My husband is seriously talking of moving to Australia in the next couple of years. Although I would love to. My only concern is that my daughters would have to give up disco. They love it and absolutly love competing.

I know Australia doesn't have disco like we do. But I was wondering if you would be able to tell me what your alternatives are and how often competitions are held etc.

Thanks
Vena

Hey Vena,

I can only speak for Perth. There are comps in April school holidays, June long week-end, July school holidays and October school holidays.

The most common sections are - Ballet, Tap, Modern/Jazz, Acro and Song and Dance with all associated sub-sections.

There are solo sections, duos and trio sections and Troupe Sections.

I hope this helps. It's pretty general, I didnt want to go too in-depth and confuse you.

are there any websites with comp info? i am new here too and would like to have more info. as well

There are definitely some big competitions for dance(ballet jazz tap hiphop, song and dance, contemporary etc)/acting/singing.

dancetrain.com (if still up) should have a list of national competitions, otherwise big ones I know of would be the McDonald's Performing Arts Challenge in NSW and Showcase up in QLD.

Generally competitions are very good here in Australia. There are sections for both solo and troupe events (sometimes duos and trios etc) where only one act is dancing on stage at any one time. Most competitions are graded - they're not really stringently watched as in Disco or Irish, but the idea is that you start in Specially Restricted, if you place you go to Restricted, and if you win (in either SR or R), you go up to Open. These 'grade' names may change depending on the competition but there is always a section explaining the levels in the eisteddfod syllabus. Some of the bigger competitions will be Open only - which means open to everyone (but usually only the advanced ones will enter).

Marking is based on technical ability and performance quality, generally strong emphasis on quality over flashiness (which is something America is having a lot of trouble with right now). Many people consider solo eisteddfod as being a kind of middle step to dancing professionally.

The comps tend to run roughly all year long, usually on weekends (although I have done some really stupid ones during the school holidays where I had one session a day... argh I was angry). Bigger comps will run on weekends over several months (eg McDonald's aka City of Sydney eisteddfod).

This may sound sligtly left field...but another thing that is sooo similar to disco is sport aerobics/aerobic gymnastics (whaever you want to refer to it as!) it comes under the gymnastics family, not dance, but it has so many resemblances to disco. Competition wise, there are 3 fedeations of competitons to be involved in (FIG/ANAC, schoolaerobics (but clubs can enter) and FISAF. Most clubs don't do all 3, but if you were to do all 3 potentially you could be competing up to about 10 times per year.

Fast music, bright coloured leos, lots of flexbility and jumps (but no flips), big competition scene, national competitions and networked competition scene. World championships also exist.

I'ts not big in the UK I don't think, but here are some routines for example!

youtube.com . . .
youtube.com . . .
youtube.com . . .
youtube.com . . .

Thanks, thats great.

Certainly plenty for myself and my girls to look into. We have lots of time to research and no need for rash decisions.

Vena