Are you keen to be part of one of our crew groups, Fresh, Exhibit or Gravity?
Auditions take place at ELEVATE approximately once a year.
You will learn a variety of choreography – some travelling work and also be prepared to pull out a bit of your own improv skills! You will be in a group of dancers, learning like normal – except we will treat the class like a real audition – you come in when invited (already having warmed up – stretch etc as you wait) – You will sign in and receive a number to wear. Spread out and prepare to listen to the teacher/choreographer.
Once the piece of choreography has been taught, (this will be faster than normal, so the best thing to do is do your best and leave the rest!!) you will do it in smaller groups. Sometimes the groups will get smaller and smaller. You can’t read into the groups too much – sometimes we see someone a few extra times because we didn’t see them properly in the larger groups – or perhaps they are very skilled and we want to make sure they’re correct for the crew – so don’t feel bad if you haven’t or have been asked to come up again – just enjoy the choreography, show us what you can do and think of it as a good learning experience.
It’s really important you are ready – this means, confident – so confident you could dance in front of a crowd with performance in your presentation. You need to have a good grasp of various styles of Street Dance, like Locking, Vogue, House etc, and be able to switch them up accurately. You need to have super clean lines, and be really focused learning choreography because you will be part of the team – where you aim to dance in complete sync with clear strong lines and positions. You must be a team player – kind, positive, hard working, patient and have a mature attitude. You must be able to see things as the ‘crew’ not just from your own perspective.
If you get into crew we will email you and invite you to join – you can decide to join if you and your parents are happy with all the information and commitments.
You might not get into crew. You will get feedback for next time which is so valuable to your growth as a dancer. And it never means you are not a great dancer! It could be something to do with your style not matching the current crew members … you might be an amazing performer, and achieve amazing things in our shows and performances, but for crew you’re just not there yet or aren’t the right fit. REMEMBER you can do anything! Just because you don’t get in this time doesn’t mean you can’t next time, the time after or in future auditions. You can work towards being in the crew, and we will help you to get there. It’s important to spend time positively understanding what you need to do to improve your chances. If you feel upset that’s natural and OK, talk to your parents and to your teacher, but if you feel negative and angry that is a good indication you are not ready to audition for crew.
JC and other teachers have auditioned for many dance jobs and have not always been successful, it doesn’t mean they weren’t good dancers, and it always proved to be an excellent experience and taught them a lot as a dancer.
It’s different to just doing a normal ELEVATE class, where, of course we want you to be committed to classes and rehearsals…being part of Crew is a really serious commitment. You must be ready to work hard, on time, be completely dedicated to class times, extra rehearsals and weekend show and competition dates. You will be expected to put crew first, before other hobbies.
You must support your crew mates. Make effort to get to know them during class and be friendly and helpful.
Anyone who does not show the right attitude during class, is not focused, often late or misses rehearsals will be spoken to – this will mean you will need to think about improving these things and if not will be asked to leave crew until you’re ready to re audition. JC will speak to you and your parent to make sure there is a full understanding and she will support you if there are genuine reasons behind any non commitment or struggle to focus / be positive in class before any decision is made. We care dearly for each student, and understand that issues can often be sorted with understanding, communication and care – please be open to discuss issues with JC/teacher.
Anyone who chooses to take time off crew for a significant amount of time due to another commitment (which we completely understand and this does happen) will need to re audition. You will need to inform JC/teacher as soon as possible of any upcoming other commitments which will mean you will be taking time off crew.
We attend 2-4 competitions per year where you will be required to pay for the performers ticket which ranges from £15-£25 per comp, depending which comp we are going to. We ask parents to help drive crew dancers to the competitions and suggest that parents help the parents who volunteer with travel costs – we leave this to individuals.
We invest in costumes once a year, and ask for help from parents with this. We try to be sensible and re-use things we already have, so never ask for more than approx. £20 at one time.
The crew classes are an extra training class (1 hour) per week – this is an extra added cost to your normal classes you do at ELEVATE – all ELEVATE classes including Crew classes are the same price per class. Extra rehearsals even when we book halls etc are all FREE.
September 30, 2016
