Thread: Format for Corporate Events

Thanks to everybody's sage advice, my preliminary meeting with the big prospective corporate client was hugely successful! The event planner is reviewing my press kit and asking me to take leadership in helping him recruit an Arabic band and possibly another dancer. (Plus, he said he'll compensate me for helping him coordinate all this). All I need is a signed contract in my hands and we're good to go.

The event will have an estimated attendance of over 300 people, all walking around throughout their large meeting space (which will be set up to look like a Middle Eastern bazaar). He'd like my program to last anywhere between 30 mins and an hour.

The event planner said he might like some sort of brief instructional component to the BD demonstration. This could potentially get tricky, with another dancer involved, with a live band, and with so many people. I'm thinking maybe 40 mins. max of an "ambient" type of show (where the dancing sets a mood without taking center stage) plus a 20 minute mini-lesson?

Do you think this would be a smart idea? Or would it make more sense to just do a general audience participation type of thing?

I'd be interested to hear how others have structured similar types of corporate gigs...

I'd say no-go on the lesson, the logistics sound too busy and crowded (unlike a shower or at home party where you can command attention.) I would also perhaps split the hour between two dancers in a 2 song situation 2 songs dancer a, 2 songs dancer B, or you could both dance around the room, engaging people to dance with you for the hour. Remember an hour of dance (even ambient dance) can really take it out of you, and people have like super short attention spans so you may want to do a short stage show (like 15 minutes) take a short break and then start ambient dancing around the room. It will let people know there is a dancer, you can teach hip drops/shimmies to small groups of people at a time and you won't have to worry about keeping up huge show energy the entire time.

I did something similar at an event in mid-town, it was fun and I met lots of great people.

Yeah, a no-go on the lesson would probably make more sense, given the parameters of the situation...

I've only done one hour-long ambient-style show (for a film premiere) and maaaaaan, was I sore the next day. It was doable because of the low-key energy, but if there wasn't another dancer there to cover me between intermittent breaks (and vice versa), it would've been even more of a challenge! I don't think Maybelline makes a mascara that can withstand an hour of full-force, serious dancing .w.:

Perhaps, since we'll be roving the crowd, it will be more conducive to extemporaneously pulling up small grouplets of individual audience members and teaching them a quick shimmy or two. I can see where a full-blown lesson could interrupt the "flow."

Originally Posted by SatinWorship19

Yeah, a no-go on the lesson would probably make more sense, given the parameters of the situation...

I've only done one hour-long ambient-style show (for a film premiere) and maaaaaan, was I sore the next day. It was doable because of the low-key energy, but if there wasn't another dancer there to cover me between intermittent breaks (and vice versa), it would've been even more of a challenge!

Perhaps, since we'll be roving the crowd, it will be more conducive to extemporaneously pulling up small grouplets of individual audience members and teaching them a quick shimmy or two. I can see where a full-blown lesson could interrupt the "flow."

Yes.

And . . . yay!

Deborah

I agree, audience participation sounds like a more realistic approach than a mini lesson- unless it is actually organized that way, & I would say do the show & then announce the mini lesson in another part of the conference hall for interested parties if they are really set on the lesson (I did this at a convention once & it went over well)

with the whole attention span thing (& I think Tanya had some good suggestions too) you might have one person do their set, have an audience participation break & then have the second set (just one more way to break it up :)