Spotlight Program Info

Learn all about our Spotlight Program! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 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_01 0:15

Rhythm Pod will be your go-to source to stay inspired and connected. We can't wait to share all the rhythm fun.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Hello everyone, I'm Becca Moore. I'm one of the directors of Rhythm, and I'd like to welcome you to the Spotlight Informational Podcast. We really appreciate that you're taking the time to listen and learn all about our amazing Spotlight program. We're going to be going through all the details that we have about our spotlight program, what's involved, what's expected, the time commitment, financial commitment, and much more. After listening, if you have any questions, please fill out our QA form and we will release a new episode on March 30th answering your questions. Okay, let's talk Spotlight. All right, here is our description of Spotlight that we have for you guys. Spotlight is an accelerated program designed for dedicated dancers in kindergarten and all the way through high school who are ready for a more focused classroom experience. This program challenges dancers, refines their technique, and challenges them with choreography, helping them grow into their full potential. Spotlight provides an exciting performance opportunity, allowing dancers to showcase their skills in both jazz and hip-hop at a spring talent competition. Dancers are selected through class performance, year-in-show observation, and teacher recommendations towards the end of each season. To be a part of Spotlight, dancers must meet class requirements, including ballet, jazz, and hip-hop classes. These are held on the same day, as well as participation and a week-long summer camp at Rhythm Dance Center.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Yes. So right now, currently, our Spotlight program includes seven different groups. We have our pre-petite, our petites, our minis, our juniors, our preteens, our teens, and our seniors. Yes, it is a very popular, popular program at Rhythm Dance Center. While Spotlight is not part of our performing company, it serves as an incredible stepping stone for those looking to take the next leap into their dance journey. Many dancers have successfully transitioned from Spotlight into one of our performing companies, making it a valuable and rewarding experience that builds confidence, skills, and a passion for performance.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

I'm just gonna add that our Spotlight program is amazing. I think it's one of the best programs that we have at Rhythm. It has continually evolved and gotten stronger and really provided our dancers number one, like Danny said, a great stepping stone into a performing company, kind of getting them ready for that if that's a goal. But for a lot of kids, that's not their goal. Spotlight is their goal. Spotlight is their goal. Perfect place for them. And it's fulfilling, um, it's fulfilling something for them where they can keep dance as a part of their life, where maybe they, you know, they play softball or they are a cheerleader or they play tennis or volleyball or they're involved in musical theater or whatever, but it's still um an accelerated dance program that really just it's just provided a great platform for a lot of dancers. It's a great community for a lot of dances. Yeah, great community through and and a lot of people. And it's the biggest program that we have at Rhythm for sure. And also, I think that like, you know, I don't even know the percentages, but I would be willing to bet that in our senior edge, senior fusion, and senior connection, I would be willing to bet that 60 to 70 percent of those dancers started in Spotlight. 100%. Like it just it's such a great program. It's it's such a great place to start, you know, um, and continue to grow. And then, like I said, we have so many kids every year that transition into performing company if that's what they if that's what they want from Spotlight. Spotlight's directed by Beth Mason. She does an amazing job with the with those dancers and just, you know, helping the parents and directing them and and helping the kids and getting them where they need to go and giving them what they need to be given and all the things. So it's just it's just a great program.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Um one very important thing to note for Spotlight is that dancers with an interest in participating in Spotlight only do not and should not attend our company auditions. Listen to that again. They're two completely different things. If your dancer is only interested in Spotlight, they should not attend company auditions.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

Now, that being said, you can always talk to one of us. If you're if you're here listening to this, I bet you've probably listened to another podcast. And if you haven't, maybe you should, because maybe you don't know what your audition your dancer is interested in. So listen to our audition podcast. We have a many stars podcast, a connection podcast, a fusion podcast, and an edge podcast. So you can learn about any of them. But you know, maybe, you know, just after listening to this, like maybe like talk to your dancer, like see what your dancer might be. If they, if they really, if their goal is to be a part of our performing company, then go for it.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

Go for an audition. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

We absolutely are gonna always encourage them to audition if they want to. But I don't think that we're gonna encourage anyone to audition just for the experience, honestly. And that may sound bad, but I just feel like it kind of just clouds our judgment of the audition process. It clouds the kids' judgment a little bit. And that's not what the auditions are for. So, like if you are only if your goal is spotlight, no need to audition. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

