In the Club
The ultimate podcast for kids activity clubs! ClassForKids is an award-winning booking and management software trusted by 3000+ kids activity clubs.
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In the Club
ITC SPECIAL: Live from Perform Ireland
Get in touch with us directly today
Get in touch with us directly today
Join us as we recount our unforgettable second visit to the Perform Festival in Dublin, where we embraced the magic of collaboration with our partners Keaton Moore and Louise Brough.
This episode promises to deliver a mix of behind-the-scenes antics and insightful discussions on the importance of keeping kids active, healthy and how performance and dance can assist in helping children thrive.
Get Social with Us:
Get Social with Us:
Well, stephen, well, brian, back on the podcast. You're sitting there with your guitar Guitarist here. That was a great performance.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you very much, I really enjoyed that performance.
Speaker 1:I didn't know you could perform like that.
Speaker 2:I performed quite well. Do you know where I perform best? Where Ireland? Where Best intro ever? Brian, best intro absolutely ever.
Speaker 1:I'd say so.
Speaker 2:I mean he did take two hours he took to write the intro, but that's absolutely fine.
Speaker 1:Our last five or six podcasts have been top five or six podcast intros for the entire run of the In the Club podcast.
Speaker 2:I would say oh, absolutely, anybody that's listening out there that's not on it right now, then we're just waiting you to come back, and then that'll be the best.
Speaker 1:That'll be the best. That'll be the best the big return.
Speaker 2:The big return. We well that whole preamble there we were at Perform Island. Oh, I saw we were Completely forgot.
Speaker 1:I forgot about that. That was what it was a week or so ago now, or two weeks ago, two weeks ago as the crow flies I don't know what that means as the Nazgul flies.
Speaker 2:As the Nazgul flies. If you know what that means, then you can be in Brian and I's gang. Basically, we've got a seat here. There's a seat waiting on you, for I was going to say throne, but that would have been Taking it from there isn't really a throne.
Speaker 1:In Lord of the Rings there's a couple of thrones. Théoden sits on a throne, oh King.
Speaker 2:Théoden yes, he was poisoned. Anyway, forget about Lord of the Rings. We were in Ireland which, by the way, I think some of the Lord of the Rings was shot in. We're doing the Lord of the Rings offshoot podcast now. Game of Thrones was definitely shot in Ireland.
Speaker 1:Oh, so it was again series that might have been.
Speaker 2:I've not watched it again. Right and you could be sitting here. Um, on next week's class for kids lord of the rings podcast perform island was amazing this year it was great last year, but it was just really, really busy. We had a number of people with us. We brought keaton moore move your mind. We had louise brough from the dance business lounge. You got up to. Well, I mean, you were there doing stuff that I had nothing. No idea that we doing. What were you doing?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we went to see Sean Buckley from Coach Buckley Academy just to get a kind of club shoot in, to get some face time with some of our clients. That we always love doing. We just love getting out to see these guys and see how they run their businesses, boots on the ground, sort of thing. So absolutely sound really, really nice guy. We got some great footage because we one of the things that we want to do is get new footage of like sports that we don't really have a lot of. We see a lot of dance clubs. We see a lot of gymnastics. Football is one of our big kind of like yeah, verticals, verticals that's what the marketing speak is and we don't have a lot of great football footage.
Speaker 1:We've got some of that, but we wanted to get some more good football content, and Sean Buckley was really really good for us.
Speaker 2:You got a lot of good content. You were talking in a meeting before that. You've got loads of good pictures as well Great photos but it's the first time you used something at a club shoot.
Speaker 1:It was yeah, what did you do? I bought a drone. Couldn't think of the word same company it's.
Speaker 1:DJI if you're watching DJI, you've got your shout out are you happy you've got your pound of flesh? I took the drone with me to Scottish Baccalaureate Academy. May or may not have almost battled something in the back of the head with it, but we'll forget all about that. Nobody was harmed in the making of this podcast. No, no, got some good drone shots, which I'm quite happy with. It's still it's a teething process, still trying to figure out.
