When you begin planning the end of year show for your dance studio one of the most important parts is coming up with a theme. It's always challenging to come up with a concept that will work to showcase all dancers and engage the audience.
The key questions to ask when designing a theme are:
1. Is there enough music available to cater for all dances?
2. Can you find costumes that will suit the theme?
3. Will students of all ages suit the theme?
4. Will the theme work across all styles of dance in the show or will you need to develop multiple themes to suit the dance styles?
If your theme can tick all these boxes you will be reducing some of the biggest obstacles ahead and you will be on your way to building a successful show.
RGD Dance Shows
Its an exciting year for RGD Studios as we turn 10 years old in 2020! So i thought it might be fun to look back on those end of year dance shows.
Hopefully this will be a walk down memory road for some and can provide other studios with some inspiration on Dance themes for their end of year shows.
2010 - Artists
Our first year we kept it simple. Artists means you can choose any artists that fit your style, create mixes of multiple songs from one artist. It's not the strongest concept but allows a lot of flexibility and caters for anything you'd like to execute.
2011 - NYC The Bronx
As we began our studio with only Hip Hop classes we had a Hip Hop focused theme in our second year. The Bronx was a hard hitting street style theme revolving around the street style of dance.
2012 - Around the World
This is a strong theme which enabled us to tap into different influences in dance - for example we incorporated Indian styles of dance into Hip Hop for the 'India' dance in the show. Around the world also provides a theme to develop some amazing costume ideas around each country.
2013 - RGD Radio
The radio themes builds on popular songs on the radio. Radio was a theme that really worked because we got a live professional radio DJ to host the show, running it as if he was running a radio channel, complete with audience participation, prizes and shoutouts.
2014 - Express Yourself
This theme was a bit out of the box but was one of the most rewarding shows we've ever done. Express yourself meant we built dances around feelings, emotions and expressions - for example joy, confidence and depression. All students performed twice in their levels, with one dance being choreographed by their teacher and the second allowing them to express themselves and meaning they could choreograph exactly what they wanted.
2015 - Dance Through the Decades
Running through the 70's, 80's, 90's, 200's and today, this theme builds around the songs of each era. As Hip Hop is a more recent style the later decades worked best for this style, while Jazz was easier to find songs for throughout.
2016 - Tributes to The Jacksons, Justin Timberlake and Beyonce
For 2016 we picked 3 of the top acts of our generation and developed a show around them. All 3 of these artists have many songs to choose from and include both upbeat songs and slower ballads to suit many moods and styles.
2017 - Colour Me Bad
This theme is more on the abstract side but allows you some creative license. Each dance is built around a colour and really comes to life when you can combine the songs, costumes, background imagery and lighting all together.
2018 - Love & Christmas
This is the first year we did 2 seperate themes. Love was a strong theme as there are so many great songs about love that we could pull from. Its also a great uplifting and positive theme.
The second part was a Christmas theme which we weighted more heavily to younger classes for the cute factor! The costumes really make this theme pop!
2019 - Divas & Schools Out for Summer
Our most recent show was also in two parts. The first being Divas - pulling from some of the biggest female artists of all time. Then Schools out was a Summer theme, which used songs about Summer, the Beach and having fun in the sun.
Stay tuned for what we'll be coming up with for 2020! Its going to be epic!
What was your favourite theme - sign up and comment below.