read it.”

-Martha Graham

One of the most benefitting and eye opening experiences as a dancer is to take class from a professional choreographer, dancer or instructor. Attending master classes are an extremely beneficial way for dancers who are hoping to grow in a specific genre. It furthers their perspective in the style, by hearing, feeling and observing in what the professional has to say. The dancer can learn things they have never considered and can find deeper passion from the inspiration of the professional.

Professional choreographers can bring a lot of excitement to a dancer’s life. Knowing that the choreographer has made productions for famous, world renowned stars gives dancers a sense of enthusiasm to learn choreography from them. By learning from top choreographers dancers can get a feel for how they work with others, and how dancers should treat, speak and behave around them. It also furthers dancing by learning how the choreographer wants the moves to be executed to fit the style of dance given, this helps to connect moves to the body, to the music, to the group, to the audience.

 

Taking master classes from a professional dancer is a compelling experience. To see how the dancer’s body moves and extracts feeling from the music in presenting a piece gives light to dancers who want to be just as moving and powerful. Dancers can find a deeper passion from the inspiration of a professional dancer giving them motivation to reach a fuller potential.

Professional dance instructors are a great way to further yourself as a dancer. Dancers have the opportunity to learn so much from professional instructors, such as technique, movement, motion, placement, musicality and preparation. Instructors are behind the scenes from the dancer and choreography because they provide in the foundations of dance. For example a ballet instructor cleans and clarifies the technique of the ballet style, a hip-hop instructor specifies the movement of hip-hop skills, a contemporary instructor indicates the musicality of the body to music, and so on and so forth for every genre of dance. The instructor builds on what you have to use as a dancer to perform a piece of choreography, it is the expansion of a dancer’s foundation.

Learning from professional choreographers, dancers and instructors is an eye opening experience for a dancer, giving insight into the professional world and what is expected by the top of the industry. Learning from professionals offers a greater understanding of dance by gaining new knowledge on typical concepts. To learn from professionals is different than anything else a dancer could do, because studio dancers usually take lessons from the same teachers week after week. Therefore by doing master classes you are expanding your dance horizons and working with new people who have ideas and inspiration that you have never been available to you. It is beneficial to learn from those you haven’t because it demands greater focus and attention to detail.

~ Julia Brewer

Nerves

“I have a nervous lips tick, so naturally I try to cover it up with lipstick.”

― Jarod Kintz

There is a feeling of tingly fingers, heavy shoulders and tenseness running through a dancer from the moment they pull up to the performance hall until their name is called to take the stage. It’s a mixed rush of emotions, stress and nerves. A thousand things racing through their mind like counts, time, lunch, floor, hair, judges, all bringing up the nerves of taking the stage. It is a part of involvement with any sport, and it’s natural to be nervous for everyone to watch, judge and support you, but it is when you have begun that it all starts to come together.

Although a dancer may be nervous to dance for family, friends, judges and the unknown, being on stage can give them a sort of comfort, knowing that is where they feel confident. Nerves seem to fade away for that short two to three minutes and all is good and comfortable. Although present the nerves learn to vanish and not take over the spotlight of the stage.

It is hard to overcome nervousness and is a very natural thing for the body to do, especially in a stressed worrisome state. A dancer may be worried about the floor being too sticky or slippery, their stomachs too empty or full, their timing too fast or slow, or their costumes being too tight or too lose. There is so much a dancer is thinking through before taking the stage for a performance and ultimately their nerves will either get to them or they will push back and show confidence in their dancing.

It is vital for a dancer to give themselves time away from over rehearsing, over thinking and over exaggerating and just take some deep breaths to calm down the nerves, stress and worry. If a dancer does not walk onto the stage cool, calm, and confident, the judges will see that and score you accordingly. The best thing you can do as a dancer is to not let the nerves break through and instead focus on the dance at hand.

As a parting piece of advice it is important to know that nerves are a natural feeling after you have been preparing so much time and effort to perfect a dance, however you should not let those nerves over take your dancing and affect you in a negative way. Being nervous should not limit you from doing what you love, stay calm and be confident in yourself and success will surely come.

 

~Julia Brewer