Audio Transcript
Hey everybody. It’s Ruth and I’m here at our Silver Creek Clogging Dance and Movement Center in Silverton, Oregon. Hey and this is What’s Happening at Silver Creek Clogging for the week of September 28th.
Yeah, woohoo!
And right out of the gate, I want to say, “Wowee!” What an amazing difference it makes to have our performance in the theater. That was a great performance! We weren’t really sure if we were going to be able to have a theater performance and, yeah, there we have it. It was really awesome to just really, I don’t know, it felt like – especially after this year that we’ve had with like unexpected, unexpected, unexpected, unexpected, it just felt like a real gift to be able to have that performance in the theater.
And, I just want to thank everybody who came to celebrate our dancers with us. It felt like a really true celebration. Yes. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
And some really awesome news is that we have that same exact theater already reserved for our recital next spring at the end of May, so that is going to be awesome.
And kind of along the lines of our recital and other things, we have some changes that we’re making in the studio. So, I want to let you know what those changes are. This is, there’s a lot coming up, so you know, settle in, grab your popcorn, whatever, and here we go. We’re going to just get right into it. And of course, your email has all of this information in detail, so I am going to summarize this as best that I can and here we go.
Recital.
So, we have two recitals every year. One is in mid-January and then another has been at the end of May or the beginning of June every year. So that is not going to change. Yep, we’re still going to do that.
So, here are some of the things that are going to change.
One: Our January recital (that’s a little bit tongue twisty for me), our January recital is going to continue to be held at like the Silverton Community Center or some other similar type of informal venue, okay.
We’ve have been having all of our recitals at the community center up until now, but now we’re just gonna have that January recital, our winter showcase, is gonna be set aside specifically informal. Welcome in the new year in a relaxed way. Our dancers will show off their routines and it’ll be really awesome.
We will be discontinuing the food catering and instead we’ll be having our studio families sign up to bring from a list, we’ll have a list of kind of things to for people to bring, and we’ll have everybody sign up to bring something from the list.
And then, of course, this year due to COVID we will not, we will not be having any refreshments for our January 2021 recital. So, this is for January 2022 that these are the changes that that you can expect.
We will not have any photography, professional photography, at our January recital. So, we are encouraging our studio families to take videos, take photos. We’ll look at getting a step and repeat or another kind of backdrop where you can take photos of your dancers. Informally, it will be really, it’ll be really fun. And, all of these changes are going to enable us to reduce the price of tickets significantly for our that January recital and, don’t worry each family still gets two free tickets but, we’re just going to reduce kind of the cost and make this more of an informal event.
All right, so that’s our January recital.
Then our spring kickoff, the end of the end of May beginning of June, will be our theater recital. We’ll continue to have it either at the
Historic Grand or some other kind of similar theater venue and this will be the recital where our students will show off everything they have learned for the entire year. So, as you know, our studio year runs from the beginning of June to the end of May and we will perform all of, this is like it. This is our big, boom, end of year bash and it’ll be, this it’s going to be our main show.
We will, whenever available, we’ll have concessions available for purchase and we’re not going to have any food catering at this event either.
We will, however, have professional videos and photos at this event and audience members will be prohibited from taking any video or photo during the show and, unfortunately, if we notice that somebody is taking a video or a photo during the show we’ll have to dismiss them from the performance. It’s just too distracting for performers and other audience members and, I noticed it actually at our recital this year and it was actually quite distracting for me I’m not sure how it was for other audience members but, we’re just not going to have it. And you, will be dismissed if we notice that you are taking any photos or videos during the show. So, we will have DVDs or digital download videos available for sale after the event. Of course, a photographer will be there taking portraits of the dancers as well as kind of action shots throughout the recital. So, there will be plenty of opportunities to get photos of your dancer from that formal show and, of course, as usual you will continue to receive one free digital photo of your dancer and you can select from any of the photos that are available to get that. And then, yeah that’s that.
