From Studio to Stage
The majority of a dancers’ time is spent in a studio. You work to perfect your techniques, learn from your mentors and collaborate with choreographers. It is a physically arduous undertaking requiring the highest degree of dedication, discipline and passion. But for most dancers who seriously choose this path the ultimate goal is to present the fruit of their studio hours on an stage: in a theater.
Where a studio is a safe space, with its comfortable rhythms and rituals a theater can seem a foreign and hectic place. The studio can be light and airy, there are hours and days and weeks to create, rehearse and polish your work. But the theater dark and stuffy and there is never enough time. It is filled with strangers all focused on their own priorities, rushing, sometimes shouting. Dancers are ordered on the stage, off the stage; told to dance, stop, dance, stop and dance again!
After all the time you’ve spent in the studio perfecting your practice this irreverent scramble from stage-door to curtain-up may seem an insult to your careful preparation. It may make you long to retreat to the cocoon of the studio. But this is where the slipper hits the floor, where all your work comes to fruition in the cathartic exchange between audience and performer.
And although it may sometimes seem chaotic the theater is a place with as much history, technique and art as the dance studio. Just like you, everyone there has their own role to play. They are preparing costumes, setting lights, putting down dance floor, bringing backdrops up and down, playing music. There is a structured chain of communication and responsibility. And although it might not seem like it, just like you they have spent countless hours in preparation before they arrived at the theater.
When you all come together you must employ your precious few hours as economically as possible to bring the best possible presentation to the audience. So although the full cast of characters working to get a show up may come from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives it is invaluable for all to understand each other’s part to play.