Speaker 2:I just love the fact you've got it doing that, I mean, and for that kind of sport it's ideal. I mean you've got loads of good aerial shots and stuff and it's just. I haven't seen much of the footage, but even the kind of the graded stuff really nice colour, looks like really bright, lovely greens and it sounds silly, but a lot of the football clubs we've been out to in the past, a lot of them are indoors for a start, and we want football to look like football exactly so.
Speaker 1:It goes a long way just having, like football, spec floodlights on on the parks that they were playing, lights the place up, and the more light you have when you're shooting something, the better your footage is going to be. That's just the way it is. It's education today guys.
Speaker 2:We're giving you education on movies. We're giving you education on camera techniques. We met loads of people. I was only there for one of the days, so I know that Caitlin, who is our new social media guru, was also there doing interviews, but will we jump into some of the people we got to talk to at Perform Island With both?
Speaker 1:feet.
Speaker 2:We are here back at Perform Ireland over in Dublin, but this time we've got Louise with us. Hello Louise, Hello the dance business coach. Shameless plug there for Louise. How are you finding it across here?
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 2:Very loud.
Speaker 1:Very loud.
Speaker 2:I'm feeling a bit overstimulated, but yeah great event and you flew over this morning we did. Louise has come over to kind of help us with the conversations that we're having with everybody. You've been very, very helpful, as always. You've got a couple of your team here they're trying to hide and she's there. She's getting out of being on this by filming it.
Speaker 5:We've got Caitlin and we've got Sarah Marie, who's traveled from Donegal today as well, I think we can call Sarah Marie, so she is one of our community, but she's also a Class for Kids.
Speaker 2:Customer say hello, hello, sarah-marie.
Speaker 5:Hello everyone.
Speaker 2:You've been filmed by us before. You've been on stuff with us before. Yes, the mic always gets in front of me, some kind of way, how have you found it here today, then, so far? It's been brilliant, a lot happening and really loud Louise, how many dance schools do you deal with in Ireland so far?
Speaker 5:Obviously you've got a number of them you're working with In Ireland at the moment. We've got about a handful of schools inside our community from Ireland. The majority are from England and Scotland. We actually don't have any Welsh schools. What? No, not a single Welsh school.
Speaker 2:If anybody out there that's a Welsh school is listening, we need to get in touch with.
Speaker 6:Louise.
Speaker 2:So it's kind of the same for us over here. It's a little bit untapped, yeah, and it seems that the dance scene across here is just growing and growing.
Speaker 5:Oh, is it? I mean, we've seen today that there's incredible talent here, so it would be nice to get in and help those dance teachers, school owners, to see the benefits of working with someone like you guys and also with us. Yep, but the talent's been amazing. We've made some great connections, a lot of really good. That's what it's about for us as well, yeah, there's a number.
Speaker 2:Well, we made some connections that already knew you, yeah, and vice versa, yeah, yeah, you seem to be omnipresent in the world of dance yes, apparently. So there was people doing selfies, and all that with you. You're a star. Oh, that's crazy but listen thanks again for coming over and I hope you enjoy the rest of your time. Have some time in Ireland. Yeah, first time I done it the other way round. I had some time to myself before the event. Yes, you guys going chill now yeah, well, we're going to.
Speaker 5:Well, no, we're actually going to go and get some work done. We're going to go and chill oh sorry, I fell asleep there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in.
Speaker 5:Ireland good party. But then we yeah, we're debating whether to go to the Guinness tour if it's available today, and then maybe the Temple Bar, because we can't come here and not We've done both of those things in the last two days, both good, temple Bar's good, expensive, but you're not drinking.
Speaker 2:It was £30 for three Guinnesses.
Speaker 5:I don't even know if that's good or bad. That's pretty bad For a Guinness. What's it usually In Scotland? About five quid, oh, really, yeah, it's like London prices in Dublin London prices in Dublin.
Speaker 2:But yes, a very kind of new untapped dance world seems to be opening up across here.
