Our competition team provides our most driven students the opportunity to hone their skills through increased performance opportunities, adjudicated feedback, and a high energy team environment.
Why do competitions?
Competitions are what takes dance from a recreational activity and art form, to a sport. We expect our competitive dancers to be in the studio training 3-5 days a week, similar to the way sports teams practice. This level of commitment and in-studio time leads to a higher skill level and faster improvement for our dancers, teaches time management and discipline, and allows our dancers to bond and form a true “dance family.”
Outside of the studio, competitions are a great place to get feedback and improve as a dancer as well. Our dancers train with a limited number of instructors, so getting judges critiques gives them an outside perspective and additional things to work on or consider. Being in a competitive and adjudicated environment also gives our dancers something to strive for throughout the season. While the trophies are fun, we hope our dancers will score just a little higher each time! We are competing against ourselves as much as (if not more than) we are competing against the other studios at each competition. Competitions also give students the chance to be inspired by other dancers in our area, and even make some new friends!
If your student loves to dance and is ready to take it to the next level, we encourage them to audition for our competition team!
Who is eligible?
Students need to be training in petite ballet (typically age 7) or higher in order to be eligible to compete. Students wishing to compete must also complete at least 12 hours of summer dance training. All students who meet these requirements are invited to attend placements in August!
Time Commitment
Competitive dance is a year-round sport. All students on our competition team are required to take at least 12 hours of summer classes. We will then begin training in August with auditions and Choreography Camp (mandatory). The competition season runs February - May, with nationals in the summer. We will have our full competition schedule by October of each year, but we will typically attend 3-4 competitions. We ask dancers/parents to commit to being available weekends February 15th-May 15th.
Dancers on our competition team will rehearse on Saturdays. During the week, competition dancers are also required to take ballet, as well as technique classes in whatever genres they compete in. For example, a student who competes in hip hop and lyrical would have a minimum weekly training schedule of ballet, lyrical, hip hop, and Saturday competition rehearsals.