Dance -

General

Wot? No Dance Teacher?

What do you do when you've no dance teacher in the school (or as part of your Youth Theatre group?) and you need to include dance in your show?

Schools may be able to solve the problem by approaching a (usually female, although all who qualified in recent years will have done some training in dance) member of the PE staff. Failing this, ask around: there are often staff who have an interest in dance but who are working in some other discipline (I've even had a Maths teacher take Dance lessons, not just choreograph a show for me!). If that, too, fails, you can always make contact with a local dance school (and we are now talking about YTs, too). Although the actual person who runs the school might not be interested (unless you're willing - and able - to pay), there might be a trainee, or even an older pupil who would be willing to work with you.

If all these ideas come to nothing, try what I have done in the past on a few occasions: get one of the kids to do the job! In every school I have ever been in (in the UK, that is), there have been many girls (it is usually girls) who have been going to Dance classes since they were very small, some even with teaching qualifications. This is your last hope port of call! If such a girl agrees to do the job, then you must give her your full support - and make it very clear to the others that she has it. Often, although not always, jealousy rears its ugly head and some will start to mutter, "Who does she think she is? I'm as good as her" and other such moans. You must make it very clear that she is the one you have asked to do the job and that they'll have to accept it or get out.

Incidentally, my Dance Club at school has been run by the girls themselves - usually under the control of one girl - for the last five years or more. It does work!