Guest Post: Body Image — Are You Looking For Perfection In Your Reflection?

Today’s guest post is from Tiffany Braniff, who you’ve “met” before when I covered her blog Dancing Branflakes. Though we didn’t go into it much in our interview, Tiffany has spoken quite openly on her blog about body issues, her experiences growing up, the influence others had on her body image, and her continuing struggles. I asked Tiffany if she would be willing to provide an article for Dance Advantage that might encourage and support young dancers who are struggling. I know you’ll take away something from this article whether you are a student, a parent, or a teacher.

What will I look like if…?

There is a website that allows you to see what you will look like if you lose or gain weight.  It is quite simple: you upload your picture and move a knob on a  scale up and down depending on what you want to see.  What will you look like if you lose those last 5 pounds?  Voila!  And what about if that scale goes up after a few weeks without exercise?  Your new, heavier look is right in front of you. It is smart marketing for a diet and exercise website but bad for the self-esteem.

I am ashamed to say that not only did I try this tool but I also obsessed over it for a while.  When I moved the scale down 5 pounds I looked the same.  When I moved it down another five pounds I found the same body but with a slightly larger head.  Even at a 20 pound weight loss the only thing that seemed to change was my outrageously large head and randomly skinny elbows.  This was not exactly the beautiful, new image I was hoping for.

My next step was to see what every person fears.  I moved the scale higher so that I “gained” five pounds.  Bad idea.  I moved it again to ten pounds and I became physically ill at how heavy I looked.  I could not handle seeing myself that large and quickly moved the scale back to my real weight.  I fear few things in life but gaining weight is at the top of my list.

I began to wonder why I looked the same when I “lost” weight yet when I gained a mere 5 pounds I suddenly became overweight and a horrific sight to be seen.  Was this how I would really look or was the website defective?  After much consideration I realized that maybe it was neither.  Maybe my fear of gaining weight prevented me from seeing reality.

Objects in mirror may be….

Psychologists call my episode with this website many things, namely body dysmorphic disorder and according to the Mayo Clinic of Health [link] it is also referred to as “imagined ugliness.”  A person may not have a firm grasp of reality due to a false perception that is already established in the mind.  Basically, this disorder prevents people from seeing who they really are.

As dancers we face our reflection so much that you would think we know what we look like. We spend hours every day in front of a mirror in nothing more than skin tight clothing and a skirt if we are lucky. But I have found that the opposite is true. Most of us have a distorted idea of our image.

There are dancers striving to lose a “last 5 pounds,“  that does not exist.  There are perfectly healthy dancers obsessing over thighs that touch or a stomach that rolls when sitting. They do all they can to lose weight but, much like the scale, nothing happens.  Some dancers then label themselves as fat out of frustration and desperation.  The fact is that they do not need to lose weight and that is why nothing happens.  The body reaches a point where it fights to hang on to everything it needs to be healthy.  At this point the truly desperate turn to unhealthy measures that inevitably shorten their dancing careers and drastically reduce their quality and quantity of life.

How do we improve our body image and prevent or combat “imagined ugliness“?

Let us take a few steps back and deal with the real issue at hand.  There is a hesitancy among some dancers to accept and love their bodies because they are not perfect.  From an early age we are taught that perfection is the goal and anything short of perfection is unacceptable and needs to be worked on.  I want to tell dancers everywhere that although this might be true about technique it is certainly not true about our bodies.

The fact is that your body, your great and marvelous gift, is what got you to where you are today in your dancing career.  Give it a high five and a pat on its back.  It deserves to be praised.  And loved.  And accepted.  Celebrating your body will not hurt your career but it may in fact help it.

Say 5 Positive Things

Image by Jean-François Chénier via Flickr

A few months ago I began complimenting myself as a way to not dissolve into a puddle of tears as I lamented over my body during a particularly difficult rehearsal.  Any time I thought a negative thought about my body I forced myself to say five positive things.  I began this during tech week and it was much more difficult than I anticipated.  From costume fittings to criticisms from the directors I did my best to find five things I loved about my body any time I thought negatively about it.

