| Been thinking about this for a while now. Both from a point of view of a taxi-dancer (was one in Central London for over 2 years), and also from the PoV of being a teacher, and what I expect the taxi-dancers to do.
I'm not too sure about point 4. The first thing that always puts me off anything like this - shopping, eating out, new hobby - is the 'hard sell' approach. If I like it, I'll come back/buy it/whatever. If I don't like it, I won't. So, the taxi-dancer should be trying to make the evening as enjoyable as possible for the new person, without pushing it down their throats.
A lot of people come along to dancing without really knowing what to expect - it's not like taking up football or something similar where you have a pretty good idea about what's going to happen before you arrive. Hence, some people take to it, some don't. And if they don't, then they aren't going to stick around.
Most of the time, beginners lack confidence, and the best thing that the taxi-dancer can do, is try to give them the confidence to stay. This comes through point 1 - feeling more capable of being able to actually do some moves helps. And while they've already been through them with the teacher, being part of a class - where most people already know what they're doing - doesn't really give them a great deal of confidence. Doing the moves again, where they can ask questions, in a much more relaxed setting (unless you're cramped in a small corner of the hall while the intermediate class is going on) is a better way of giving beginners confidence that they actually can 'dance'.
I definitely agree that point 2 should be done though. Although, it's important not to overkill - people can only take in so much information at a time. Better to give a few really relevant points, than to try to give all the information in one go.
Finally (at last I hear you cry), no matter how well the taxi-dancers have done, it's no good if the beginners come back from the consolidation (or whatever you call it) class, walk into the freestyle, and immediately get fast or rhythmically challenging tracks to dance to. I would say that the freestyle between the classes, and the first 15 minutes after the intermediate class should be aimed at beginners (which also gives the less experienced intermediates a chance to work on what's just been taught in the intermediate class) - there's still plenty of decent danceable tracks that have a strong beat without being too fast that can be played then, and would hopefully encourage the beginners to stay for a little while at least. I couldn't begin to count the number of times have I heard the DJ play totally inappropriate stuff right after both classes, not giving people a chance to practise what they've been taught.
Steve |