Speaker 5:Incredibly talented kids, teachers, schools, colleges Exciting yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, watch this space. I'm sure Louise is going to be over here a lot more, and thanks so much again for coming.
Speaker 5:Thanks for having us.
Speaker 2:We are here at the stall of the Golden Dance Awards at Perform. Can you, lovely ladies, introduce yourselves?
Speaker 3:Hi, I'm Catherine Hughes and this is Danielle Hughes-Quinn.
Speaker 2:We have met you guys this morning when we came in, I mean you can't not be attracted to this stall. The branding's fantastic.
Speaker 7:The gold is lovely. Tell us a little bit about the Golden Dance Awards the gold is lovely. Tell us a little bit about the Golden Dance Awards. Yeah, so Danielle and myself had this spark between us about two years ago and we came up with this idea that nobody thinks about the people behind the dancers. Interesting All those unsung heroes who support the dancers Wake in, wake out, and this is where we come up with the idea for the.
Speaker 3:Golden Dance Awards.
Speaker 2:I really like that hand over there as well. That was very professional.
Speaker 3:We are very professional, aren't we? So I suppose it all came together that me and Catherine recognised that there was no, there was no recognisation for the people behind the scenes. So we've got categories for choreographer, teachers, events, so the likes of Perform here, the guys behind the event who create these platforms for the kids.
Speaker 2:Very good idea.
Speaker 3:Very clever.
Speaker 2:Because there's a lot of award ceremonies. That, as you say, is kind of the best contemporary dance and the best hip hop Focus.
Speaker 3:So much on the dancers. And in saying that we do have a category for dancers, it's a small category. We've got four. We've got nine and under, thirteen and under, seventeen and under and eighteen and over. Right, there are four dancer categories, but that's it. The awards is more about the people behind the scenes, so also our parents. Where would the dancers be without their parents? So we have an award for parents as well. So the Dance Parent Award. Without them, the dancers, wouldn't be where they are taxi driving.
Speaker 2:I mean it's very interesting to me. When we first caught up earlier on, it was really kind of like I didn't realise it was that that's the slant on the awards ceremony. It's the slant on the awards ceremony, it's the behind. But it's even more synergy between what we're doing, because what we're trying to do is support the back end of everything that the dance schools are doing and give them infrastructure. So, yeah, I think that we're obviously going to speak soon because we want to catch up with you guys and see how it can work.
Speaker 7:Oh my word. So we've already taken this to Northern Ireland and it was hugely popular. There were so many nominations for over 160 teachers alone. Nice and the shortlisting involved the dance schools that we never knew existed were all coming to the fore. Everybody just wanted to celebrate dance, the dance industry, everybody wanted to be part of it, and now we really hope that we can bring it to Dublin on the 13th of September and bring a wee bit of it. And now we really hope that we can bring it to Dublin on the 13th of September and bring a wee bit of sparkle and glitz and glam and hopefully liaise with you guys as well.
Speaker 2:I think that might be happening absolutely. So Dublin is next then, and then you're doing one in.
Speaker 3:Edinburgh as well, yes, in. Scotland so in the new year, date to be confirmed, but we do. We have our Instagram and everything made, so everything will be posted on that and our website is in the works. So so is the website not ready quite yet, not for Scotland, but for tell us the website. So the website for our Ireland Awards is wwwgoldendanceawardsie. Like it, and then we obviously have our NI one as well, if wwwgoldendanceawardsie.
Speaker 3:Like it, and then we obviously have our NI one as well. If anyone wants to pop over to it, it's wwwgoldendanceawardscom. Wwwgoldendanceawardsnicom.
Speaker 2:And when you do the Scotland one, it'll need to be scot.
Speaker 3:Yeah, scotland, so there we go.
Speaker 2:It's been really nice meeting you earlier on and I hope to catch up with you very soon next week. And yeah, golden Dance Awards Class for kids, because we're so golden. Best ending ever.
Speaker 8:Hi, I'm Jennifer Ellison. I'm an actress, singer and performer Brilliant.
Speaker 6:And you have Jelly Studios. I do so, I guess could you tell us a little bit about that with your mission with Jelly Studios.
