At-Home Dance Options
Looking for ways to improve your At-Home Dance space? Here are some suggestions collected by our Teaching Staff. These are by no means required. We are thrilled to dance with you in whatever space you have at home. Since we had multiple families asking, we wanted to put it all in one place for you.
Setting Up an At-Home Dance Space:
Designate a space in your house for your family to take class. If you have more than one dancer taking at one time, this may require finding more than one space in your home!
Before class begins, take a moment to clear this space–toys, books, and some furniture can be tripping hazards!
Set up your Zoom Class viewing device so that your dancer can see the screen in their dancing area.
Some classes (specifically, ballet) may ask that dancers find something they can use as a barre. A chair back or shelf will work great–just be sure your dancer doesn’t put too much pressure on the piece of furniture so it does not tip over.
If your area has a rug, you may choose to roll it up or not, based on your dancer’s preference. Just know that the dancing surface at home may feel very different than in the studio (more slippery, more sticky etc.), and your dancer may need to adjust accordingly.
Portable/Temporary Dance Floor Options
Some families may choose to purchase a portable or temporary floor to put on top of their home floor to protect it (and themselves) as they dance. This is not by any means a requirement of dancing at home with All That Dance, but we wanted to share some options with you if you were looking for a dance floor.
For ballet, jazz, modern, or dancers who take multiple dance genres
This mat of marley flooring is what we have in the studio–and claims to be rigid enough to work for tapping.
For tappers who want to hear their sounds
A few of our teachers and students have purchased this 3’x3’ floor off of Amazon. It is portable and breaks down into pieces to hide easily between uses.
For another portable dance floor option available for purchase, another student of ours recommends this.
For a less expensive option, we recommend going to your local hardware store and purchasing a sheet of particleboard, masonite board, or plywood in a length and width that fits in your dance space and allows your dancer a little room to move and hear their tap sounds. Dancers don’t need much more than 3 or 4 feet each direction in order to practice most of their steps.
To protect their home’s floor, dancers are also welcome to tap in sneakers or tap in their tap shoes on a carpeted surface/secured rug, though this experience may feel very different than tap dancing in-studio.