This exercise was simultaneously humbling and helpful.  I began to appreciate things about my body that I never noticed before because I never took the time to look in the mirror in an honest way.  I realized that my attitude toward my body was already so negative that by the time I looked in a mirror I had prematurely made up my mind not to accept it.  I had essentially set myself up for failure.

Do I think my body is perfect because I have started to finally try to love it?  Absolutely not.  I clearly see my imperfections and everyday I work on my tight hips, not so hard belly, and slightly curved back.  But as I aim for perfection my body and I have an understanding that it will never be perfect and I have to accept that.  I also have to treat it well.  In return, my body has promised to take me to my fullest potential as a dancer and to help me reach my highest goals.

To those that care for dancers:

Not all dancers have negative body images but if you know any who do please help them.  Please show them that there is a difference between staying in shape and punishing themselves.  They need to know that there is a difference between being hard on themselves and beating themselves up. One is productive and shows dedication to the art form while the other is destructive and stems from self loathing.

To those who are struggling:

My plea to you is simple: love your body.  Do not let a negative body image take away from the joy that is dance.  You have gotten to where you are today not despite your body but because of it.  Treat it well and learn how to compliment it without hesitation.  I promise you that you will have a happier, better, and more fulfilling dancing career.

Tiffany Braniff is a dancer, teacher, and choreographer based in Sacramento, California.  She began her dance training at Pamela Hayes Classical Ballet Training in Sacramento.  She has also studied with Ruth Rosenberg, Loretta Livingstone, Tanya Lockyer, and Nolan T’Sani.  She received her B.A. in Dance with a composite emphasis in ballet and modern dance from Brigham Young University in 2007.  At BYU she studied under certified movement analysts the Laban and Bartenieff techniques.  She performed with both the ballet and modern dance companies at BYU and presented three of her choreographic works in concert.

Some highlights of her career have been working with the incredible Dr. Linda Goodrich, Nzinga Camera, and Tanya Lockyer.  This past summer she also had the wonderful opportunity to learn works by Anna Sokolov and Zvi Gotheiner under the direction of Repertory Dance Theater and Linda C. Smith.

She is currently in her fourth season as a company member of Dangerous Lorraines Dance Theater.  She is excited to perform at the San Francisco Fringe Festival with DLDT this coming Fall.  Tiffany is also on faculty at Northern California Dance Conservatory where she teaches ballet and contemporary dance.

I would love to hear your thoughts on body image and the quest for “perfection.”

What do you have to say about the line between pushing and punishing yourself or your body?

I challenge you to say 5 positive things about your body or yourself on a daily basis!

Dr Katharine Phillips, a psychiatrist based at Butler Hospital in Rhode Island, USA, estimates that as many as one in 50 people may have the disorder, most of them men and women in their 30s (from a BBC report in 2000).

Eating disorders affect up to 24 million people in America, anorexia is the 3rd most common chronic illness among adolescents, and many more individuals display disordered attitudes and behaviors toward eating. (Eating Disorders 101 Guide: A Summary of Issues, Statistics and Resources (doc), published September 2002, revised October 2003, www.renfrew.org).

Sunday Snapshot: Foot Phrase

©Allanah C.

Foot Phrase is a section in the ballet A Pulse Stolen by Ted Seymour (see more in an interview and clips from A Pulse Stolen on YouTube), which had its world premiere on May 21, 2010. This section of the ballet is done in total darkness except for three sets of illuminated, moving feet. The two shown are the feet of Ashley J.( in sous-sus) and Brittany H. (in tendu derriere).

About the photographer: Allanah C. is a dance and college student currently living in Indianapolis, IN and spending the summer as an extra dancer for Gregory Hancock Dance Theatre. She started taking pictures of her friends at her home studio for fun and it has since developed into a hobby of sorts. Of capturing the shot, she says, “I love the challenge photographing dance presents because my subject is almost always in motion, even on my digital camera without a delay the picture can easily become blurred by the motion of the dancer or the lighting.”

