What to wear for a dance workshop
Deciding what to wear for a dance workshop can be tricky. For students and teachers alike. You need to be comfortable, be able to move freely, and you may also wish to dress according to the style of dance you are doing.
Olivia here, Zest’s director. I read a post recently about the school where I went to Sixth Form (Acland Burghley) and an Ofstead report deeming the dance teachers too scruffy, and I was compelled to have my say… Here’s a snippet of the article…..
Ofsted’s inspection of Acland Burghley School in Camden, North London, said clothes worn by some staff were “too casual” and “undermined standards”.
In a letter to the Acland Burghley School headteacher, the school’s inspector wrote: “Some staff take your lead and dress in a business-like fashion. However, in other cases, teachers’ attire is too casual and does not promote high professional standards or expectations.”
Acland Burghley dance teacher Bonnie Oddie said: “If I’m a dancer in a school teaching dance then I want to dress like a dancer in a school teaching dance.”
What to wear for a dance workshop
I feel that is is really important to dress appropriately for dance, and that means being comfortable and practical. Dance teachers regularly spend their days rolling on the floor in Contemporary dance workshops, or jumping around with Nursery kids. How could they do this in a suit or smart clothes?? We need to wear loose fitting clothes and often bare feet as this is what the dance style requires. But I always make sure I cover up and never expose too much flesh.
The battle of having bare feet
Dressing appropriately for dance also passes down to my students too. I often have battles with teenagers who don’t want to dance in bare feet (it’s a teenage thing). I tell them that each dance style has different clothes and foot wear: Ballet dance = pointe shoes, Street dance = trainers, Jazz dance = Jazz shoes, Tap dance = tap shoes, African/Indian/Contemporary dance = bare feet…. and so on.
So it is important to dress according to the subject you are teaching. Same as an Art teacher who gets messy every day needs to wear clothes that they don’t mind getting dirty – not a suit. Were they criticised too?
On the back of that article, Dance UK launched a Twitter competition where dance teachers were invited to post their photos of them teaching with the #danceteachersarentscruffy. So I posted mine of me teaching a Bollywood dance workshop to a group of Rainbows and Brownies.
I honestly didn’t even know it was a competition. So I was really happy when a few weeks later I got a message saying that my photo had won the competition! I received a year’s membership from Dance Uk which is really great. The winning photo also got re-tweeted to thousands which is fantastic too!
Glad I stood up to a cause I feel passionate about. I got to support my old Sixth Form, and that people don’t think I am too scruffy!
Make sure you follow our Twitter page @Zestdancer for all the latest news from our weekly workshops
