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Competitions


hellogoodbye

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Hi all,

 

Just wanted to get your thoughts on this.

 

I've become quite fascinated lately by the dance competition scene that they have over in the USA. It seems like a very big deal over there. DD follows a lot of young American dancers on Instagram who have huge followings, seemingly from dance competitions alone. And it seems to take a lot of work and thought from the studios who run comeptition teams etc, with parents also seeming to revolve their lives around these competitions (I have been reading some forums!!).

 

After a bit of online research, we don't appear to have many dance competitions in the UK - or am I missing something? DD would love to compete in one (of course I think her obsession with 'Dance Moms' has something to do with this) but there don't seem to be many about and certainly not anything similar to in USA.

 

Am I missing a secret competition scene over here? Or is it not a big deal here? If not - does anyone think it should be and would people here get onboard with their kids becoming regular competitors? It seems like something that would be fun to do once in a while but over there it's a big industry, not just a 'fun occasional thing'.

Edited by hellogoodbye
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I thought the festivals are our competition circuit. Not something I know anything about as my dd's dance school doesn't do this but she knows girls through her associate classes who always at one festival or another competing. Perhaps not as high profile as the US scene. Have you looked at All England Dance wesbite? Also I think there  YAGP take place europe as well though I imagine its very costly. 

Edited by chaperone
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I agree that festivals are probably the closest approximation here. But they are a lot lower key than Dance Moms. That sort of behaviour by parents and teachers would not be acceptable. There may be much more low key and civilised parents in those comps for all we know but they wouldn't be worh filming.....

 

My dd loves festivals and on the whole parents are supportive and kids well behaved. My dd rarely wins but loves it anyway. It's a really good way to learn the hard lessons in life about losing graciously. ....

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I think that in order to compete at festivals you have to be entered by a dance school which participates in them, you can't enter as an individual.

 

The dance scene in the USA is quite different from Britain, from what I have discovered online. Most ballet companies run pre-professional programmes and 6-week summer intensives which act as direct feeders into the full-time training programmes and eventually into the company. There is huge competition for places on these programmes, and there is a far greater reliance on competitions to get your face 'known' by the powers-that-be.

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Many Festivals DO allow individual entries. Contact the entries secretary for advice, they are often called Private Entries. Some schools with tiny entries enter this way as well as individual entries. Each festival is different!

 

 

Heather

Aka Taximom.

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The British Federation of Festivals (I think that's the right name)also have a website that lists the festivals which are affiliated to it. Some festivals are "stand alone" and not affiliated to any organisation though-you might be able to find out about any such local festivals from nearby theatres or in local papers. Festivals that are qualifiers for the All England tend to be bigger and have better known adjudicators though I have to say that we have had some great times and excellent adjudicators at our small local festivals too.

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I think that if you want your daughter to enter festivals/comps, you would first have to approach her teacher,  If she agrees to prepare her for some solos, she will need private lessons. 

 

I much prefer the whole competition scene in the UK - seems to me that the emphasis is far more on artistry and choreography than tricks and ballet is ballet - at least it still was when I last watched the All England Finals some years ago!  I saw a group "ballet" dance once in a youtube video from some American comp and apart from the fact that they wore costumes that were some distant relative to tutus, there wasn't the slightest connection to ballet.  It was gymnastics/acrobatics to a pop tune! 

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The dance scene in the USA is quite different from Britain, from what I have discovered online. Most ballet companies run pre-professional programmes and 6-week summer intensives which act as direct feeders into the full-time training programmes and eventually into the company. There is huge competition for places on these programmes, and there is a far greater reliance on competitions to get your face 'known' by the powers-that-be.

 

I see - that explains a lot! From all my online research it does seem like a hugely big deal over there. Thank you all for the info on festivals - I'll do a bit of research and see if we might let DD enter something.  :)

Edited by hellogoodbye
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There seems to be more and more 'commercial' competitions cropping up in the UK recently, perhaps due to the popularity of American things now much more visible via the internet. When I was dancing and first started teaching I thought it was all about British Federation affiliated festivals, and All England festivals, but there are LOADS of others around, which are only as good as the schools entering them. I have been to a few in the last couple of years where adjudicators have made very strange (IMHO) decisions and comments, and the work from the schools entering has been pretty poor. A win at a festival like that means something quite different to a win at an All England qualifier!