Sunday Snapshot: Impressions

The painter Degas seemed to enjoy capturing the natural asymmetry of dancers in training. He preserved the everyday moments of dancers between barre exercises, waiting or tying their ribbons, or shared with viewers the skewed perspective of performance from the wings.

Similarly, much of what I’ve seen of Carl Johnson’s ballet photography (I made his acquaintance early on in my blogging career) offers casual glimpses of the young dancers in his photos. The shot above may be a bit more formal but the muted reds and blues of this textured image recall the impressionistic paint strokes of Degas.

About the Photographer: Carl Johnson is a photographer from Albany, New York, whose photographs of dance have been sold around the world. Carl blogs about music, biking, and other aspects of his non-urban life over at My Non-Urban Life. His daughters are academy students at the School of the Albany Berkshire Ballet, directed by Madeline Cantarella Culpo, in Albany, New York. This photograph is from the school’s annual recital.

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3 x 12 — The Best of Dance Advantage 2009

2009

It’s been an incredibly packed year! Over 120 posts were added to this blog in 2009 and when I look back I must admit that I’m rather proud of the quality of much of that information. I know that I have grown and learned so much as a writer this year. I was so happy to welcome a handful of guest bloggers this year as well, particularly as my 1-year-old son became a 2-year-old!

And Dance Advantage has come a long way too!

At the start of the year, this blog was still hosted for free at wordpress.com. Though in January I had been blogging less than a year, I had already decided that to make this blog function the way I wanted, I would have to bite the bullet and jump into self-hosting. By April we had a new location and by May, a new look. I’m never satisfied and I don’t love the tediousness and headaches of maintaining a site (especially when I don’t really know what I’m doing!), BUT it’s been an exciting ride!

It’s also been exciting to watch this small community expand.

The blog is only part of it – Twitter followers, Facebook fans, you are some of my most loyal readers! I believe subscriptions to the blog/newsletter have tripled since the beginning of 09. I’m in awe and completely humbled that so many have visited and regularly read what’s here. And I am so thankful for those of you who comment and who take the time to voice your appreciation. It truly means so much to me!

3 x 12 = 36

Students, Teachers, and Parents are the focus of this dance blog. For each of the 12 months of 2009, there was at least one post for you. Below are 36 links (well, more than 36 actually) leading to the best Dance Advantage articles of 2009. What makes these posts the best? No real criteria. It is easy for articles to get “buried” on a blog that constantly updates information. Many of you who may not have even heard of this blog in January! These are the posts that I felt most proud of, that I felt provided truly useful tips or knowledge, and those in which I felt newcomers might be most interested. I hope you’ll agree it is a diverse collection that clearly illustrates the purpose of Dance Advantage.

Without Further Ado…

January was a busy burst of information in 2009!

For Students: Defining and Dissecting a Piqué Turn

For Teachers: 12 Tips for Teaching Tots

For Parents: A FREE Download for Parents of Dancers (Lisa Howell’s Parent’s Manual)

Honorable mention: What to Look for in a Dance Studio — This one is a bit of a cheat, as it compiles links to four important posts on DA (all of which were written in 2008)!

February is admittedly slim, Hey, I was into heavy rehearsal, but these are keepers.

For Students: 7 Secrets of Super Performers

For Teachers: Choreographic Inspiration — Using Your Past in Future Dances

For Parents: What Has Dance Taught You About Life? (Okay, not officially for parents but this is a great place to learn of additional ways dance can affect the life of your child… straight from those who live it. P.S. Feel free to keep the conversation going!)

March roared in with a handful of key posts for students.

For Students: 7 Ways Dance is Like Learning the ABC’s

For Teachers: How to Be a Great Teacher’s Assistant (Teachers have told me they refer their assistants to this post!)

For Parents: Guest Post: Life as a Dance Mom — Finding the Balance Between Friend and Fanatic

Honorable mention: Just as I slipped this post in at the very end of March, I’m slipping it in here. Why? Because I think I managed a decent answer to a good question! What is Artistry and How Do I Develop It?

