Fusion Performing Company Info

Learn all about our Fusion Performing Company! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome to Rhythm Pod, the podcast from Rhythm Dance Center for Rhythm Dance Center. We're here to bring you studio updates, tips from our teachers, and fun chats about everything happening in our rhythm community.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

RhythmPod will be your go-to source to stay inspired and connected. We can't wait to share all the rhythm fun. Hi everyone, welcome to the Fusion Performing Company Information Podcast. Thanks so much for listening today, and also thank you for your interest in our Fusion Performing Company. Fusion is an advanced teen company at Rhythm, and dancers entering sixth grade and higher are eligible to audition. So today we're going to be giving you some detailed information on what being a Fusion Performing Company dancer is all about, what the requirements are and the expectations, the financial commitments, and so much more. So once you've listened, uh remember that you can submit your questions, anything that we didn't go over, submit questions on our QA form, and we will answer those on our podcast on March 30th. And you can always also email us at rdcauditions at gmail.com.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Hi guys, this is Becca. I'm gonna uh read to you the description of what Fusion is so that you will understand. Fusion's awesome, first of all. Fusion is an advanced level performing company made up of talented, well-rounded dancers who bring energy, passion, and dedication to the stage. Representing Rhythm Dance Center at competitions, conventions, and local performances, these dancers push their performances to the next level. This company is composed of teen dancers selected through auditions with eligibility beginning in sixth grade. Fusion is divided into two levels, teen and senior, both of which require a strong commitment and a drive to excel. Maintaining the expectations of Fusion means making dance your top priority. Fusion is such a dynamic and versatile group of committed dancers known for standout performances and amazing teamwork. Beyond dance technique and many performances, the bonds formed within Fusion between dancers and faculty create a lasting sense of camaraderie and mentorship. With many dancers training under the same teachers throughout their entire journey at rhythm, these relationships extend far beyond the studio, shaping their growth both in dance and in life. I'm not sure how long we've had Fusion, but for a long time. I feel like for a long time now. Um it's a great company. It's really evolved into uh a great program at Rhythm. Uh it's a competitive, very competitive program. Very competitive. And uh we're excited to share some info about it. The director of Fusion is Katie Carroll. Katie works with also a lot with our um edge dancers, uh, but she will be your person that to guide you along the fusion journey should your dancer make fusion.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

Yeah. All right, so let's dive into what fusion involves. Um, so as with any of our companies, choosing dance as a priority over other extracurricular activities is a big one. I feel like if you're at the fusion level at this point, you're it's really number one. It's your number one. Yeah. Yeah, it is pretty committed as far as uh time commitment goes. So it's hard to do anything else. Um, many other activities outside of it. Fusion will be attending two competitions throughout the season and three conventions with two of those holding competition. You will get all those dates in the fall, and then you will need to reserve the entire weekend. Uh convention weekend will take up your full weekend with classes during the day and competition in the evening, or depending on the event, sometimes the competition will be in the morning with classes in the late afternoon and evening. But either way, it's a full weekend. The exact schedules for the weekend are usually available about a week in advance, and at that time you will know exactly when you need to be there. Um, for the competitions only that don't involve a convention, it could just be one day, it could be both days. They all vary. There's also one event where they will attend just the convention portion of it with no competition at all. That all sounds very confusing, but I promise it's not. It's not as difficult as well.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

Yeah, it's really not. Competition, straight competition, you just show up, you do your dance, you're done. For convention, you are taking classes from awesome people, and you also are competing either at night or in the morning. And then there's one event where you just take classes.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

