When Kamille Upshaw arrived at the Juilliard school in 2007, she had been a competition dancer for a decade. “There was still a little stigma on competition dancers,” said Upshaw, who attended the Baltimore School for the Arts and trained in the Spotlight Studio of Dance in Millersville, Maryland. “We were considered to be everything about the legs and turns – and it was not necessarily true! I had to fight against this stereotype. Yes, I can do the thing, but I also have something deeper to offer.” Casting directors have agreed: since graduation, Upshaw has played in three Broadway shows.
The “comp Kid” image has gone a long way. Once considered as exaggerated artists who prioritize tips and trophies, competition dancers now fulfill the ranks of the best colleges, conservatories and businesses around the world. Competition studios form dancers who are not just ready to win – they are ready to work professionally. And the world of dance is now making room for them to thrive.
The bar continues to climb
How did the competition dance achieve this image upgrade? A factor is that the competition technique has skyrocketed in the past 20 years. “Whenever someone goes up, whether it is a studio or a dancer, an entire change occurs,” says Upshaw. “You are as good as you are in competition with.” And versatility, always resistance to composition, has become even more impressive. To win, today's counting children must do more than master the latest fashionable movements: they must also study various dance styles and perform an innovative choreography.
Competitions and conventions have also changed their priorities, many now stressing their educational aspects instead of focusing on titles and trophies. The choreographer Jessica Lang – who competed as a child and a teenager before attending Juilliard and launching a professional career which included the management of his own business and dance for Twyla Tharp – which was particularly impactful. Lang says that the directors of the competition concerned with education have helped competition dancers to “become more than the outside world could perceive them.”
The studios also bring more invited artists. “Competition dancers get direct contact with the professional world from an early age,” explains Katie Langan, president of the Fines and Arts Division at Marymount Manhattan College. Often, this contact is in the form of former successful students who come back to teach and choreographer.
Competitive competitions and dancers tend to be very active on social networks, offering a lot of information on and images of the best performers and schools – which has helped to raise the global technical and artistic standards of the scene. “Students can easily seek a competition, see who won last year and watch these routines,” explains Michele Larkin, co -owner of Larkin Dance Studio in Maplewood, Minnesota. Larkin's niece, Mackenzie Larkin Symanietz, an instructor at the Larkin Dance Studio, adds: “We can all look at what other studios do, in a way that does not copy but admiring. What can I take to do to do OUR Can dancers be the best?
And visibility on social networks has helped people in other parts of the dance world to master what the competitive dancers are capable of. “Competitions publish winning dances and marketing,” says Upshaw. “This means that the names of people there.”
Dance culture changes
Langan admits that when it was involved for the first time in competitions, ten years ago, it was skeptical. Then she saw the artists. “These students are very, very talented,” she says. “They are intrepid and their solos are so well choreographed.” Langan is not the only university dance program chair to have had its hypotheses on disputed competitive dance. The scholarship programs during competitive events led to an intermingling of the competition and the kingdoms of the college: more compress the children of dance and, in turn, more dance departments welcome them.
There was also a change In These dance services. “We have broken down the hierarchy,” explains Langan. “No style is better than the others.” This often involves incorporating cultural and social dances into the program; It also means no longer seeing concert dance, especially the ballet and the modern, like the whole and final. Dancers who participated in jazz, contemporary, tap, hip hop, theater and acro can feel more welcome on campus if every aspect of their training is valued.
Regarding the landing of a job, versatility is an asset in today's dance climate. Even the most classic ballet societies are looking for well -balanced dancers, a trend that started a few decades ago and has no longer become omnipresent. Madison Brown, now a American Ballet Theater dancer, has frequently participated in frequently teenage competitions. Although she remembers a few teachers wondering why she would continue to compete with contemporary after having declared her intention to become a professional ballet dancer, Brown says that she is grateful for the extent of her training: “I hear a lot of people say that they wanted to have done other styles.”
Look towards the future
Just as professional dancers often revisit their childhood studios, many former competitors, now affiliated with renowned shows and institutions, return to teach and judge during events they attended as a student. More and more of these alumni of the CO have won positions of power in the world of dance and are able to insert or even hire members of the next generation.
“When I made conventions, I crossed choreographers like Andy Blankenbuehler, with whom I ended up working,” explains Upshaw, whose Broadway credits include the set of Hamilton and assistant choreographer for musical Hell's Kitchen. Now Upshaw is the influence. As a judge for on stage America a few years ago, “I loved being behind the table,” she said. “I saw so much potential in these young artists. The confidence they gave gave me a lot of hope for the future of dance. ”
The “Dance Moms” effect
From 2011 to 2019, the reality TV show “Dance Moms” obtained a large audience with its talented tweens, their domineering teacher and the distribution of parents of the Catty scene. Unfortunately, “the show gave the impression that the competition dance was a matter of negativity and theater,” explains Mackenzie Larkin Symanietz. “It gave competitions a bad reputation.” Now that it has been several years since the show has ended (apart from a recent special reunion), the distributed shadow of “Dance Moms” is finally discouraged.
“It was not representative of the community that most of us are trying to surround ourselves,” says Symanietz. “You must have a positive competitive relationship with the people you have confronted with. You have to appreciate everything that is happening on stage.”
Comp Kid Magic
While more and more competition dancers are entering higher education and the professional world, directors and choreographers see everything they have to offer:
Confidence on stage: “The competitions give you an experience on stage,” explains the choreographer Jessica Lang. The Broadway dancer, Kamille Upshaw, agrees: “The competition every weekend made me comfortable in front of the public. I knew how to manage my nerves. I made mistakes on stage and learned to recover. These tools are so important. “
Force and endurance: “As a professional, you could dance all day, with only a short break for lunch,” explains Madison Brown. “For me, it was like a convention workshop day! When I joined the Studio ABT company, I was less out of date, because I was exposed to this workload at a young age.”
Rapid thinking: Due to their experiences in rapid congresses environments, “competition dancers are able to learn a lot of equipment very quickly,” said Lang. “They are musical and hyper-rhythmal.”