April was a shower of articles on topics from Facebook to Eco-Friendly studios.

For Students: How To Do a Proper “Crunch” — Activating Your Core

For Teachers: Approaching Choreography for Musical Theatre

For Parents: Appraising the Value of Praise (a post for parents and teachers)

May was a time of rebirth for DA with lots of info.

For Students: Backstage Bliss — 11 Rules of Thumb for Students in a Dance Recital

For Teachers: Mustering their Motivation — Strategies for Engaging and Inspiring Students

For Parents: A Celebration of Dance Moms (special Mother’s Day post)

Honorable mention: Teachers, May’s posts on curriculum and lesson planning were also a hit!

June was just busting with articles on music and more.

For Students: Strategies for Remembering Choreography

For Teachers: Five Favorites: Music for Children’s Classes

For Parents: Why and How to Encourage Students to See Concert Dance

July had a little bit of everything.

For Students: How NOT to Ask a Question in Dance Class

For Teachers: Top 10 Reasons Teachers Should Continue Their Education (psst! Check the bottom of this post to get some ideas about where to continue!

For Parents: Accentuate the Positive — How to encourage and reinforce the positive aspects of competitive dance

Whew! Take 5… 678

August had me sweating as I blogged from the road on our family vacay

For Students: How and Why to Strengthen the Inner Thigh

For Teachers: Back to School — Props and Classroom Aids

For Parents: Parents, Which Type of Helicopter Are You?

September spotlighted the professional dance world.

For Students: Gracing the Stage — My Interview with Houston Ballet’s Joseph Walsh

For Teachers: Biographies You Can Sink Your Teeth Into (Teachers, relax with a good book, you deserve it!)

For Parents: Guest Post: The Professional Dancer’s Survival Kit (Parents need to know what it takes too)

October fell together as we welcomed fall.

For Students: Lifting Your Leg from Underneath and Other Impossible Feats

For Teachers: Introducing the Iliopsoas (a nice brush-up for instructors)

For Parents: Help! My Child Doesn’t Listen to the Dance Teacher! Part I (Be sure to navigate to Part II!)

November‘s posts were already warming up for December.

For Students: Stretching Safely for Splits

For Teachers: Keeping Rhythm Fascinatin’ – How to Make Tap Dance Come Alive (an excellent start by new Tapography columnist, Sarah Mason)

For Parents: Sweet Exchange with a Sugar Plum Fairy

December included a big giveaway but a few things to think about as well.

For Students: Oversplits — Overdoing It?

For Teachers: Guest Post: Confessions of a Busy Dance Mom

For Parents: This Dancer’s Response to World AIDS Day In the spirit of the season, I encourage you to assist dancers and performers in need of financial assistance due to AIDS and other diseases – help me raise just $300.

Too much to read at once? Bookmark it!

Where do we go from here? I have some plans for 2010 but you will have a hand in what Dance Advantage becomes.

If you want to be the first to know when big things happen or just be sure that you don’t miss new posts when they arrive, subscribe to the blog. If you want to get to know me a bit better, Twitter is a good start. I happy to give tips to newbies – just say hello!

Have a healthy, joyous, and successful 2010! Thanks for reading.

Biographies You Can Sink Your Teeth Into

I love books and I love a good story. And sometimes the stories that are true can capture my imagination as much as any tale of fiction, particularly when the story belongs to a dancer. I haven’t read all of the biographies and autobiographies below (so this isn’t a review post) but they all come highly recommended by dancers like you! Thanks to a few good Twitter friends I’ve compiled a list of some of the best. If you’ve read them, tell me what you think in the comments!

Mao’s Last Dancer

From a desperately poor village in northeast China, at age eleven, Li Cunxin was chosen by Madame Mao’s cultural delegates to be taken from his rural home and brought to Beijing, where he would study ballet. In 1979, the young dancer arrived in Texas as part of a cultural exchange, only to fall in love with America-and with an American woman. Two years later, through a series of events worthy of the most exciting cloak-and-dagger fiction, he defected to the United States, where he quickly became known as one of the greatest ballet dancers in the world. This is his story, told in his own inimitable voice.

