Members of Dancers Edge performed on stage for the first time in two years while filming routines to be submitted to be judge.
The filming took place at the Warman Community Middle School theatre on March 19 and 20, as all ages and skill levels within Dancers Edge performed their respective routines they’ve been working on since last fall.
Seventy-four dance routines were filmed for two separate competitions; Dance City Promotions’ MEET in YXE and the Spring Stars Dance Festival.
Because of COVID-19 restrictions those competitions cannot happen in a live format like they usually do, so they are accepting video submissions from respective dance studios who usually perform at those events.
“They’re filming them for us and then they’re being sent off to adjudicators,” said Amy Bertram, studio owner of Dancers Edge. “They’re still going to be put up against other dancers who are in the same age and genre category, and adjudicators will just watch videos, instead of dancers live.”
As part of the competition fee Dancers Edge was able to have 5by5, a professional videographer crew, film the routines.
While filming the routines, Bertram mentioned that the current public health order and COVID-19 guidelines still had to be followed which was a challenge to do.
“All of our routines had eight dancers or less,” said Bertram.
The youth were still able to practice routines and work on their strength and conditioning at Dancers Edge studio in Warman during the pandemic, but Bertram was really excited for them to actually be able to perform competitively, since all competitions were cancelled last year.
“It’s amazing. There’s just no other way to put it, it was the most gratifying feeling to see them all actually on stage,” she said.
Once adjudicators of the respective competitions are done evaluating each performance, Bertram said they will use those critiques to improve as dancers.
“We’ll get all the critiques back and the adjudicators will be able to give us points to work on for the dancers as well as the choreographers and give everybody a little bit of feedback,” she said.
She also mentioned it’s great to hear what they have to say so they can fine tune the respective performances for their annual recital which will be done virtually.
“We are re-filming everything after we get all of our adjudication sheets back and we get to progress based off of what those adjudicators say,” said Bertram.
The filming will be done in a similar fashion to the competition video submissions because they still have to follow those guidelines set for activities like dance.
All of the dance routines will be compiled into one video and Dancers Edge will stream that online which will act as their dance recital.
“It’ll be exactly like the recital DVD except it will be premiered online for them,” said Bertram.
There are 270 dancers registered with Dancers Edge and Bertram was glad to see that number of youth continue to with the programming at the studio despite the uncertainty during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“They stuck with dancing even though some of the rules changed and the restrictions changed and we had to adapt, but the kids still love to dance,” she said.
