Part 3 of a 3-part series: How to keep ‘on the sidelines’ behavior in the ballpark and out of the theater.

Revisit and repeat

If your school has a competitive team, audience behavior is a concern more than once a year, at recital time. Be prepared to revisit the topic frequently during the season. Audiences are often out of control at competitive events, with people pumping their fists in the air, shouting, “Ooh, ooh!” or whistling, banging on cowbells, and screaming things like “You go, girl!” and “Do it!” The atmosphere, instead of being suited to the experience of observing an art form, quickly deteriorates into rowdiness.

Again, the only way to avoid this is by educating the dancers and their parents. At our competitive team meeting at the beginning of the year we go over the competition process, expectations, and rules, both for the events we attend as well as those we produce. You must make it clear that although other schools may behave inappropriately, you expect to see no such conduct among the people affiliated with your school. That idea can be reinforced repeatedly since competition team dancers perform frequently—just make sure to remind them of the rules before each event.

What happens when a team member violates your rules? [Read more...]

Part 2 of a 3-part series: How to keep ‘on the sidelines’ behavior in the ballpark and out of the theater.

Start early

To be most effective, the process of educating audiences should start long before they arrive at the theater. If you do not already have an “all you need to know about dress rehearsal and recital” handout, perhaps this should be the year you produce one. This handout should include your check-in and pickup policy, your procedure for getting the dancers to and from the stage, photography and video policies—and an audience etiquette section. In the introductory letter that talks about the show, I make a statement that dance is an art form and not a sport. Therefore, viewing a performance should be done with respect for the art.

Follow through

Remember, just because you wrote the handout doesn’t mean that people will read it—and in fact you need to assume it has not been read. So you need to have a plan to get the word out about all your recital policies that will reach your clients directly. I have found that the best way to do this is to sit with the parents of the 12-and-under dancers as their costumes are distributed. I use this one-on-one time to go over costume pieces, hairstyles, and, most important, rehearsal and recital procedures. After my experience at my last recital, I will also take the time to talk about being an audience member. [Read more...]

Part 1 of a 3-part series: How to keep ‘on the sidelines’ behavior in the ballpark and out of the theater.

“Suzy, I love you!” a dad in the balcony yelled to his child, over and over, at one of my recitals. I was dumbfounded.

Suzy is a 3-year-old—yes, a 3-year-old—who, because of his calls to her, spent her time onstage looking all over for her dad. My first reaction was fear, as my mind raced to the possibility that with the stage lights on she could not see the lip of the stage and if she kept creeping forward to find her dad she could fall. Luckily I got her attention from the wings, and she got back into doing her dance.

But this parent’s intrusive yelling quickly spiraled into more of the same, with several others joining in to call out their own children’s names. I had done a good job of preparing my young dancers to expect to hear the audience laugh and clap while they were dancing, but I did not prepare them to hear their names being yelled. I never imagined that I would need to be so diligent about educating parents on audience etiquette at a performing arts event. [Read more...]