No Way Home

Carlos was just another kid from the slums of Havana; the youngest son of a truck driver and a housewife, he ditched school with his friends and dreamed of becoming Cuba’s best soccer player. Exasperated by his son’s delinquent behavior, Carlos’s father enrolled him in ballet school, subjecting him to grueling days that started at five thirty in the morning and ended long after sunset. The path from student to star was not an easy one. Even as he won dance competitions and wowed critics around the world, Carlos was homesick for Cuba, crippled by loneliness and self-doubt. As he traveled the world, Carlos struggled to overcome popular stereotypes and misconceptions; to maintain a relationship with his family; and, most of all, to find a place he could call home.

Dancing on my Grave

The shattering story of a dream which became a heartbreaking nightmare for one of America’s most famous ballerinas, Gelsey Kirkland, who chronicles her brilliant start as a dancer with George Balanchine, her legendary partnership with Mikhail Baryshnikov, her agonizing descent into drugs, and her struggles to rise again. [Also check for this at your library or used book seller]

Blood Memory

Graham, the extraordinary creative force who ranks with Picasso and Stravinsky, broke traditional molds and ultimately changed the way we look at the world. Blood Memory invites readers to explore her phenomenal life and highlights the unforgettable images that encompass her work. [Also check for this at your library or used book seller]

Once a Dancer

Allegra Kent, one of George Balanchine’s greatest ballerinas, who was a principal dancer for more than twenty years with the New York City Ballet, talks about her childhood, dance career, marriage, and constant quest for emotional and physical stability.

Holding Onto the Air

Suzanne Farrell, world-renowned ballerina, was one of George Balanchine’s most celebrated muses and remains a legendary figure in the ballet world. This memoir, first published in 1990 and reissued with a new preface by the author, recounts Farrell’s transformation from a young girl in Ohio dreaming of greatness to the realization of that dream on stages all over the world. Central to this transformation was her relationship with George Balanchine, who invited her to join the New York City Ballet in the fall of 1961 and was in turn inspired by her unique combination of musical, physical, and dramatic gifts. He created masterpieces for her in which the limits of ballet technique were expanded to a degree not seen before. By the time she retired from the stage in 1989, Farrell had achieved a career that is without precedent in the history of ballet. One third of her repertory of more than 100 ballets were composed expressly for her by such notable choreographers as Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, and Maurice Bejart. Farrell recalls professional and personal attachments and their attendant controversies with a down-to-earth frankness and common sense that complements the glories and mysteries of her artistic achievement.

Better Late Than Never

Nijinsky: God of the Dance

Traces the life and career of the legendary Russian dancer and choreographer, and describes his major roles and dances. [Also check for this at your library or used book seller] You might also want to check out The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky.

Out of Step: A Dancer Reflects

The remarkable story of Alida Belair, a gifted young ballerina in Melbourne in the 50s. Her determination took her a long way – to the top in fact – she danced with the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow and had leading roles with companies in London and New York. [Read more about this book]

Last Night on Earth

Born in Bunnell, Florida, in 1952, the tenth of twelve children in a migrant worker’s family, Bill T. Jones spent his early years traveling up and down the East Coast with his parents as they followed the crop seasons. In 1959 they settled in upstate New York, and it was there – singing rounds in dusty tractor yards and watching grown-ups from the shadows of the juke joint – that Jones began his life in dance. Jones has continued to choreograph and dance, and in Last Night on Earth he documents the creation of several of his pieces, including Absence, Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin/The Promised Land, Last Night on Earth, and Still/Here. Jones illuminates the process through which his work has become a way of expressing profound emotion; of exploring ideas around memory, sexuality, race, and mortality; of imposing order and beauty on chaos and despair. And in so doing, he shows dance to be not only a sequence of beautiful movements on a stage, but also an instrument of survival.

