Is Dance Competition Right For Your Family?

On July 7th, we are holding dance competition team auditions. With this approaching, our families always ask for more information. So, this is my personal letter to you!

The first thing I get asked is “do you think my child is ready?” My reply is usually something like this: First, the younger that they audition, the easier it is to get in. When a child is six years old, we are looking for some flexibility, attention span, personality, and a foundation of the basics such as a single pirouette. When a student auditions at 15 years old, they need to be able to match my Senior dancers, which many of them have been competing for around 7 years. With an older dance, they need to be able to perform harder skills from the start like double or triple pirouettes, various leaps, and harder choreography that is taught fast. It is much harder to make the team the older the student gets because we don’t have as much time to train them.

The next questions are usually about time and financial commitments. As far as time, the competition students are only required to train two days per week. Many add on additional classes like tumbling and hip hop. This is a place we differ from many other competition teams. Many teams train at least four days per week and have all day weekend practices. Most of these teams compete at a higher level than us. My students are very talented and work hard, but they compete at an intermediate level while being able to have a life outside of dance.

Our competition team does have more financial responsibilities. Because they train longer than our recreational students, the tuition is more expensive. It is still less than $110 per month. They have to purchase a competition jacket and make up kit. We also add custom hair pieces and rhinestones so the costume fee is higher too. The biggest expense comes from the convention and competitions. All of our competition students participate in one weekend convention and three competitions. On occasion, there may be a fourth optional competition. Most of these are held in Baton Rouge or Biloxi, but some can be in Hattiesburg or Mobile. There are competition fees and most of our families have hotel expenses.

However, just like I give my recreational students their exact bill at the beginning of the year, I do the same for my competition team. They know exactly what they are getting into at the very start.

My own daughter who is 11 has been competing since she was 6 years old. I find that it has brought many great experiences to her life. It has instilled a confidence in her that she has no problem performing for crowds up to 500 people. She has learned to win humbly and lose graciously. She knows the value of hard work, both personally and as a team. Our family as a whole has enjoyed traveling to new areas and making our competition weekends into mini-vacations. If you would like more information, first visit our Company page on our website. Next, I would be glad to talk to you about any other specific questions you may have.

Please know that here at Soar, all our students are valued. It doesn’t matter if they come just for 45 minutes of tumbling or if they are enrolled in five hours of lessons per week. For us, it is about seeing each individual child grow!