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National Dance for a 9/10 year old


mumstheword

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My dd did Hungarian at 9/10yrs and did very well with it (took it to All England Finals). It was just that little bit different to many of the others in her age group. She never competed against another 'Hungarian' though I have seen a few in older she groups. Costume is very pretty too!

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Thank you Loulabelle, haven't seen Hungarian before, cue visit to YouTube! Do like ones with pretty costumes too! Thanks too taxi mom, but seem to have lots of tarantellas on our festival circuit at the minute!

Many years ago my daughter did a Turkish one with finger cymbals, I may still have the costume but wouldn't remember the dance. She was about 10 and did well with it.

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The last couple of festivals we have been to the adjudicator has been VERY particular that the costumes are correct and in keeping with the country espcially shoes styles.  One even had photos to show the dancers!

 

The country the dance is from now has to be announced along with the title if there is one at the beginning and she has even asked the girls questions about the country their dance is from!

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That's why I don't like festivals. It should be all about the quality of the dancing not who can afford the most authentic costume.

 

Dd loves character dance in ballet which I guess us similar to national. She has dive Hungarian & another I can't remember.

I can see where you are coming from, and some adjudicators can be overly picky, especially to younger children, most of whom have very little say in what they are wearing or their choreography. But, national dances at festivals are meant to be theatrical presentations of traditional dances, and wearing the correct style of clothing, and particularly the right footwear does help the dancer understand the nature of the dance and therefore should enhance the quality. For instance, if you are doing one of the Russian dances that would traditionally be done in hard soled boots but are wearing suede soled character shoes you won't get the right "heavy" feel to the footwork and wearing the traditional slippers in some types of greek dances really enhances the footwork too. Some of the Balkan states have traditional costumes which are very heavy and that contributes to the dancers carrying themselves and moving very differently to say mexican dancers dancing barefoot in lighter dresses etc etc My DD's teacher expects her to do some of her own research when she's learning a new national dance. Learning something about the costume, culture and even climate of the country that they are representing does help dancers really "get into" their dance and perform it better I think. It's true that some people do spend ridiculous amounts of money on festival costumes but they don't have to be outrageously expensive, and there are quite a few traditional dances that are done barefoot.
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DD did Irish dance for a few months - you should see how much their costumes cost!!! Anything between £500 and £1,000 is considered the norm - staggering, especially as nobody wants to be 'seen' in a second-hand one...

 

I was relieved when dd decided Irish wasn't for her! Edited for spelling

Edited by taxi4ballet
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It isn't necessary to spend mad amounts of money on costumes - although my dd has never been interested in doing National as a festival dance genree we do watch a lot of these sections when at festivals. 

 

Some adjudicators are picky but to get through to National Finals they are in every genree.  DD's dance school has just entered a National Group for the first time ever (Hungarian I think) and it will be very interesting to see how it does.  Luckily there are some very handy with the sewing machine mums who have made beautiful costumes just based on a normal RAD character skirt - but the dancers have had to purchase red hungarian boots from somewhere?  They all look amazing.

 

The best dance I ever saw was a mexican dance.  She just had a very very full fluid white dress with a bit of brading and bare feet but so good she won the section.

 

I have often said that at festivals it doesn't matter if the dancer was wearing a black bin bag - if they danced well enough and were good enough they would do well!

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We used to sell the costumes to each other as the dance was passed on to the next dancer. The costumes I believe do need to be authentic, but its very silly when parents pay vast amounts of money for them. Most schools have parents who dress make or have contacts that do. We used to get given a photograph of a National costume and told to have it made. We then payed one of the parents to make it for us. I never paid above 30 pounds for any costume other than a tutu, and at that time my dd was doing 12 different dances, solos, duets, trios and groups. The teacher at the time was one of the examining bodies of ISTD and she was highly regarded for her National dances often winning the Grandison Clark national competitions.

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  • 4 months later...

My eldest daughter did a Portuguese national dance, quite a few years ago now. That was very nice, she carried a basket of grapes. I made the costume from this brilliant book : 

Folk Costumes of the World: Amazon.co.uk: Robert Harrold, Phyllida Legg

I improvised and painted the embroidered flowers on the sleeves with fabric paint - it looked really lovely and now using somewhere like Fabricland could be made for around £30 by my reckoning - a bargain! Perhaps I should start making them and selling them! It was a real pleasure to make  :D 

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My dd did a Hungarian dance at 8 and 9 years old, she did very well with it (went to All England finals) and we never saw another one in her age group over those two years. I made her costume, it cost me the earth so I would never part with it, but happy to send you a picture if you'd like to see it?

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