Competitive arts pay off for community building, confidence

A dance competition held last weekend saw 23 dance companies bring their dancers to Weyburn, with more than 700 dances in the program.

"The City was very busy. It brought a lot of people from surrounding communities into Weyburn. Different dance clubs from as close as Ogema and as far away as Indian Head and Regina. I'm sure the hotels and restaurants were busy," said Mike Weger of Weyburn.

Mike and Cara have been dance parents for 14 years, and they also helped with the competitions by organizing sponsorships and recognition.

"Our children have all danced at one point in their lives," shared Mike Weger. "We've got four children. Our oldest is Teresa, she's 17 now and she's been dancing since she was three, and then I guess the rest of our children all started shortly after turning three or four years old as well, dancing here in Weyburn with Marley Dance Effex and currently our son has stopped dancing and just does hockey, but our three daughters all currently dance."

He said the dancers spend around seven months perfecting their routines.

"Every week they've got dance class. My oldest daughter spends at least three or four nights a week at the dance studio, from September until March when the competition starts."

Weger noted this was the first competition out of three or four they'll be attending this season. 

"It definitely takes a lot of time and effort, and when you're dealing with multiple routines, we've got some kids in in dance that's probably participated in 10 or more dances, so they have a lot of different routines to learn and they have to memorize it and get it right and perfected before time for competition."

He said dance, as an artistic sport, allows one to be part of a team, but also offers opportunities to compete individually with solos, duos, and trios.

"It's fairly unique to this type of activity. You don't see that with, say, hockey or soccer, so there's some individual competition."

Community building, he said, is another reason to enrolling your children in dance. 

"Then you build your network of friends at dance and they're in your group dances, and then they're out in the stands when you do your solo and then you'll see a performer do their solo and there will be this big loud round of applause from the stands, and it's usually some of their members from their group who have obviously stayed around to watch you performance."

Weger said this is just another example of how dance has helped instill community, and confidence, in each of his four children.

"Just being able to get the confidence to go on the stage in front of a big group of people, we've seen it in all of our children how beneficial it's been."

Weger said the discipline dancers cultivate pays off in many different aspects of life. 

"I see it pay off with my children and other sports that they compete in as well, the skills and the muscles they've built from dancing all the time, it helps with coordination, balance and everything, for other sports as well."

"My oldest daughter Teresa has taken it to the level of continuing with training for dance so that she's qualified to help teach now as well, and it's led to a part time job for her, so now she's getting to give back to the younger students."

He said some of Teresa's groups performed as well this last weekend.

"So she's been able to take it sort of full circle from being that four year old learning how to dance and actually, for her, she was very timid and sort of shy and scared to go and be a part of a dance group and sometimes even crying on the way to the dance class until she got in there," he shared. "Now she's full circle. Now she's encouraging those young ones to come be a part of the group and and get past that shyness, and it's great to see."

Many spectators, he noted, would come to see one performance and stay for the rest of the day, surely happy to be enjoying a live show at long last.

"So the joke at dance competitions is that you go in there, and you sit, and wait, and wait, and wait for your child's two minute dance or something," he chuckled. "But the feedback I hear from people and I've been around it for 14 years, and I'll make the jokes as well, but when you sit down and you wait all of a sudden you kind of lose yourself, because you are enjoying the other performances."

He said the dances tell a story, and are more entertaining than one might expect. 

"This weekend we had people at the dance competition that likely only had to be there for about 10 minutes to watch one person dance that they specifically went there for, but they spent the rest of their day and and the stands were full with people like that, they do enjoy just being here," Weger commented. "It was also nice, after the last couple of years we've had, with the lack of live entertainment, I heard a lot of people say how nice it was to just be able to go out and enjoy some live entertainment again." 

Another running joke for dance parents is the money spent at dance competitions, but Weger said parents have even more expenses leading up to them.

"You have to pay your registration fees when you start, you have to buy costumes, but at the end of the day, it's always money well spent. If your children are enjoying what they're doing, and it's teaching them lessons that are going to make them successful in life, and I stand behind that, that it is money well spent, even though we like to joke a little bit at how expensive it may be." 

He encourages parents who have been considering signing up their young children for dance to do so, even just to see if they like it. 

"I know as a family, we've never regretted the decision."