The competition team is open to any dancer who is enrolled in the pre-professional division. Dancers will be divided into teams based on age and ability. The dancers on each team will compete a few different styles of dance and all members of the team will participate in all of that group's dances in order to promote team unity. The competition team will practice once a week and is not a part of the class curriculum, but rather an extracurricular activity. When dancers are learning new choreography they may be scheduled for longer rehearsals, also longer rehearsals may be called for groups who appear to need a little more practice on their dances. Dancers may not miss more than four rehearsals per semester. There is an attendance incentive program to reward dancers with good attendance in rehearsals and classes.
Dancers on the competition team represent the Iowa Ballet Academy in public and are therefore expected to behave in an appropriate manner. Any dancer found badmouthing IBA, its staff, or its students will be permanently removed from the team without any further warning. This also applies to team parents and anything posted online through social media. We are teaching team building skills, professionalism, and cooperative learning!
Our competition team is divided into three groups: the Junior Team is for our youngest competition dancers and will compete ballet, jazz and tap. The Pre-Teen Team is for our strong intermediate dancers and will compete ballet, jazz, tap and modern. The Senior Team is for our most advanced dancers and will compete ballet, jazz, modern, lyrical and musical theatre.
The dancers will be divided into groups based on age and ability, but all of the dancers in each group will dance in all of that group's dances so they truly work as a team. So for example, on the Junior Team the group will compete ballet, jazz, and tap, so your dancer would compete all three of those group dances and so would everyone else in that group.
We are not placing any limits on solos, duos, or trios, so dancers on the competition team may do as many of those as they like. We encourage people to use this as an opportunity to compete styles that we don't compete as a group. All requests must go through the director in order to keep track of who is doing what, but we are happy to allow any of our staff members to do choreography.
For the 2014 competition season we will be attending three local and one out of town competition plus a national competition early in the summer.
Dancers who wish to be considered for the 2014 competition team must take the competition team intensive August 5th-9th. Please see our class schedules for further information.
Dancers on the competition team will be required to purchase a team warm-up suit and bag. These are the same as last year, so only new competition team members will need to buy them unless your child has outgrown his or hers.