 

Edited to add: There's also the Theatre Dance Council International championships/comps http://www.tdci.org.uk/british%20championship.htmalthough the trend for skimpy American style costumes seems to have crossed the Atlantic, looking at their homepage!

Edited by drdance
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This is a difficult topic. We have had quite a lot of competition experience (mostly negative). In Australia it is expected that serious dancers compete.

 

From our experience, the best advice I would give anyone, is to know what your goals of competing are. My dd chose variations (or contemporary dances) which would allow her time to drill things she was struggling with - e.g.: Italian fouettes. She is also shy and needed to work on her stage presentation and confidence, so they were definite goals. 

 

Often the judging is unfair for various reasons (e.g. the judge is a specialist in a completely different genre of dance) so if the goal of learning a particular dance, or performing it with expression has been achieved, then the end of the day feels much more worthwhile than if the goal of competing is winning. 

 

As a parent, I would be happy if she never competed again, but she wants to and says it is good for her development as a person and dancer.

 

Just a few thoughts for those thinking of starting out in competitions. 

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I think the key to success is to keep things in perspective and always remember that the competition is your servant not your master. As long as you keep that in mind and don't become over focussed on the result I think there is a lot to be gained from festivals. Well, that's our experience anyway!

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A number of forum members have links and experiences with local festivals. If you want to give an idea of where you are I am sure someone will provide some suggestions for festivals.

 

Thank you - we are based in Berkshire so ideally looking for London/South East festivals.

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Our dance school attended Starpower and Destination Dance last year.  Both very American and glitzy, with shiny trophies and our kids really enjoyed them :) The Starpower compere made reference to Dance Moms saying it wasn't actually like that in real life! 

 

The Starpower competition had three adjudicators and you could, for a fee (£10 I think) order a DVD of the dance with their spoken narrative over the top of the recording. (I was going to order this but then lost the form when someone borrowed my programme then I forgot about it). 

 

What I would say for both of these were that they seemed really consistent in their judging. The 'tricks' were covered in the rules quite strictly where only 3 'tricks' were allowed otherwise they had to be performed in the acro section. I would actually say that compared with another local festival we attended the USA style comps restricted the acro stuff better whereas the other festival had acro peppered throughout all of the dance routines regardless of the categories. 

 

The standard of the dancing was really incredible at both of these events and our kids were certainly really inspired by a lot of what they saw there. 

 

If you are interested, there's a really good facebook group called 'Dance Competitions and festivals in the UK".   :)

Edited by annaliesey
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hellogoodbye - there are a heap of festivals in your area. I'd suggest going along and watching a few sections. Feb half term has Tilehurst in Newbury and Royal Berks in Wokingham going on.

It's a few quid to get in to watch some sessions and get a programme.

I think they are both qualifiers for all England dance festival which is on every two years.

We have been in the festival circuit for a few years now and made some great friends along the way.

:)

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At DD's studio (in New Zealand) you have to be 'invited' to do competition work, so it is not much talked about in front of other parents. The deal seems to be that they offer private lessons to teach competition solos (and duos, trios, troupes), so that the studio gets good publicity I guess. At first my DD only wanted the private lessons and not to do competitions, but after a year she is enjoying the comps (festivals). She is quite a reserved child and the private lesson work has been fabulous for her confidence as well as teaching stagecraft and performance stuff. Around exams they also get some syllabus coaching in their private lessons. I don't know if this is how it works in the UK – we do the RAD syllabus but there is quite an American influence in some areas.

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Starpower in London is well run. They record the judges voices while they watch each routine and then upload their commentaries after the competition so students and teachers can hear their comments as they were watching the routine. This year the comments were uploaded alongside a low res video of each routine so you can watch the routines back while listening to their praise/Corrections.

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The most important thing I would pass on about festivals is to enjoy them for what they are. The adjudicators comments are their opinions and ones that may or may not be agreed with but they are just an opinion by a qualified adjudicator. They teach children (and parents sometimes) to win and lose graciously. They can be great fun if not taken too seriously. They can help to develop stage confidence especially if the student has a positive experience. They wont however have any bearing on getting you into a vocational school or company.

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If you want to check out Tilehurst festival at all I could give a rough idea what's on when as DD's dance school are taking part. It ends on Saturday 21st with the group sections. Definitely echo what's been said about adjudicators. You do see quite an array of dances.

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