Isadora Duncan: A Sensational Life

Isadora Duncan was “the most influential and the most notorious woman of the first quarter of the twentieth century” (New York Times). She was “one of the true visionaries of modern dance — and, by extension, of modernism in all its guises” (Washington Post). Her name is synonymous with flair, originality, spontaneity, scandal, and intrigue. In this universally acclaimed biography — welcomed on the cover of the New York Times Book Review — Peter Kurth gives us, at last, a work that does justice to the life of this unforgettable woman. Here is Isadora Duncan: her many sensational loves, her passion for her art, her mesmerizing performances, and her personal tragedies — all set against the sweeping backdrop of Europe and the United States in the early twentieth century. [Also look for My Life. And don't miss this unique portrait -- Isadora Duncan: A Graphic Biography.

Thanks to the following Twitter friends

• GinZone
• mahrobi
• sarah_rose
• t0mat0
• clouddancefest
• lacasaquebaila

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Backstage Bliss: 11 Guidelines for Students in a Dance Recital

Photo by Chris Hays Photography

Whether it is your first recital or your fourteenth, it never hurts to be reminded about proper backstage etiquette and behavior. Your studio owners and teachers may have specific regulations and procedures for you to follow. Adhering to these rules helps the performance to run smoothly for you and the others around you. Recitals can be hectic and stressful for those trying to make the day/evening go off without a hitch. I know your teachers will appreciate not having to remind you or your friends of these basics on recital day.

1. Don’t mess with other people’s props or costumes

This is a top directive of any backstage situation. Playing with or moving someone else’s props or costume pieces always results in one of the following: A) items will not be in the correct place when they are needed, stalling the show or leaving someone without, B) items get broken, torn, damaged, stalling the show or leaving someone without, C) someone being rather upset with you. If the prop or costume is not yours, don’t touch it! Even if you think it’s in the wrong place and are trying to help, you should just tell the person to whom it belongs or an appropriate adult.

2. Stay in your designated area

I know it can be annoying to be restricted as to where, when, or how you can go somewhere, especially when you are quite familiar with the building or backstage area. It can also be tempting to want to move from your green room (or waiting area) if your friends are required to be in another location. However, it is important to stay where you are supposed to be throughout the recital process. Why? Teachers and recital helpers have a lot of kids to keep track of during a performance. When their requests are ignored, you stand the chance of missing your entrances or causing someone else to miss theirs. Even worse, is that no one knows where to look for you should something unfortunate occur.

3. Bring something to do

Photo by Bo

Recital performances almost always involve a lot of waiting either during dress rehearsal or on show days or both. Even if you think you’ll be busy, it’s always a good idea to bring something quiet to do backstage as you wait (in your designated area). Some possibilities include a book, a simple card game, pens and paper, coloring books and crayons, puzzle books, even a hand-held video game if the sound can be turned off. It is alright to play games with friends as long as you can keep the noise levels down. Just make sure you are ready and in your next costume before engaging in an activity, and that you can drop what you’re doing immediately when asked to go.

4. Always stay one step ahead

Be on top of things and be responsible for yourself. Don’t rely on others to know what’s next, know where you are supposed to be, or what you have to do – not if you don’t have to or are old enough to do it yourself, anyway. This involves laying out your costumes ahead of time and knowing what order they go on, keeping track of where your dances are in the performance (and what’s before them), knowing what hair or makeup changes are made and when, being sure about which side of the stage you enter from, double checking that you have all you need before you leave the house.

5. Keep socializing to a minimum

There’s a lot of energy in the atmosphere at a performance. It is easy to get caught up in the excitement with your friends backstage, allowing noise levels to escalate and/or creating a distracting environment for yourself or others. To have the best show possible it is important that everyone stay calm and focused. After a successful show is the appropriate time to party. During the show choose calm activities (see #3) to occupy yourself and your friends and reserve your energy for your performance onstage.

