For competitors youngsters, pursuing a dance diploma is a pure extension of the years of dedication they’ve put into their craft. However the transition from the fast-paced buzz of the competitors and conference scene to the faculty classroom isn’t all the time seamless. As two former champions and a university dean share, as soon as on campus, aggressive dancers have to adapt their mindset, priorities, and method to coaching—shifts that can lead to sudden and illuminating alternatives for development.
Again to Fundamentals
After capping off her competitors profession by profitable Senior Feminine Finest Dancer at The Dance Awards Nationals in 2024, Sierra Drayton was excited to start out her freshman 12 months at Buy School, State College of New York. However the brand new atmosphere offered some unanticipated challenges. “I need to be trustworthy: It was fairly tough for me at first,” she says. Other than the everyday school adjustment of being away from house in a brand new place, Drayton additionally confronted new kinds of shifting. “In contrast to youngsters coming from conservatory applications, I had by no means skilled in trendy method earlier than,” Drayton says. “It was overwhelming at instances, not realizing the right phrases for something, or find out how to provoke motion and rotation from the backbone.” School ballet was additionally a switch-up. “The tempo is way slower, with an enormous deal with the fundamentals, which makes you analyze how all of the method was put into your physique within the first place,” she says.
Isaiah Villegas, The Dance Awards’ 2023 Senior Male Finest Dancer and an incoming sophomore at College of Southern California’s Glorya Kaufman Faculty of Dance in Los Angeles describes the same expertise. “At my studio, I zoned out a bit when it got here to method courses—rehearsing for comps was the main focus,” he explains. “Now I’ve ballet each morning at 9 am, and I’ve to lock in and actually listen as a way to get one thing out of it.” Whereas Villegas discovered himself bodily dancing much less in school than in his comp days, class turned extra gratifying. “It made me fall in love with dance once more, and I loved seeing my method progress because the 12 months went on,” he says.
Course of Over Product
Kiesha Lalama, interim dean of the Faculty of Theatre, Movie, and Animation at Level Park College in Pittsburgh, observed that former comp youngsters have been struggling throughout their first semester. To be taught why, and to know her incoming college students higher, she spent two years judging on the comp circuit. “I spotted that the largest problem for this group going into school is the dearth of on the spot gratification,” Lalama explains. “They’re used to rehearsing Monday by Thursday, the adrenaline rush onstage over the weekend, and coming house with a trophy by Sunday.” In distinction, most dance majors wait months earlier than an end-of-semester or end-of-year efficiency.
“Comp youngsters possess distinctive qualities—storytelling, fearlessness, the flexibility to adapt—which might be invaluable property in school,” Lalama says. “As soon as they shift their focus from product to course of, and discover their very own self-motivation—that’s when every little thing begins to click on.”
Altering Views
In school, the rivalries that characterised aggressive dance life are inclined to fade, which may help foster a way of neighborhood. Going into USC, Villegas was fortunately shocked to acknowledge so many classmates from the competitors circuit. “A few of that aggressive vitality lingers, as a result of it’s what we did for thus lengthy,” he says. “However we’re all on this new atmosphere as a result of we need to continue to grow, so we problem one another in a wholesome means.”
That stated, the shift from all the time being onstage to spending the vast majority of time in entrance of a mirror at school can invite a brand new stage of self-criticism within the studio. Comp stars, used to measuring their success based mostly on awards and judges’ suggestions, can generally take self-critiques to an excessive. “Competitors is all about chasing that subsequent win, however I remind my college students that perfection is now not the purpose,” Lalama says. “It’s about what they be taught as artists alongside the best way.”
Rewards Price Ready For
“While you allow your self time to find, discover, and hone your craft in school, the teachings realized might be simply as gratifying as profitable,” says Lalama. Drayton skilled this when she had the prospect to carry out considered one of her prizewinning solos from The Dance Awards precisely one 12 months later at hand off her title at this 12 months’s occasion. “After all of the arduous work I put in freshman 12 months mastering my motion high quality, it felt like my soul was buzzing in a different way onstage, and I wasn’t dancing for anyone’s approval however my very own,” she explains. “Greater than any plaque or title, understanding my very own artistry and who I need to be as knowledgeable dancer is the very best reward.”