So the number one question we get is how does my dancer get selected for spotlight? My dancer has come home and talked about spotlight. They're very interested. How do you make your selections? So, since we just said no auditions, um, Spotlight is an invitation-only program. The dancers are selected through teacher recommendation and class observations throughout the entire season. All of our teachers at Rhythm share a Google Sheet, and throughout the season, as they see fit, they will add dancers' names to the spreadsheet as a recommendation. Sometimes it's coming from a ballet class, sometimes it's coming from a jazz class, sometimes it's a hip-hop class. Uh you never know. But when our teachers, who are all very well educated, see potential in a child for whatever reason, could be focused, they could be have great musicality, flexibility, whatever it is, they will add their names to the to the spreadsheet of recommendation. And then as the spring approaches, the data sorts that are listed on on that observation on that spreadsheet are observed in classes. And from there, we make our final decisions.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

And I'm also gonna say that just because they're not listed on a form, that does not mean that they're not gonna get selected. Because Beth and Kara and Hannah and Avery and some of the other spotlight teachers and choreographers, they are going in and observing classes.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

And they may see something that another teacher doesn't, and that's very normal. Very normal. We're all different, and we all this is why we share this spreadsheet and why we observe all the classes. And there may be a time where your dancer wasn't in class one day when the observation observation happened, so it happens later. Right. There's so many different scenarios. But the point of it all is that it's an invitation-only program, not through audition, and each teacher at rhythm is participating in the recommendation.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

And you know, while Danny and I don't have time to go and observe every class, we just watched like three or four spotlight classes this week do their dances. And, you know, we're kind of scouting for company, you know, company, who's ready to audition for company, you know. So we're doing that. But we also, for our dress rehearsals, we get to watch every single class do their recital piece um at dress rehearsal. And Danny and I consistently are like, oh my gosh, who's that? Is that did that person get an invitation? Most of the time the answer is yes.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

Sometimes they don't. Sometimes they are the quiet little dancer that does their thing in class but doesn't show all that personality until it's costume is on, hair is done. Right. They just light up when they get into performance mode. And that's a big part of it too. So it's it's happening all season long. Yes. Presentations are happening all season long. All right, as I mentioned, we have seven levels. So I'm gonna give you the age breakdown, approximate age breakdown of each one. For our pre-petites, they're typically kindergarten and first graders, petite, first and second graders, the minis are usually third and fourth grade, juniors, fifth and sixth, pre-petites, seven, eight, the teens, eighth and ninth grade, and then the seniors anywhere from ninth to twelfth grade. That being said, there's always crossover. Depends on how many kids are on those recommendation lists, what the breakdown is of all the ages, and how we can most evenly divide them based on age and level.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

And I think just to um, you know, continue with on that, that is the case across all of our companies. It's not just with Spotlight. In our mini stars, we might have a kindergartner and we may have a third grader. But the average age for a mini star dancer is like first and second grade. I mean, same thing for all of the other ones, for anybody connection, fusion, all of them. There is a large um age slash grade gap. It just because everybody's different and it just depends on the makeup of the group at that time, how many kids there are. Literally, every single year is different with everything we do.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

We've with our studio program, you know, non-company kids, non-spotlight kids, every single year is different. We may have a year where third, fourth, and fifth grade is crazy and blowing up. Yeah, and then the next year we may have only three classes.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

Like right now, I know our K1s are crazy. Yeah, we've our K1 camps like almost sold out day one, and we added a whole bunch more. So I don't know what's going on with K1s, but welcome to Rhythm. We want you. Thank you for doing dancing with us.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

So each year is different.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Yes. Okay, so going on to the requirements for Spotlight. Our Spotlight dancers all take a ballet, jazz, and hip hop class all in the same day. Our pre-petites only are required to do ballet and jazz, but all the others take ballet, jazz, and hip hop back to back. Back to back, we try to make our schedules very convenient for you so that you're dropping them off. They're there for an extended period of time. They're taking class with all of the same kids. It's all the spotlight dancers. There's not extra dancers or in their in their class. So it's a great little team type environment. Um, in addition, they are obviously going to be taking class and learning their choreography for their um pieces that they're gonna do. They're gonna do two pieces of competition and then their ballet piece, they'll just do in the in the year-end show. But they're obviously gonna be learning all of that. We do add one extra rehearsal that's usually on a weekend. We also have a dress rehearsal for all of them. It's potentially on a weekend, or it might be on a day that you don't come. Like this year, I know it's on a it's on a Monday, and the reason we can do that is because our company kids get the day off because it's after competition. So Studio A is available anyway. Dress rehearsal is something that's extra. They're gonna go to one competition in March or April, and it's usually a competition. Well, it's not usually, it is a competition that one of our other performing companies attending. And at the competitions we attend, they have levels. So the spotlight dancers are gonna be competing in a level that is uh appropriate for their amount of time that they're taking every week. Obviously, the spotlight dancers aren't like our edge dancers that are taking that that they're at the studio 15 hours a week plus. Yes, a lot of hours almost every day. So they're not gonna, we're not gonna be, they're not gonna be competing against that. This is really giving them, taking them to a competition to give them a really positive, competitive experience. It's like a performance. It's so positive and fun and supportive. And it's honestly that they're so fun to watch. So we love watching Spotlight at their competition day. Um, in addition, the one big requirement, in addition to obviously just attending their classes, is they are required to do a five-day summer camp uh for elementary ages and younger. And then for our teens, they're required to do one of our teen camps. And that camp is four days. The reason we require this is we feel like if if your child is this excited about being a part of a spotlight, they need to do something over the summer. You know, they that is just gonna, you know, add to their training, kind of get them ready, going at the season, showing they're commitment to the new the new group. Yes, all of those things. Yes. So those are requirements. We have lots of camps to offer you, and we also will work with you um to help you find the right one if you need that. The dancers also get a spotlight jacket. This is approximately$65, and you will get information on that at the beginning of the season. For their costumes, we order their costumes just like we order all of our year-in-show costumes. We have multiple catalogs we select them from. Their spotlight dancers are gonna have three different costumes. They'll have a jazz costume, hip-hop costume, and a ballet costume. Those costumes are gonna be due in December, the same time all of our other costume amounts are due.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