So there it is. Summed up. Um the dancers, fusion dancers are required to be in the studio three days per week, taking classes in jazz, ballet, tap, hip-hop, contemporary, and any other additional classes we decide. Um, fusion will compete a jazz routine, a tap routine, contemporary routine, a hip-hop routine, and a themed production. The hip hop and the themed production are large groups combining the teens and the seniors.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Uh, fusion also has the opportunity to audition for one extra group. Um, this usually takes place, they start, you know, learning their dances in the fall. The extra group usually takes place in the early winter, mid-winter, January, February. And it's usually it's been musical theater. Honestly, I think it's been musical theater pretty much every year. Four years around. But that is up to Katie, the Fusion director, what uh she wants that to be. But um this is not a required group. Um, the extra groups you would be notified, like, hey, you have the opportunity to audition for this. This is how much it's gonna cost, this is when the rehearsals are gonna be. And then you can say, yes or no, your dancer wants to be considered for that. Fusion does not have the eligibility to do solos. Our only company that competes solos is our Edge Company, which is our most advanced company. Uh, weekend rehearsals happen, they're they're required, they are scheduled quite often, especially during the fall season. For Fusion, their first competition and convention, it's it's the first one of all of our performing companies, and it's usually held the first weekend or in early November, late October, just depending, but it's usually right around those weekends. And so Fusion is very, very, very, very busy in the fall. Like Katie is gonna hit the ground running immediately. She might even, you might even start learning something during your summer intensive. And then, you know, like as soon as we kick back in for the season, there fusion's there every weekend leading up to that to get to get ready for that event. Uh, they also get to attend classes with some guest teachers at rhythm. Usually I would say two to three, um, just depending on who's coming. They always get to work with Kevin Maher when he's there. Um, and just depending on their schedule and when the guest artist is there, they could maybe do other ones as options. Fusion also participates in Tap the Map. It's a workshop, a big tap workshop held at Rhythm. We've been doing this workshop for about 20 years. It's super awesome. The kids love it. Uh, Katie brings in uh four, about four other tap teachers, and they're learning from four different teachers. It's a full weekend of TAP. It is in the fall, that date TBD. Uh, the dancers are also required to attend the Fusion Summer Intensive. That's gonna be July 27th through the 30th. These are gonna be very full days. So um make sure that that those dates work for you because there's no other option. Non-negotiable. Uh yeah, the that's that's gonna be a requirement to be there for all the days. Uh, fusion also participates in our holiday show in December, and they are usually one of our only companies that has most of their stuff done. Yeah, so um, that's the holiday show. They also participate in our year-end shows and they do two of the shows. We also will have a fusion company parent meeting held in mid-September when we start back. And in this meeting, you'll get a handbook and you'll learn about all the things. We're gonna give you as many dates as possible. And most of the time, you're gonna get some of these dates prior to this meeting. We do not hold back dates. Believe me, we want you to know those dates as soon as we have them. So usually we're gonna shoot you an email, like probably in late summer, and it's gonna say, hey, these are the dates we've decided to attend. And then you we will have that meeting where everything that we possibly can, you know, come up with is gonna be in that handbook. And uh, and you're gonna learn all about you know what conventions you're going to, what shows you're required to do, what competitions you're going to do, and all those details. Learn all the details of all the things for Fusion.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

Okay. Becca touched on this quite a bit a couple minutes ago, but we like to make sure that we reiterate that Fusion competes for the first time in late fall with an intense weekend rehearsal schedule running from Labor Day weekend through October. Um, additionally, all dancers must be available for one weekend of the fall break for rehearsals to ensure performance readiness because they compete so early. Yeah. And Katie usually is she's great about sending out a uh Google Forum asking for um asking for you to let her know which would be better to work on the weekend before fall break or the broken weekend after fall break, and she works with your schedules the best she can. But it's really important to get some hours in those one of those weekends.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

And I think that like, you know, it if you have to miss one fall weekend, you're not gonna get kicked out of fusion or anything like that. Katie's gonna work with you. But if you are the family that has season tickets to every UGA game, you're not gonna be able to do that. You can't get all your dancer can't go. You can go, but your dancer can't. So um just know that like I I know that that's you know, fall is sometimes hard for some people because they're going out of town to football games and whatnot.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

But just yeah, and it it is even high school football games, Katie is reasonable. Yes, she's gonna work with them, she's gonna alternate where teens might be there on a Friday night and seniors the next week so that they can go to their games and or have them finish early or start late or whatever it is. But those weekends are heavy and they will be required. Um, but just know that going into it. Yes. If you have a big football fan.

unknown 9:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

All right, let's touch on the financial commitments of fusion, as that is a very big aspect of decision making for sure before auditions roll around. Um, the annual company cost for Fusion is approximately$4,000 to$4,500 for the season. That's for the company part. Um, the low end would be for the minimum requirements, which is the jazz tap, contemporary, hip-hop, and themed production. And then the high end would be adding that extra group in if they were to compete that. So all of that includes their costumes, their competition costumes, their competition entry fees. This is an entry fee for every single event that they're gonna do, for every dance they're gonna do, their convention fees, which they do quite a few, and the choreography fees paid to their choreographers. Um, all of these are broken down into monthly installments. You guys are paying um a monthly installment, I believe, starting in August or September, and run through February with a March, mid-March uh final balance being due. So that is again about 4,000 to 4,500 across all of the company costs. That does not include tuition. Your tuition is completely separate, as that's for their classes that they're taking weekly, and that runs currently right now at uh$460 per month.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

