Personally I have always been wary of “comps”, though I know they are a huge part of Australian dance culture. As a teacher, my concern is that students tend to focus solely on the outcome. The sheer pleasure of performing can be forgotten in the aim to win, or in the face of a disappointing result. Or even in the thrill of winning.
Clearly my view is not shared by most, given the popularity of competitions big and small in Australia. Maybe it is something to do with the national obsession with sport, but the idea of being pitted against one another obviously appeals to many. But is the attraction that simple?
I put the question to two competition fans. Ellen Thomson is 16 years old and lives in the south-west of Western Australia. A dancer with STEPS Youth Dance Company and a student of the Wendy Morgan School of Dance in Bunbury, she has been participating in competitions since she was 11 years old, across a broad spectrum of styles.
Emma Sandall is an experienced professional – having danced with companies such as the Bejart Ballet Lausanne in Switzerland. She is co-director of WA independent dance company Ludwig. As a student she was a keen participant in numerous competitions and lately has been a judge for the Prix de Lausanne in Switzerland and the RAD Festival (WA).
I spoke to Ellen the day after a week-long regional WA competition finished. With traces of face glitter in evidence, she was still riding high on the excitement of the big comp, even though she had just completed an all-day rehearsal with STEPS with a nasty cold and was facing a two-hour train ride back to Bunbury. Are comps a big part of her motivation to dance? I asked. “I think so,” Ellen replied. “Dancing at comps is a chance to dress up and show everyone what you love to do. I look forward to it the whole year.”
Emma’s viewpoint was like the adult version of Ellen’s. “When you work on a solo for a competition, it’s a different form of training to ordinary class work,” she said, as she reflected on own days as a competitor. “Working on a solo and having that attention from a teacher, making and perfecting a two to three minute dance and everything that goes with that – the costuming of it, putting it on stage in front of an audience… and that being a regular occurrence – I think that’s a wonderful experience.”
Emma also found competitions a huge source of motivation as a young dancer. “Up until the age of 16, when I went to the Royal Ballet School, I had these competitions as goals to work towards. Those landmarks really helped to structure my training,” she said.
Both dancers were adamant that competitions can help students to develop artistically and technically. “It’s a good chance to compare yourself to other dancers, and see where you’re sitting and what you should work on,” Ellen said. “Sometimes at your dance school you get stuck in your own little world. At my school I’m probably one of the better dancers – it’s good to get a sense of how I compare to dancers from other schools.” She found the external feedback useful too. “Sometimes the judges pick up on stuff that your teacher hasn’t noticed… or hasn’t mentioned for a while,” she added.
While it could be argued that examinations provide similar feedback, the public aspect of competitions means that dancers actually get to see one another perform. That’s important, according to Ellen. “You pick up on things that you like in other dancers that you might want to replicate.”
The intensity of the competition experience also differentiates it from other forms of assessment. “In two minutes on the stage you have to combine everything you know,” Ellen said. Sandall said the short time frame teaches important skills. “That experience of pressure and rising to the occasion is definitely one of the pros of competing. It’s about pulling everything together, making things that are going wrong go right for you, getting the experience of dancing under pressure in front of an audience.”
Sandall also believed that competitions teach students how to ready themselves for performance. “From an early age you start to assume a certain independence in terms of how you prepare yourself the night before, how you prepare yourself on the day.” Listening to Sandall it was easy to see that competitions could be good practise for the rigours of auditions, as well.
Although Ellen and Emma have had mostly positive experiences of competition, both could see that the competition format had its pitfalls. “There can be bitchiness,” Ellen admitted. Disappointment was another negative to deal with. “Some girls come out of solos and they’ve lost and they think they should have won and they have a bit of a rant. Although you’ve got to just accept it, it is disheartening when the adjudicator thinks you got it wrong. To have someone tell you that it wasn’t good enough when you thought it was can be gut-wrenching.” The pressure on families can also be tough. “I don’t know how my mum survives competition week,” Ellen mused. “My sisters dance too and we’re all yelling at her to fix our hair! I feel very sorry for mum. A lot of the girls get very nasty to their mums.”
A negative experience at a competition could put some students off dance altogether. “Some of the girls who have a bad experience don’t come back, especially if they’re young,” Emma observed. She noted that not all students will do their best work in a competitive situation. “There’s that question of when someone shines. Not everybody shines young. Those knock-backs at a young age might harm someone’s potential.”
Despite hearing about these drawbacks, speaking to Ellen and Emma has given me pause for thought. While some of my concerns have been reinforced, I can see that competitions may have significant benefits for career-minded students. My conclusion is that, if a student wants to go down the competition path, teachers should decide on a case-by-case basis. It’s not just about physical and artistic capabilities but about the pupil’s personality. Is he or she emotionally robust enough to take it?
This article was first published in Dance Australia Magazine October/November 2012