I will say the pre-petites only have jazz and ballet because that's something they're required to do. Hip hop is extra. If they take hip-hop as an option, they'll have that costume.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

Uh, two of the three costumes are worn for competition. Obviously, for petite pre-petites, they're only gonna do jazz. They just do one uh one competition dance. The other ones will have jazz and hip-hop. These are slightly higher in cost than our regular costumes. So, like if you're in a regular, you know, I don't know, K1 jazz class right now, or contemporary class or whatever class your dancer is taking, there's they're maybe about$10 to$20 higher in cost, mainly just because we usually do a little embellishing to those costumes to give them a little special touch. And also, obviously, they're gonna wear these costumes at competition. They're gonna wear them in the year-end show.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

So all right, let's talk about the actual invitations. So we sent out, Miss Beth Mason sends out um invitation emails via email on April 16th. That is a Wednesday. So you can plan on looking for emails on April 16th if your dancer is on the recommendation list and has been recommended for Spotlight. Uh on Monday or by Monday, May 11th, we ask for a response to that email, whether it's a response that you, your dancer auditioned for a company and actually made company, so they would not be able to do Spotlight, or they're really excited and can't wait to be a part of Spotlight, or you're moving to another state and you won't be able to accept the invitation. Whatever it is, we ask that you respond by May 11th. If you do accept our invitation, but you are not fully registered and committed for the new season by May 21st, we cannot guarantee that we can hold your spot moving forward. So if space is available in any of the groups, and there likely will be, um, any new recommendations that what like Beck has mentioned, that maybe at dress rehearsal, we we picked up on somebody that we thought could could do spotlight, those new recommendations will be sent out after May 21st.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

I also think another thing that people asked are like, well, how many invitations are you gonna send out? That is a question that we cannot give you an exact answer, and I'm gonna tell you why. Let's just say mini spotlight. We're gonna use mini spotlight as an example. Also, just so you know, we're gonna invite the dancers back to Spotlight unless there's like a major behavior issue or an attendance issue or something like that. They're gonna it's very rarely a thing, but they're gonna get an invitation. So let's just say we have 15 dancers right now in Mini Spotlight, and Beth is going to invite all 15 back. Some of those Mini Spotlight kids are probably gonna move up to the next uh level, which is gonna be junior spotlight, right? So let's say five of them are gonna get moved up to junior spotlight. Okay, so now there's 10. So there's approximately five spots, even though I don't have exact numbers. I'm just this is an example. There's approximately five spots. Uh so then there's 10 dancers left. Five of those are auditioning for company. Let's say all five make it. Now there's only five left. They're all five returning. We're gonna probably extend about 10 invitations. Some of those could be from pre-petites or petites moving up into many. So let's say there's five pre-petites that are moving up. That means we only have five invitations now. The thing is, is we could extend those five invitations. Three of them could say no, thank you, and then we're gonna we'll have three more. All that being said, just so you know, 15 is not our number. I'm just using that because that's really easy for me to do math with. Um, so that's why I use that. But it is constantly moving. It's constantly moving. It's a really big puzzle. Um, but I will say there's a there's a lot of movement in Spotlight every year. So, you know, don't think that we're just like only gonna be able to extend three invitations because that's not the case. If there's somebody that we feel is a really a strong fit, we're gonna find a way um, you know, to get them in there.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

