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ventaDon't forget, London-based persons... it's not too late to watch people playing silly-buggers with swords this weekend:
http://www.dert2012.co.uk
My dance team, Mabel Gubbins, wears collarless white shirts and black jeans, black shoes and coloured velvet sashes. One of the judging criteria at DERT is "Presentation", which includes the smartness and uniformity of costume (more commonly called "kit"). In previous years, Mabel have been marked down for such crimes as "inconsistent trousers".
Now, the main reason we have inconsistent trousers is that, as a team, we have inconsistent arses. We have a skinny seventeen year old who's nearly 6', and a dumpy forty-something who's barely 5', and a variety of shapes and sizes in between. The chances of one style of trousers fitting everyone is zero.
We do also have inconsistent shirts. Some are old-fashioned gentlemen's dress shirts (one of mine has neat holes for collar-studs), some are from GAP. Some are button-through, and some are smock-style. One of my shirts was tailor-made for me by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hendybear's shirt company; two years ago we agreed that we would all get shirts made by him. There was much agitated discussion, some people wanted polycotton, some only wanted 100% cotton. An agreement was argued out.
On the day appointed for our first serious competition practice, we would all measure ourselves, I would send the measurements off, and our shirts would arrive in time for DERT. Sadly, we failed at the first hurdle. As I was brandishing tape measures, a visiting rapper guru said no, don't be ridiculous, you can order them cheap as chips online.
Which turned out not to be quite true. Workwear companies, he said. But none of the companies I found seemed to carry them, and a conversation in a local stockist bordered on the farcical. By then the momentum was lost and we competed in our usual motley collection of shirts.
This year, Ang made a really concerted effort to get people to sort their shirts out. She ordered a sample from an online company which supplies "Grandad shirts" (collarless, buttons to half-way down the chest). When the sample arrived, there was dissension. The cotton was too heavy. The cotton wasn't white, it was slightly off-white, meaning we'd never be able to mix and match. The smallest size was too big for our smaller dancers... Lynn looked very uncomfortable about the idea of wearing even an S. Once Claire is in kit[*], it would really become an issue because she is incredibly slim. I did email the company several times to ask whether there was any chance they could source smaller shirts, but they never bothered to respond.
In the end, we all compromised on a solution "for DERT". Our solution wasn't intended to be optimal, wasn't intended to suit everyone... it was merely intended to exist for the duration of the competition. And, I suspect, once instituted it will be deemed "good enough" and will be adopted as a full-time solution. I hope.
Last week, we purchased six M&S boys cotton school shirts. 16" collar turned out to be big enough for those who said "a boys' shirt will never do up round my chest". The shirts go down to 4-year old sizes, too, so will cater for the tiniest dancers we will ever have. School shirts are cheap, and they are (allegedly!) non-iron. Taking two apiece Lynn, Sally and I have unpicked the collar bands, removed the collars, and sewn everything up tidily.
(Except, when I came to get my sewing machine out, I discovered that the power lead and foot-pedal are missing. I have no idea where it is. Accordingly I had to do it by hand, and I hand-sew very badly. So my two shirts (neither of which will be worn by me :) look rather like they were stitched by a monkey. Who was only two. And had learning difficulties.)
So, our matching DERT shirts aren't 100% cotton, which some people don't like. They button all the way down, which some people don't like. And a couple of them look like they've been sewn by a two-year-old monkey.
But they exist, dammit.
[*] Claire is a recent recruit who used to dance with a different team. She's still learning our dances, and we haven't quite beaten the Mabel style into her yet. Accordingly, she's not "in kit", ie she doesn't dance out in public yet. Won't be long now, though.
http://www.dert2012.co.uk
My dance team, Mabel Gubbins, wears collarless white shirts and black jeans, black shoes and coloured velvet sashes. One of the judging criteria at DERT is "Presentation", which includes the smartness and uniformity of costume (more commonly called "kit"). In previous years, Mabel have been marked down for such crimes as "inconsistent trousers".
Now, the main reason we have inconsistent trousers is that, as a team, we have inconsistent arses. We have a skinny seventeen year old who's nearly 6', and a dumpy forty-something who's barely 5', and a variety of shapes and sizes in between. The chances of one style of trousers fitting everyone is zero.
