HOW TO ORGANISE A FASHION SHOW – part six 

DANCE FOR ENTERTAINMENT AT YOUR FASHION SHOW – Part two

Moving on from last months article, lets look at more about putting your routine together.

English: An acro dancer pauses in a handstand during a competitive dance performance before proceeding to handwalk across the stage. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So you now have a theme and a basic dance routine worked out. You know how many dancers you need, what outfits they are going to wear, and how much space on the staging you are going to need to perform the routine that you have in mind.

There are many different types of dance therefore you need to be clear in your own mind which style suits your show the best. Now that you have your basic routines or moves worked out you can go into more details about the finer details of the moves.

How will the routines move from one position to the next? What will be the motivation for the change in the routine? For example, will it be motivated by something another dancer does? Many groups of dancers have a “lead” dancer who performs a routine in front of the group. The other dancers then make their moves based on the movements or actions taken by the lead dancer.

Gradually you can add variations to the basic dance routine and introduce new props for the dancers to interact with. (props are objects which the dancers interact with, for example a simple prop would be a hand held fan or a parasol)

HOW TO ORGANISE A FASHION SHOW – part six continued  

DANCE FOR ENTERTAINMENT AT YOUR FASHION SHOW – Part two

Once your dancers are familiar with the basic short routines you can extend these to produce longer slightly more complicated routines. There is no reason why you can’t use the same group of dancers at a number of your shows and introduce more complicated routines in each of the subsequent shows. You could choose a slightly different outfit for the dancers to wear for different types of show. Experienced dancers could be given a slightly different design or colour to show that they are the dancers to follow or lead the routines. 

Remember that the dance environment on the stage is likely to be hot especially if you are using spot lights and a lot of stage lighting, so choose outfits which help to keep the dancers cool during their performance. You might even find it necessary to have a fan at the side of the stage in hot climates, but don’t have this blowing everything everywhere. Remember to allow the dancers to make full use of the space available, and consider the audience view of the stage by checking this from the seating positions you are going to use, or have available at the venue you have chosen for your event.

It is important that the dancers feel comfortable in the outfits that they are wearing for the show so get their feedback about the garments before you go ahead and order them. If you are having the outfits specially made then you will be able to get a sample outfit made before you go ahead with the full order.