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When the world shut down in March 2020, every little thing stopped. No extra gatherings, no extra group dance lessons. Slowly, and due to the improvements of many decided minds, life earlier than the pandemic started to emerge once more. However otherwise. Many colleges turned to Zoom and on-line platforms to carry lessons, some dance studios began to mark up their flooring giving dancers at the very least six ft aside.
Many college dance packages remained completely distant throughout this transition time, however Melanie Shelley and her employees at Oklahoma Metropolis College (OCU) developed a well-researched plan to maintain their dancers as secure as attainable whereas nonetheless offering an in-person expertise.
“College students rotated days between within the studio and of their rooms for lessons,” explains Shelley, Government Director of OCU’s Ann Lacy Faculty of American Dance and Leisure.
So, the logistics had been mapped out – however what about security? Relying on the style of dance, acceptable flooring is essential to a dancer’s coaching and mastery of a talent.
Whereas Shelley says she was conscious that Stagestep, a dependable and revolutionary dance flooring firm, offered faucet boards, it wasn’t till these early days of the pandemic that she started to analysis them. She quickly realized that they may very well be utilized as an answer for the group of dancers utilizing dwelling areas for sophistication.
Stagestep’s Massive Faucet Apply Board is 4 ft by 3 ft, excellent even for a dorm room ground. The multipurpose picket board is transportable, and was created for faucet dancers in thoughts, making for excellent sound at dwelling. The boards are made from a thick wooden and are laminated in a Marley ground faucet floor, with a high-density foam shock layer. They will slot in a dancer’s closet, below a mattress and within the trunk of a automotive for journey.
“We bought 325 faucet boards to take a look at to dancers and music theater and theater college students who additionally take dance lessons at OCU,” Shelley recollects. “This allowed us to socially distance college students within the dance studios, and the scholars Zooming in from their dorm rooms had the faucet boards as a secure floor for dancing. The faucet boards had been a crucial a part of our security plan and college students experiencing in-person studying.”
Shelley says one among her favourite options of the Stagestep Faucet Apply Board is the froth padding on the underside, which she says is “crucial to guard dancers’ joints whereas tapping.” As well as, “the vinyl overlaying matches the dance floor in our studios. The choice to have a barely larger board that’s nonetheless transportable isn’t at all times an choice with different faucet boards on the market.”
With Shelley and her college students utilizing the model’s faucet boards so regularly, she realized there could also be a pair methods to even additional enhance the board’s design. “As a result of we now have very superior tappers utilizing the boards, they needed to faucet all the way in which to the perimeters,” she says. “Stagestep took this suggestions for his or her latest board design by putting foam padding all the way in which on the edges of the board for stability, and changing a deal with gap lower out of the board to a carrying deal with hooked up to the underside of the board.”
“The suggestions supplied by Melanie Shelley and OCU concerning the Stagestep faucet boards performed a major function in influencing the product growth course of,” shares Stagestep Managing Director Vanessa Botha. “Particularly, the suggestions highlighted a problem with the design of the outdated faucet board, which featured a deal with cutout that posed a threat for dancers as they may hit or fall into it whereas faucet dancing. In response to this suggestions, Stagestep took decisive motion by redesigning the faucet board. They addressed the difficulty by putting in a brand new deal with that was hooked up to the again of the board, thereby eliminating the problematic gap current within the outdated faucet board design. This adjustment not solely mitigated the protection concern but in addition improved the general usability and efficiency of the faucet board for dancers.”
The truth that Stagestep took an teacher’s suggestions and let it affect the product growth course of exhibits the dedication the model has to its customers and to the protection of dancers.
The makes use of for the Stagestep faucet boards have lasted via the pandemic and are nonetheless an necessary useful resource for OCU lecturers and college students at the moment.
“Our faucet professors completely love the brand new faucet board design,” Shelley says. “They really use them on prime of our present sprung dance flooring to present them somewhat further peak and sound readability when demonstrating steps! College students take a look at faucet boards for the varsity 12 months to permit them to observe of their dorm rooms. Faucet school have observed a constructive distinction in college students’ progress once they make the most of the faucet boards for dwelling observe. We are able to carry out in non-traditional areas using the faucet boards. We even produced a promotional video with 100 dancers tapping in entrance of Oklahoma Metropolis College’s administration constructing.”
Botha provides, “Total, faucet boards are extremely regarded for his or her skill to facilitate efficient faucet dancing observe classes by offering a sturdy, transportable and high-quality floor for dancers to hone their abilities. Their versatility and reliability make them indispensable instruments for dancers trying to enhance their method and efficiency talents.”
Stagestep’s Massive Faucet Apply Board is light-weight and nice over nearly any ground floor. It additionally is available in quite a lot of colours, together with gray, orchid, clover, blue and pink. As well as, Botha hints, there might be a brand new sized faucet board (junior) that might be accessible sooner or later. For extra info and to buy a faucet board, go to stagestep.com/product/large-tap-board-4ft-x-3ft-portable-engineered-hardwood-board.
By Laura Di Orio of Dance Informa.
Sponsored content material.
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