We do also have inconsistent shirts. Some are old-fashioned gentlemen's dress shirts (one of mine has neat holes for collar-studs), some are from GAP. Some are button-through, and some are smock-style. One of my shirts was tailor-made for me by
hendybear's shirt company; two years ago we agreed that we would all get shirts made by him. There was much agitated discussion, some people wanted polycotton, some only wanted 100% cotton. An agreement was argued out.On the day appointed for our first serious competition practice, we would all measure ourselves, I would send the measurements off, and our shirts would arrive in time for DERT. Sadly, we failed at the first hurdle. As I was brandishing tape measures, a visiting rapper guru said no, don't be ridiculous, you can order them cheap as chips online.
Which turned out not to be quite true. Workwear companies, he said. But none of the companies I found seemed to carry them, and a conversation in a local stockist bordered on the farcical. By then the momentum was lost and we competed in our usual motley collection of shirts.
This year, Ang made a really concerted effort to get people to sort their shirts out. She ordered a sample from an online company which supplies "Grandad shirts" (collarless, buttons to half-way down the chest). When the sample arrived, there was dissension. The cotton was too heavy. The cotton wasn't white, it was slightly off-white, meaning we'd never be able to mix and match. The smallest size was too big for our smaller dancers... Lynn looked very uncomfortable about the idea of wearing even an S. Once Claire is in kit[*], it would really become an issue because she is incredibly slim. I did email the company several times to ask whether there was any chance they could source smaller shirts, but they never bothered to respond.
In the end, we all compromised on a solution "for DERT". Our solution wasn't intended to be optimal, wasn't intended to suit everyone... it was merely intended to exist for the duration of the competition. And, I suspect, once instituted it will be deemed "good enough" and will be adopted as a full-time solution. I hope.
Last week, we purchased six M&S boys cotton school shirts. 16" collar turned out to be big enough for those who said "a boys' shirt will never do up round my chest". The shirts go down to 4-year old sizes, too, so will cater for the tiniest dancers we will ever have. School shirts are cheap, and they are (allegedly!) non-iron. Taking two apiece Lynn, Sally and I have unpicked the collar bands, removed the collars, and sewn everything up tidily.
(Except, when I came to get my sewing machine out, I discovered that the power lead and foot-pedal are missing. I have no idea where it is. Accordingly I had to do it by hand, and I hand-sew very badly. So my two shirts (neither of which will be worn by me :) look rather like they were stitched by a monkey. Who was only two. And had learning difficulties.)
So, our matching DERT shirts aren't 100% cotton, which some people don't like. They button all the way down, which some people don't like. And a couple of them look like they've been sewn by a two-year-old monkey.
But they exist, dammit.
[*] Claire is a recent recruit who used to dance with a different team. She's still learning our dances, and we haven't quite beaten the Mabel style into her yet. Accordingly, she's not "in kit", ie she doesn't dance out in public yet. Won't be long now, though.
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no subject
Date: 2012-03-30 03:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-30 03:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-30 03:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-30 04:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-30 05:53 pm (UTC)Here: http://dert2012.co.uk/venues/soho is a list of all the Soho venues, click on any venue for a detailed timetable of who's dancing there and when.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-31 09:33 am (UTC)WIN! :-D
no subject
Date: 2012-03-31 11:10 am (UTC)(Also, polycotton? For dancing in? Are they mad?)
no subject
Date: 2012-03-31 11:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-02 09:42 am (UTC)100% cotton does not meet these requirements! Also, I don't have a problem with polycotton for any other reason, as far as I'm aware.
A tumble is basically a backwards somersault over the swords, supported by hands on the shoulders of other people, see here (http://dert2012.co.uk/about/dert) for a picture. I imagine there's plenty of footage on youtube, but our network is a bit knackered at the moment and I can't check.
Tumbles are one of those things that every team that wants to be exciting will put in (we don't ;) thinking that so long as you get over without injury it's all fine. But actually they often look rubbish - to be really good they need to look effortless, land in time with the music and (if more than one person is doing it at once) be in synch with each other.