Yes. Um, the the acceptance, if you get an invitation and you were accepting, it will be through a Google form that will come with the invitation. So be sure to look for that. If you do get an invitation, it will be a Google form that you'll respond to to um show us that you are committed. And then also being registered, like I said, by May 21st will absolutely secure your spot. The goal is to know exactly who's doing spotlight or as many as possible by that 21st date. Um, just a couple of things to know when it comes to Spotlight. While it is not a performing company, they are still learning a higher level. They're learning at a faster pace. Um, practicing at home is very, very important. They will need to be practicing their all of their dances, their ballet tap, are ballet, jazz, and hip-hop. But those dances that they're gonna be competing, they'll start, they'll start learning them early in the season. And it's really important they're practicing at home. Miss Beth and Miss Carol will have drop boxes where the videos of each class, once they start learning them, will be posted and they can practice at home, but showing a little encouragement if your dancer, especially if they're younger, is not coming home and saying, hey, mom to practice. Maybe you can encourage and say, hey, it maybe we should practice today and then just kind of get that ball rolling. But it's super important to practice. If they don't practice at home, they're not gonna remember the choreography, and then they will not be comfortable when it comes time to for performing. Um dancers really need to have a good focus in class and be a ton of students. Again, they're learning a lot, learning at a faster pace, so it's super important.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

Well, and I do think that these are larger classes, and so you know, pro proper class etiquette and being able to pay attention in class is absolutely a necessity, I think, for a spotlight dancer.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

And then good attendance. All these classes are required. Of course, we don't want your dancer there if they are sick and contagious, but it's really important that they're attending attending their classes consistently every week so that they can learn what they're supposed to learn.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

Okay, next we have our financial commitment. So um the tuition for three classes is currently at$285 a month. So that's what your tuition would be. Um, for pre-petite, the cost this season is$190, so that's for two classes. So um that's what you pay on a monthly basis.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

Of course, if you have a dancer that wants to take additional classes, whether it's a top class, hip hop for pre-petites, that number will go up if you add classes.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

Um, our spotlight fee is$75. This is a one-time fee, and that is to be paid at registration. We also have um for the competition that they enter that they perform in at the end of the season, there's an entry fee. The entry fees are approximately$90 per routine. So you're looking at approximately$180 to$200. That's a one-time fee. If your tantal for Spotlight, you're gonna get, once they're in it, you're gonna get a very detailed info. It's gonna tell you all you need to know when that fee is gonna be debited from your account and everything else. Also, for these competitions, some of them have a media fee. And that just means that they're gonna provide you with a video and all the photos from that routine. That's usually approximately$50. You will also find out about that if that is something that will apply to you. And just a few notes if your dancer is auditioning for company. So if your dancer is auditioning for one of our performing companies and we feel that they're not quite ready, but we do feel they are a good fit for spotlight, their audition number is not gonna be posted on the website with the audition results, because the only numbers we are pa we are posting on our website for auditions are if your dancer made one of our performing companies. So that would be mini stars, connection, fusion, or edge. So if we do decide to extend um a spotlight invitation, you're gonna get an email just like you would with a spotlight invitation. Um so, and also just to keep in mind, you're not auditioning, doesn't place you in spotlight, like at all. Like it just doesn't. We're always gonna look at those teacher recommendations first before we place from an audition. So just keep that in mind. The way we have spotlight organized and set up is so that we can make sure that we offer those spotlight spots to the dancers that the teachers have recommended through class observation. These teachers have had them all year. So they know they're like, this dancer is ready. So we're gonna that's we're gonna look at those recommendations before the audition. That being said, I do think that there's always dancers every year that get extended spotlight invitations from the audition, but then Have already been on the list, too. So, you know, there's that.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

So, in closing, we want to reiterate how amazing our spotlight program is and how much we love seeing the growth in all the dancers each season. Um, that being said, not every dancer is going to be ready for spotlight. And we just want to remind you that that is okay. It is okay and it's it's normal. We have over 1200 dancers at rhythm and about 120 that are in spotlight. It is a small percentage. It is okay. If your dancer loves to dance and has goals of participating in Spotlight someday or any of our performing companies in the future, they need to keep pushing, keep trying, work hard, and focus in their classes. Giving up is not the answer. We always encourage dancers or parents, if you have a tiny dancer, to reach out to their teachers and find out what they can improve on, anything that they can do to help reach their goals. We have dancers who weren't ready for spotlight but kept working hard and eventually made a performing company and are graduating from rhythm, like Becca was saying earlier. If your dancer does not receive an invitation, we promise it will be okay. Every single dancer's journey is different. And we love seeing them grow when they are ready to grow. So that is it. Thank you so much for listening today. And remember, if you have any questions at all, please submit them via the QA form, or you can always email us at rdcauditions at gmail.com. Even if your dancer is not auditioning, you can email that email address to make sure we get your questions. Thanks so much. Thank you.