Dance Studios: Ideas and Inspiration

DANCE STUDIOS: IDEAS AND INSPIRATIONS

Dance studios can be many things – gloomy, dark, cramped, cluttered, grimy, with uneven or unsafe floors ….or they can be light-filled, airy, magical places to learn and teach and perform. DaCi members teach in a wide variety of settings – private studios, public schools, colleges, community centers. They have a wealth of knowledge about studios and shared their design ideas and adaptations, hacks, and ingenious solutions for a workable, comfortable and inspiring place to dance and teach.

Considering Studio Size

Deborah Lipa-Ciotta teaches at a charter school in a low-income area of Buffalo, NY where she is the K-4 dance educator. When the school was planning an expansion in 2014 for a new building for K-4, she made sure she was on the facilities committee. She had to do a lot of persuading and educating of administrators, designers, and contractors about dance, but her voice was heard.

For example, the original design had a small studio. She brought in the square footage per student recommendations of the Opportunity-to-Learn standards of the National Arts Standards and was able to get a significantly larger studio.

Now it is a large open space with windows and high ceilings, wall-mounted mirrors, and a sprung dance floor covered with marley. It is outfitted with a built-in teacher desk area and a large counter for a computer, music, books and other teaching materials. Students can leave socks, shoes, and jackets in 36 cubbies. It has a large pull-down screen with a ceiling-mounted projector, built-in sound system with speakers in the ceiling, and two magnetic white boards on wheels. A full length curtain covers the mirrors for performances. Deborah selected a white curtain to keep the space bright for her young dancers.

Props and Studio Storage

Many dance educators make frequent use of props. The list of props is long – scarves, hoops, balls, sticks, -anything that can stimulate the imagination and that offers opportunities for movement exploration and design -- and that brings up the need for storage. Liz Borromeo, director of studios and youth companies in both Vancouver, Washington and Johnson City, Tennessee, is adept at managing storage. She shares her ideas:

“Storage ottomans are useful, as we always need to maximize space. We have been able to keep our spaces neat and well-organized by putting costumes, decor, seasonal teaching supplies and so much more into them. They can also be used for seating in the hallway where space is at a premium.

Cubby boxes are usually advertised as closet-type storage or for use in kids' rooms. They have fabric drawers we use for teaching props and supplies. They are great in the studio because their footprint is really small and they can be secured to the wall.

Studios as Performance Spaces

Studios often have to serve as performance spaces. The Creative Dance Center in Seattle utilized parent expertise to come up with some ingenious and inexpensive ways to convert the large studio space (40’x30’) into a black box theater.

For audience seating with good sightlines, a parent built six wooden boxes — three big and three smaller ones (so they fit inside each other for storage). The boxes are hooked together to create two levels of platforms for chairs. Another row of chairs is set up on the floor with mats for kids in front of them. Another parent created a backdrop curtain with frames made from plastic plumbing pipe that screw together. Five big plastic tubes across the top hold rolled-up black curtains which are pulled down for shows, held together with pins or Velcro.