Speaker 8:Yeah, so I'm the principal of Jelly Studios. We run an evening school, a Sunday theme academy and a college, a full-time college.
Speaker 6:So we deliver a BTEC, hnc, hnd and degree in performing arts Amazing and you obviously kind of talk you've been in the industry for a while, you've done so much, and you kind of talk about wanting to help children now succeed in the industry. I suppose Firstly kind of what changes have you noticed personally over the last few years and then also kind of how are you doing that at Jelly Studios?
Speaker 8:Yeah, I think over the last few years years there's been a massive change with students confidence. I think covert's had a lot to do with that and a lot of dancers, you know, didn't really dance for a few years because of covert. I think that's had a massive impact. But we're starting to see it all get back to back to normal now and, um, hopefully we're going to stay in the studio, stay working really hard and you know it. That is when you get to see, you know the development of each individual student, when you get that one-on-one time with them and you are in the studio with them.
Speaker 6:And you kind of talked there a little bit about confidence in children. So like I suppose, why do you think that kids should get into dance.
Speaker 8:I just think with dance it gives them a timetable, it gives them somewhere to be during the week. It's very healthy for them, it keeps them out of mischief, it keeps them off the streets. Plus, it's given them. You know, some of my dancers are like supreme athletes you know the way they have to look after themselves.
Speaker 8:So you know it's given them a real incentive to look after themselves, to present themselves well. So you know it's given them a real incentive to look after themselves, to present themselves well. Timekeeping, you know, and discipline as well, and a lot of. Unfortunately, the youth of today don't have the discipline that we, you know, used to have and it's getting them off social media, off computers, moving their bodies. I'm literally having it's hard for parents nowadays because they just want to be on computers and on the phones. So dance, if you, if you can get your child into dance, I can't recommend it enough.
Speaker 6:So I'm here with Keaton. You just did a workshop with us at 12.45, just there. How did it go?
Speaker 4:It was absolutely incredible. So this is a collaboration workshop with Moogermind Class for Kids. I was here last year exhibiting and I first met Class for Kids actually on a podcast and we've been on a serious journey since then. In the summer we spoke at football academies and now we're back at Perform Ireland and we're delivering a workshop in association with Children's Mental Health Week, a tour that we have coming up. But our workshop today was incredible. Yeah, high energy, plenty of kids, lots of fun.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it was a really good turnout yeah, and uh, and obviously mental health rated, so even better 100, so lots of smiling faces.
Speaker 6:Oh, that's good, that's really good um, so yeah, just kind of want to talk a little bit about on that. With it being children's mental health week currently and we're obviously at this amazing dance event, how can dancers maybe look after their mental health?
Speaker 4:Okay. So I think dancers can take care of their mental health in many different ways. Obviously the fact that they're dancing. I think a lot of them are dancing because maybe they enjoy expressing themselves freely. Maybe older kids dance because they are struggling with their mental health. I think that it's a great way to build confidence and self-esteem and resilience. Uh, I think if a lot of dancers, actually if they would incorporate, let's say, nutrition and healthy eating into their um or their training, then they're going to feel a lot better with the connection of our gut and their brain and how mood also, how food determines our mood, and uh, yeah, I think that if you get that right nutrition and sleep and everything else then you're going to feel a lot better and then you can, you can excel outside in dance and outside of dance yeah, definitely, I think I know myself, but when I'm moving, I feel much
Speaker 6:much better um, so you're kind of on that, maybe like how could they? Obviously I imagine a lot of our dance dancers at the many dance schools we serve will be dancing multiple times a week maybe. What can they do out with class?
Speaker 4:just uh, outside of class, yeah, yeah I think it's important to prioritize rest and recovery, especially if you're still studying at school getting plenty of sleep, less screen time again, prioritizing your nutrition, eating foods that are going to give you plenty of energy, but also reducing sort of foods that are going to make our mental health deteriorate and maybe keeping the sugary stuff to the weekends only. I'm trying to keep your Monday to Friday full of nutritious goodness, and just foods are going to make you feel good yeah, definitely, as you said that, avoid the sugar.