Oh, and ticket prices, you can you can count on ticket prices being pretty much the same as they were this year; maybe a dollar or two more if you purchase in advance. But, you can count on that to be the same. Okay, so that’s our recital.
And I do want to mention that we’ve been looking to make this kind of a change ever since we started Silver Creek Clogging. We have been trying to get into the local high school, here, at their auditorium for three or four years now and we have been unsuccessful and so this year we just said, “You know what, we need to get into a theater,” and we made that decision to get into this theater. Luckily, due to all the COVID things that went on, that worked out and we were able to hold our performance in the theater; but this is this is a change that’s been coming for a long time and I’m thrilled that we’re able to, finally, make that change now.
Another thing that we’re going to change, this is for youth classes advanced or higher levels only. So, if you’re an adult student, this doesn’t apply to you; if you are a youth student at novice, beginning, or intermediate level this also will not apply to you. But, once you become an advanced youth student, we’re gonna make some changes to our curriculum for you.
This is another thing that’s been a long time in the making. We, over the last few years, we’ve kind of been introducing like a second period for some of our more advanced students. They could optionally enroll in a second class and we’ve just been seeing how that’s going, we’ve been evaluating the value to the students for their learning and progress and just seeing how that might work. And what we’ve noticed is, overwhelmingly, the students who have been taking that second class period have grown significantly. And we’ve recently anyway, we’ve all seen it in our Team Dynamite; when they were up on stage in August, at our outdoor performance, and then again it just last weekend where they were knocking it out of the park. Their sounds are clearer than they have ever been before, their knees are higher, their bodies are just moving with more energy, and their turns are sharper, and they’re more synchronized. It’s just been huge for their progress. And so, again this is something that’s been a couple of years in the making, and we just are making this kind of formal now.
It’s not going to change what’s currently happening, where we have two periods, two classes, for our advanced level students. They will still have those two classes, as they do now, it’s just that now we’re formalizing this as a part of our curriculum. So, it’s no longer an optional thing that they can choose. Beginning in January it will be two class periods for advanced, championship and pro level cloggers.
And this is how it’s going to work:
As the advanced students are right now, they’re going to just have two one-hour class periods per week, for two hours a week, yeah. Once they get into championship we’re gonna add 15 minutes on each class period, so it will be two one-hour and 15-minute class periods, for two and a half hours per week. And then once they hit professional, they’ll get two hour and a half class periods, for a total of three hours per week.
And, because of what we’ve already seen in the growth and development of these dancers, I’m really excited for what this is going to mean for our dancers ongoing.
And, so nothing changes about the tuition you’re currently paying. All that we’re doing right now, in January, is just formalizing this for our curriculum, for our studio structure, and for the growth and development of our students. So that is that. In effect you won’t really see any changes, but it’s just something to note and to be prepared for especially for those dancers who are up and coming, yeah.
Another thing that’s been a long time in the making is our instructor certification course. So, when I started Silver Creek Clogging, one of the things that was pretty much a given to me, right off the bat was that, because there aren’t a lot of cloggers and specifically the type of cloggers that we’re training here, at Silver Creek Clogging, in our area, I really knew that we were gonna have to train our own instructors internally. So, luckily Brooklyn came along, and has been a godsend to our studio in so many ways, that gave us a little time to kind of work on this and develop this as our students continued to grow. So now, we’re ready, we’re working on this curriculum, continuing to work on this curriculum and we’ll be ready to open it up for applications for people who want to apply to be accepted into our instructor certification program early next year. Still the details of that are still being worked out, but I do want to let you know that it’s coming, because this is going to be a really great opportunity for those dancers who are current Silver Creek Clogging students who want to check into what it would take to be an instructor here at Silver Creek Clogging.