So um also by now, you hopefully have listened to the podcast with all the things about the actual audition process. We're gonna talk a little bit about the fusion callback and how that's gonna work. First of all, we want to try to create as stress-free of an environment as we can. We're gonna do our very best. We want to keep everything positive. We want it to feel like a normal classroom experience. We're gonna, you know, you know, teach the root the teach the combos. They're gonna get to ask questions, they're gonna do them in bigger groups and then smaller groups. So we're gonna work our hardest to keep it as stress-free as possible. Um, the very first thing we're gonna do before any dancing takes place is talk with all the dancers about what to expect. We're gonna we're gonna do this in that first jazz audition. We'll talk to them, make sure they understand what the entire audition process is. At the end of all of the, at the end of them, we're always gonna let them ask questions if they have any and just make sure they feel like they know what's happening. And your dancers are very smart and they that is the most attentive they ever are. Yes, they're very attentive. So they're gonna, they're gonna know what's going on. Uh, so they're gonna learn that jazz combo uh during part one of the audition. And it's gonna be very important that they practice that. They will perform that at the callback. And one thing to keep in mind again is whatever combo your dancer learns for their age group, that is the combo they're doing in their callbacks, no matter what. We'll definitely have some dancers for fusion that probably will learn the junior combo, but they're gonna get called to teen fusion because we don't have junior fusion, so that's not even a thing. So they will not know the same combo. It is okay. There will be plenty of people in there. They're always they're never gonna have to learn the other combo. So no stress about that. Um, dancers will need to learn before they come to the callback in their Dropbox. They will have a hip-hop combo and a contemporary combo. And they're gonna need to learn both of those to do at the callback. In addition, at the callback, they're gonna learn a ballet combo on the spot as well as a tap combo on the spot. So this way we can we can look at them both ways. We can see, um, we can see number one, they've learned this jazz combo. We're gonna see how they practice it, how they retained it, how they're performing it. Then we're gonna see them, they're gonna learn the hip hop and contemporary combo from a tutorial in Dropbox. We're gonna see how they do with that. And then it's a callback, we'll be able to see them learn on the spot and perform on the spot for ballet and for tap and how quickly they're gonna be able to pick that up. So we're gonna be able to see all those different aspects. Uh, we will do everything in small groups. They don't have to dance by themselves ever, except we will have them do their introduction. If your dancer has danced at rhythm or ever done a rhythm audition, this is a long-standing rhythm tradition that the very first thing they do at the callback is they line up in their numerical order. They improv out to the center of the floor. We're sitting at the table, they introduce themselves, their name, their age, where they go to school, and they tell us a fun fact about themselves and then they dance away. So that is the only thing that they do by themselves. It's very quick and fun and not stressful. And I will say for Fusion, while obviously, you know, we aren't looking for perfection, but we are looking for a high level of proficiency across all styles of dance. Fusion is definitely an advanced company. So we want to see, you know, we want to see them be able to do all the styles pretty well. Um, we're looking, we are looking for potential. We're looking for great energy and performance skills. We're looking for a refined style and technique that basically just means that they've been taking ballet and they've been looking great and and they've been taking jazz and they're they're really focused on their technique and the details. And, you know, it's not just about having great energy. Yes, great energy is great, but they also need to be refined with their movement quality. So that's something that we're looking for. Um, again, well-rounded. Uh, we they need to tap, they need to do jazz, they need to do contemporary, they need to do hip hop. Uh, they don't have to be perfect at all of them, but they need to be, you know, proficient. Proficient. Yeah. Um, they want, we want them to work hard, we want them to be focused, we want them to have an eagerness to learn and improve. So all of those are the things that we're looking for. And fusion, like Danny said earlier, it is a very high level at rhythm and it's it's a big commitment to dance. And so if you're auditioning for fusion, you should be all in.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

All in all in for dancing. All in for dancing. Yes. So, in closing, just a few reminders. Um, make sure that you discuss with your dancer the importance of commitment and a desire to be a part of fusion. Also, have a family discussion about the commitments as well, because it's it's a big commitment, not just for the dancer, but for the entire family. There's a lot of coordinating schedules going on, as well as financial. And also just a note, we don't have a set number of dancers we will take for fusion, as with any of our companies, or a set number of years that a dancer participates in in, say, teen fusion before they move to senior. Every single year is completely different. Our fusion companies are usually pretty big in the 20s for sure, and the fusion audition is usually very, very competitive, probably our most competitive from a level perspective. Um, who goes where or who ends up where usually depends on the number of dancers trying out and also the number of dancers graduating each year, as it is a trickle-down effect. We talked about that a little bit in our first podcast. Um, but it we have quite a large fusion graduating class right now, and we had a large one last year. So there's usually a lot of movement from one group to another. Um, fusion dancers are talented, well-rounded, hardworking, and many of these dancers work as assistants at the studio and even grow into being teachers at Rhythm, which is really, really awesome as they progress through the different levels of Fusion and company. So we are super excited to see all the dancers that are auditioning this season, and we cannot wait to get it all started in a few weeks. Lastly, just please remember that after you listen, reach out with any questions you might have or fill out the QA um QA form, and we will get those answered on March 30th. Thanks so much for listening.