Speaker 6:I was just looking at the massive pick and mix absolutely, absolutely right opposite.
Speaker 4:That's been looking at me all weekend. That's the nemesis over there. Yeah, yeah, stay away from that. That's brilliant.
Speaker 6:Um, and just while I've got you as well, we have a competition currently with keaton and move your mind and you can win, uh, mental health and fitness classes for your club. Yep, um so could you maybe just tell us a little bit about that, or just our listeners?
Speaker 4:yes, so we have a competition running for children's mental health week. It's an opportunity for kids activity club providers across the uk to win a mental health and fitness workshop, and we'll be going on the road, we'll be on in the van. A podcast will be coming too. I'm super excited. The winners will receive a workshop combining fitness, mindfulness and resilience, and I'll be there teaching the dance schools and the dance teachers how they can continue to keep the momentum going that that I bring and the energy and motivation that I bring to the dancers, and how they they can continue to apply that whenever I'm gone. Yeah, brilliant.
Speaker 6:Thank you so much yeah, you're very welcome, thank you so I'm here with Brandon from the one agency and Brendan. Can you tell me just a little bit about the agency, why you're here at Perform Ireland this year?
Speaker 9:okay, so we're basically based in Dublin but we cater for all of Ireland.
Speaker 9:The One Agency is a new project we're working on and what it is is I just feel there's a gap right now in the market again to look after performers and actors and singers and dancers, you name it we're going to have it all in one shop. I work a lot with the Hallmark TV channel where I choreograph a lot of movies oh amazing. So it's easier for me to go and say, ok, I need X amount of dancers for the next movie coming up, and then I can go. At least I have my own database there. I can actually go and find the dancers, I know their capabilities and I can bring them then onto the movie set and then they're ready to go. At the moment there wasn't a lot for me to choose from because everything is everywhere at the moment in Ireland. So at least we've got a one-stop shop for me to go to of a good database that I can find the dance idea from all ages and all demographics to use for movies and stuff like that.
Speaker 9:And then, also commercials and anything that's got. If you want somebody in an ad or you want something dancing or anything else, at least you've got to go to someone here in Ireland that has the whole database there to find brilliant, that sounds so good.
Speaker 6:And you said you kind of cater for all ages. So is that all?
Speaker 9:ages no, literally from 3 to 93 oh amazing because, especially when I'm working with the American TV channels, they love to see diversity, with their dancers in the movies, yep. So because they have to look like realistic. Whether it's a ballroom scene or whether it's Scottish Highlands walking around, it's like villagers, almost like they want to see people of the town of all shapes, sizes, ages, backgrounds, the whole shebang. They want to see all that. So it's not just about the 25-year-old dancer, it's all who can dance.
Speaker 6:Brilliant, sounds really good and yeah, so you kind of mentioned obviously all ages. One thing that's really stood out to us here is just how many schools have come from all over Ireland. So is that kind of there is and, jo, it is At least things have changed.
Speaker 9:You know what I mean. Yeah, yeah, Because a things have changed.
Speaker 9:You know what I mean, because a lot of the movies now are happening in Limerick and all around Ireland. So at least if somebody makes a phone call or an email to us saying, listen, I need five or six dancers to do a scene in a new movie coming up and we're shooting it down in Limerick in the new studios down there, well I can turn and say, well, listen, we have a school down there in that area, plus a lot of the grants and all the rest will be coming from the movies will be coming from a certain region. So therefore at least the money's going back into that region and the homegrown talent from that region has been used in the movie where the grants would have came from for that movie to happen in that area that's amazing as well that there's so many things now happening in Ireland.
Speaker 6:Oh wow, Amazing.
Speaker 9:And I think already now there's another few more movies happening already in the pipeline Could be about six or seven this year and they're really interesting, they're all lovely, they're all really really nice happy endings. They've always got a fabulous ballroom scene in it, yeah, and at least it's Irish talent being used.