And we have very high standards and that’s one of the reasons why this program is in development, is because I want to make sure that this is a formal learning program, this is not like just coming to this is not the same as your dance class every week. This is more like school where you’re gonna have some you know workbook at home assignments, some video assignments, there will be some in studio learning, in class learning. But, it’s not all dancing, it’s some brain work and internal kind of working things out and making sure that you have a level of brain knowledge about what you’re doing here as an instructor. So, we’re going to learn something about leadership, class management, choreography, music editing, in addition to actual like in-class instruction. So, those are the kinds of things that were that will be taught; and it’s a really good opportunity for those students who are current Silver Creek Clogging students to learn what it’s going to take to be an instructor here at Silver Creek Clogging. Again, it’s by application only. There will be certain criteria that will need to be met in order to be accepted into the program; such, as a minimum skill level and other things, so just be prepared for that.
And, also, there are going to be requirements that you will need to meet in order to successfully complete the program. So, not only will there be touchstones along the way, there will be kind of a holistic, I guess kind of exam, at the end where you will need to demonstrate that you understand, that you’ve learned something throughout this course. So, it’s a formal learning course. So, just know that, just know that.
And, if you successfully complete the program then you will be given preference when you apply for any teaching position here at Silver Creek Clogging, for which you’re qualified. So, that will be awesome and as soon as the details are finalized we will let you know, including the cost for the course and ,yeah, any of the other details. So, just be aware that that is coming. And I’m really excited about that.
And, again, these last these three things (our recital changes, our curriculum changes for advanced and higher, and this instructor certification program), these changes have been in the works for years, so I’m really excited that we’re finally able to roll them out.
Our last big change that we’re gonna roll out, starting this Thursday, is we’re making changes to our practicer of the month. So, practicer of the month is intended to encourage students to make daily clogging practice part of their routine and so we want to make sure that we’re spreading that encouragement across the studio a little bit wider. Therefore, we’re going to take the top three practicers.
So, whoever has the top three most days practiced within the given month is gonna be in a drawing. Those three people are going to be in a drawing and we will randomly select one of those top three every month. So, what you have to do is you have to log into your TeacherZone, you have to click the practice timer on when you start practicing, and then you need to click the practice timer off when you stop practicing. We will count the number of days that are practiced every month and then we will have the drawing of who’s our top practicer. Okay. Yeah. So, that’s that and we’ll talk about it in classes this week too, so everybody understands.
And then upcoming. Whew! We’re through the changes, now we’re on to what’s coming up.
So, this week, all week long in classes, we are going to wear our red studio t-shirts to class and whatever crazy socks you want to wear. Anything. Anything crazy, fun, happy that you think will be brighten up your day and your day of your classmates, just wear it bring it have fun it will be awesome.
This Friday, October 2nd is our first Friday open studio. This Friday we’re going to do an online workshop with our friends from Junior Cloggers, in Hillsboro, and High Impact Dance, in Lacey, and we’re gonna learn a version of Thriller to get us in the Halloween spirit. Yeah.
Then, guess what, we’re coming up on our studio anniversary. Yeah, two years in our Silver Creek Clogging studio and we’re going to celebrate. So that’s on October 17th and more details to come, but just keep that on your calendars, it’s just a couple weeks away.
The last week of October, October 25th, remember to wear your non-scary Halloween costumes to class. I love the Halloween costume week. It’s so fun.
And then on Halloween day, October 31st, we’re going to participate in our community trunk-or-treat and we still have a couple spaces available for anyone who wants to participate in that. We will be handing out non-food treats at that event and, yeah, that should be fun.
So, something a little bit sad announcement is, we’re not gonna be able to make it to Autumnfest this year. Just too much going on with COVID and we’re just not gonna risk it this year. I’m hopeful that next year we’ll be able to organize a carpool and joint lodging and make that a regular part of our competition calendar.
So, also in November, remember we do not have any classes at all for the entire week of Thanksgiving. So, that week of November 23rd, no classes.
Okay, so there are the changes that are coming and the announcements of what events are happening in the near future.
We have a lot going on here at Silver Creek Clogging and I’m really loving that you are part of it. You guys are really, really important to just the nice and joyful and supportive and energetic feel that we have here in the studio community and we really appreciate you and we couldn’t do it without you.
And we wish you, I wish you, happy dancing.