6. Stay quiet in the wings

Photo courtesy Nazareth College

The immediate backstage area is not the place to go over choreography, have a conversation, or ask a question. Sound from backstage can carry surprisingly well to the “house,” or audience. If you are prepared, calm, and focused there should be no reason for talking in the wings. If a peer asks you a question, nod (if the answer is yes or no), and/or calmly remind them to be quiet with the universal symbol at left. Making noise in order to quiet others is not only unhelpful, it doesn’t make much sense! Which leads me to…

7. Be responsible for you and you alone

Unless you are specifically put in charge of a person or group, allow a teacher or someone in authority to take care of any disorderly students. If you know that someone missed being given an important direction, for example, when it is time to line up, calmly let them know and then move along yourself. Don’t waste time helping those who are not helping themselves because your only job is to be responsible for you. When you occupy yourself with what others are or are not doing, you risk missing your own cues, entrances, costume changes, etc.

8. Stay warm, stay safe

It is important to stay safe and free of injury backstage. If you know you have some downtime between numbers, wear a warm-up and/or legwarmers over your next costume (just remember to take them off!), staying active and mobile with full-body movements like noiseless jumping jacks or body swings, and doing some stretching to keep your body warm and limber while you wait. Other safety measures include not wearing soft shoes or bare feet in areas that have not been swept clear (especially in the immediate backstage area where often there can be shards of wood or glass, or things lying about from other performances). Your teachers will let you know if an area is safe to be barefoot but wear shoes/flip-flops if you are going to be moving about backstage in zones that may not have been cleared.

9. Be conscious of bleeding light

This is one that even those helping at a recital sometimes forget. If you’ve ever stood in a dark room when someone opens the door to a room that is lit, you understand that light has a way of “bleeding” into the darkness. This is why it is kept dark in the backstage area with only blue or other filtered lights illuminating the area. Being conscious of this means waiting until someone from the inside (who knows when it is “safe”) opens a door to the backstage area, or listening for the appropriate time yourself. Typically when you know that the dancers onstage are performing and being lit, it is safe to enter but do so quickly, quietly, and close the door behind you. Any light from backstage can affect the lighting design onstage.

10. Be conscious of sight lines

Photo by Ed Luschei

This is another one of which novices to the stage may not be aware. Sight lines are imaginary lines that distinguish what is visible to the audience and what is not. A good rule of thumb is that if you can see an audience member, they can see you. However, you must be aware of your whole body, not just your eyes. When waiting in the wings, it is a good idea to stand close to the curtain (without moving it) and back from the very edge. Some studio owners will place a line of tape for students to stand within or behind when waiting backstage. Though it can be tempting to try to see everything happening onstage, stay out of the audience’s line of sight. If your cue for entering cannot be seen from where you are waiting, dress rehearsal is the time to figure out a new cue!

11. Don’t argue

Last but not least, it is important to be courteous and respectful toward others, especially during a performance. This includes the teachers, parents, and others who are helping backstage at a recital. By showtime you should know (by face, name, or by an identifying badge or button) teh people who have been designated as helpers and what role they play in helping the performance to run smoothly. If you are instructed to do something or go somewhere, asked to quiet down, or are otherwise asked to respond to a request – just do it! Don’t question, don’t argue, don’t grumble.

If you happen to be absolutely positive that you are being misdirected, ask nicely to check the facts – “I am sure that I am to be in Room C, not Room A right now. Can we double check, just to be sure, please?” People’s patience can run thin during a high-stress situation like a performance. If your respectful response is not appreciated, don’t react. Simply do your best to comply with the direction given.

Photo by Chris Hays Photography

For those of you who still have recitals ahead, I hope that this list will come in handy. Remember that everyone backstage at a performance wants the same thing – a great show that runs smoothly and is fun for the audience and participants. Though the show’s organization may not be something you can control, you still have the power to make sure you are fulfilling your role to the best of your ability. Following these eleven rules of thumb will help to ensure that. Have a great performance!

What are some other things students should do or remember when they are backstage?

What are some things your studio does to keep things running smoothly at a performance?