Speaker 6:Yeah, absolutely Absolutely. Irish talent to be used yeah, absolutely Absolutely, because that's what's really stood out to us here, which is great and kind of what would be like one piece of advice you'd maybe give to kind of children looking to get into this industry.
Speaker 9:To get into this industry, practice, practice, practice. My number one thing would be reliable. Don't be flaky, yeah, because at the end of the day, I a job to do. Yep, I have to answer to somebody. That person has to answer to somebody yeah, so it goes all the way down through the, the, the links, you'd say, and if one link breaks, the whole chain is wrong. So be reliable, turn up on time, don't ask too many questions, do the job, go home and enjoy your day nice, that's the way it has to be.
Speaker 6:Brilliant, brilliant and um, if kind of dance schools in ireland wanted to get in touch with you, where would we find? Where would they find you? You can find us on theoneagencycom I think, let me check.
Speaker 9:Yeah, it's theoneagencyie. Sorry, we're irish anyway. Yeah, you can find us on theoneagencyie and just just contact us if you want to join us.
Speaker 2:Even just watching that footage back gives me ringing in my ears again from the event. I think I said on that one of the overriding words that you take away from these events is loud. They are so loud I mean, it's brilliant, it's great to be there, it's a must for us to be there. But sensors sensorily, is that?
Speaker 1:a word yeah, sensory, sensory. Is that sensory Sensory, overload Sensory overload, sensory overload, sensory overload, yeah no, for me. I took loop earplugs, really aye. So they cut it by like 16 decibels. I was fine the whole weekend. I don't even know what these are. It's just wee earplugs that you put in and they they dull down the sound but they don't take away. You know, when you put earplugs in, sometimes it's just bassy. Yeah, it's just you hear. Naturally, this is not a plug for Luke Beer, nobody has been DGI.
Speaker 2:We're using our gear we're not using our gear.
Speaker 1:If you want to send some, the address is 188 West George Street, glasgow, g22nr so, stephen, who did you because you were doing most of the interviews you and Caitlin, or aforementioned social media guru, who were we speaking to? We spoke to.
Speaker 2:I mean we speak to Louise all the time, which is great. Louise still stands as one of the most popular episodes we had way back about two or three years ago on the podcast. So we caught up with Louise again in the actual arena. We also caught up with these two lovely ladies from a company called Golden Dance Awards. It's an Irish dance company or a dance awards company, who run events. At the moment they run them in Belfast and Dublin and next year they're looking to breach out to scotland where we're based.
Speaker 2:We have since caught up with them further and it looks like we're going to be doing some nice work with them and all things all going well. Fingers crossed, um. But yeah, they were very nice, very cool. We caught up with them. I ran them to them back at the hotel as well later on at night with Keaton, just for a hello brilliant. I mean the good thing, I think. This time round in Dublin, because we'd done Perform Island last year, I had a number of hours myself one day before everybody arrived, because I was there to meet the venue owner and I'd just done my own thing for a bit. I got to go and see the Guinness Museum, which was brilliant. Then, on the last day, when we'd done and dusted everything we needed to do, you came up with a good idea yeah, what was that?
Speaker 1:we? I saw just by chance that they Doctor Strangelove, the play starring Steve Coogan, was shown doing its run in. I can't remember the name of the theatre the Boardgaze Theatre, I can't remember the name of the theatre, the Bored Gays Theatre. The Bored Gays Theatre, yeah, in Dublin, and we decided to get tickets for that.
Speaker 2:We didn't just get tickets for that, though we did not. We got front row centre like the best tickets I've had to any theatre show in my life same and it was great and it was just such a good way to cap off the whole time in Ireland and genuinely I'll forever remember Ireland as like. We'll be back obviously probably a lot, I think, in the next coming months, but yeah, that gave me a real good kind of cultural side of Ireland a couple of Guinnesses in a bar, going to see a show at the theatre. I left feeling very cultured. So fair listeners from the land of Middle Earth where DJI drones fly freely and loop earplugs loop earplugs drown out the noise of the Nazgul. We want to say bye.
