It goes without saying that learning to dance is a privilege, and one that can become a big expense to a family. The same can be said for teaching dance - with some teachers taking on additional income streams in order to supplement their dance teaching career. Dance is an expensive lifestyle, and this is without a constant supply of teaching shoes, be it for ballet, tap, jazz... the list (and supply) is endless. For students, their dance shoe collection is also substantial for their various classes, plus private lessons, competitions, costumes… the list goes on!

For dance teachers, their passion for dance which encouraged them to pursue a teaching career will have begun in a very similar way to their students. They too will have been encouraged to attend classes and be involved in the world of dance, moving on to taking part in additional opportunities, extra performances and competitions. Covid-19 aside, it seems the opportunities available to dance students today are limitless. There is a huge number of ‘extra-curricular’ dance routes aside from students’ regular classes.

There is often debate about the expectation of loyalty from dance students, and there is undoubtedly a fine balance between encouraging students to expand their outlook of the dance world and enhance their experiences of it, whilst expecting them to honour their classes with their teacher, and keep up their practice of technique and syllabus work. Equally a teacher will feel as though they have an obligation to themselves if they enter their students into examinations for the board they belong to, and seeing their students succeed. Ultimately the arrangement must work for both the student and teacher, due to the extent of time, money, passion and energy that goes into a lifelong dance love.

"Galit and her Classic Ballet Class" by Flavio~ is licensed with CC BY 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0