Good Topic. In my opinion a solo if fine, because to me it's the same dancer with the same talent so you can turn the music off and they will still be the same one person with the same capeability so a repeat solo doesn't bother me. I find it unfair when group routines are repeated year after year and are selected to go to finals three years in a row or more at a national. I was at nationals and this actualy happened and the dance only ever recieved the last place in the finals so why on earth did it have to keep getting in! that makes me crazy because it is more then one person and each year i think the nationals should be all new dances!

^^ I can agree about routines for nationals. That sort of thing should require new routines. But at competitions that don't do nationals and it's just finished right then, I don't mind one or two of the routines being reused. If the group only has two routines, and they're the ones from last year, I think it's a wrong choice. But if they have four routines, and two of them are new, two old, then it's okay to me.

I'm finally going to give my opinion about this, I feel that the studios repeating dances on a regular basis are failing their students. Not saying all of them but what are they learning every week?

I mean if you worked on this dance all of 2007 and competed with it in 2008 then when fall 2008 rolls around then work on something totally new.

I don't feel the students are being challenged now by any means do I mean don't reuse choreography. Because we all have done that in the past but take some of your best 8 counts and complicate them instead of a simple double pirouette maybe remix it a little.

And the competitions needs to start following their rules that they mandated, once it gets and overall or a title it gets retired in my opinion.

Great topic!

Thanks for all of the feedback. I should ALSO add that she qualified for nationals both years and I know for a fact that her studio (and her) went to nationals last year. She didn't win there but I'm guessing they may be going back again.

It's just very disheartening for me. The ONLY reason I think it is ok to reuse a routine is when the dancer can still grow into it. For me this doesn't happen much though because I choreograph my solos to fit the dancer who is dancing them. Grrr...It just really frustrated me.

I agree. If it is only about winning a competition trophy, they are doing a disservice. We were used to spending less time perfecting dances and more time teaching them technique and picking up new and different dance styles.

I have seen, as a teacher and a judge, schools who have almost all the same choreography for their dances. You know, after two steps, even if the kids are different, who is from what school. How sad!!

Many of these kids struggle in the workshops to pick up new work. They are not creating dancers, just competitors. It is like Dancing with the Stars. They are not dancers, they are learning routines. Period.

I can't speak for other studios, obviously, but as the one other poster said, the routines we do keep from year to year are ones that we either improve and make more challenging, where the dancer can still grow into it, or where we only started the routine about 2-3 months before the end of the dance year. We don't tend to reuse ones we started way back in August/September. Everyone's generally sick of those anyway, so there's no interest in keeping them. But the ones that they really enjoyed that were started around March we sometimes carry over into the following fall, since our dance year ends in May.

Bigred, that makes sense but I think the ones that are just used to make the students better in THAT dance, just to win, is another issue.

We had a repertory of dances that each new generation learned, but more for performances than competitions.

I do agree that routines that win first/platinum/overall/top/title awards should not be repeated from year to year. That isn't fair to other performers as well as the ones performing the routines. As someone else said - what do the dancers learn/gain from it?

If the routine did not do well the year before, I don't see the harm in reusing it to try and do better AS LONG AS its not the sole focus of their year in the classroom. Afterall, a large part of competition is to win. But a dancer should be exposed to mainly learning new things each year, and learning new choreography. But I think that's what many of you are saying as well...

I choreographed a recital dance that I loved, so did the kids and the parents. I decided to take it to recital the next year. We had started it in February, performed it at recital and then not touched it all summer. In September or October we started it back up again - 9 out of 12 girls were the same. I changed a couple of sections of choreography and then we polished it. When it came time to perform the dance in recital the next year (even though we had take a couple months off after comps) the girls did not want to practice it or perform it. In the year since first learning it they had grown so much as dancers that the dance was way too easy for them and they were bored.

That was only a year and a half with two big breaks from the dance. I think I would go crazy working on the same choreography for two years...

I know of one studio that I used to compete against as a dancer and teacher that used the same dances year after year as a group, duet, trio, solo, production, etc.

I am already so sick of most of my dances by this time of year that I can't even possibly imagine still seeing them this time next year. I have only recycled one dance in ten years of teaching, and I regretted it from the moment I started it. That was six years ago, and I would really think twice about doing that again.

Personally each year my own style changes and evolves, and things I used to focus on, I don't. We work on new things, new styles, etc. I can't imagine holding kids back and using things that should have already been at their best the previous year.

I feel that this time of year is when I really get my best. I always start that one dance that turns out the be everyone's favorite in the recital around now, because I feel like all of the dances already going bore me. I try to do something different than what my other dances are.

I just feel like we're not only doing a disservice to our students, but to ourselves and our creativity by reusing what we've already created. Solos I guess I could see a little more, but a solo that got a high silver, not that placed overall. What more do you need to work on at that point?

Yeah, I hear ya! I get bored with stuff. Other than ballets, and even they change with each cast a bit, we liked the fun of new routines. My style has changed over the years.

No I dont think that it is wrong... If it is a winning dance I would of kept doing it also

Where's the fun in that? I mean using the same choreography and song and everything year after year.... just so you can win. How can that satisfy you as a teacher or a dancer? Competitions are a way to show your creativity and talent. How can you feel like you're challenging yourself by doing the same thing? And I get bored also, with using the same song. I feel so proud when I see my dancers up on that stage preforming a dance they worked so hard for all year. They learned the new choreography and challenged themselves. So if they win I know they earned it. I mean do what you want and what makes you happy but I just can't see how that can be fulfilling, repeating dances like that. Its different if you use the same song and similar choreography with a different group of dancers or dancer a few years after you first use it, I've seen that before.