Why It Is Important To Create Performance Opportunities For Your Students?

When a student joins my classes, my goal is to turn her into a dancer. Therefore, I not only teach technique, but I also teach how to interpret the music, how to express feelings, how to improvise, how to create choreographies, how to do stage hair, stage make-up, how to have confidence (on and off stage), how to enter and exit the stage, how to thank the audience, and the list goes on… For them to practice all this, we need to create performance opportunities for them. Otherwise, after 5 years of classes, all they will know is technique, which alone won’t make much of a performance. So here go the advantages of creating shows for your students:

1. The sooner you have your students coming up on stage, the sooner they will become at ease with being on stage and being exposed. To be confident on stage, to have “attitude” and have fun, is as important as technique, and hence it should be developed right away as they step into your beginner class. After three months of classes, after they have learned the basic steps, the whole class is going on stage with me. After some time (two or three performances after) I stop going with them. And after one year, I am pushing them to go solo. If you do this, with 2/3 years of classes, they will be already comfortable with the audience, expressive and communicative.

2. Being on stage for most students is seen as a challenge for them, something that makes them nervous and uncomfortable (especially because they need to show some skin). To get over all those insecurities and fears will make them feel empowered and excited. They will then become more motivated to learn more, to set new challenges for themselves and to overcome them. And that’s what a teacher wants: students that are eager for the next class, to learn more and to evolve.

3. Finally, but not the least, having a performance means a lot of responsibility to your students. They know that there will be people watching them: their friends, their family, and the other students’ supporters as well. So, of course, they will work hard to give their best performance, which means: practice! Before the shows my students are practicing much more than during regular classes, they even get together outside of the classes’ schedule so to practice together, to help each other. All this practice will make them improve a lot in their technique, besides allowing them to create bonds with each other, which in turn provides an excellent environment in the class and the shows.

Although it’s super important to create performance opportunities for our students, I believe a teacher should not be only focusing on shows and choreographies. There should be also time for theory, technique, musical interpretation, improvisation, chorographical creation (know more about this on the post Why Should You Teach and Motivate Your Students To Create Their Own Choreographies), and so on. Dance is much more than performance, is art.

Did you like this post? Do you also make sure you create performance opportunities for your students? 😊