Pillars in the Studio [Archive]

Terpsichorean Clod

10-24-2009, 02:38 AM

I've been to some 15 studios in my area of which only one has a pillar, and I've been there just three times. So I'm pretty unfamiliar with pillars. Last year, I had a period during which I danced considerably better with my eyes closed. This coincided with a business trip to Maryland. It was my first visit to DuShor Studio. A few minutes into my practice, I discovered a pillar at the end of step 1 of a natural turn.

wooh

10-24-2009, 02:59 AM

Just pretend the pillar is a slow moving couple that can only do a box. :)

fascination

10-24-2009, 08:18 AM

lol...my practice room has pillars...and um...as a follow I do alot of moving backward without a dude watchng where I am going...and when I first started, I was doing a tango, and almost knocked my self out cold doing a reverse right into one of the pillars...um...I have a lttle problem with forcefulness...now I think my sense of alignment is good enough that I know howto set myself up to navigate them...but I do tend to think that that is why sometimes my head is turning on lessons when it shouldn't...b/c I am a tad too accustomed to having to look over my shoulder

10-24-2009, 09:24 AM

As nutty as this probably sounds, I wish our current studio had a room with pillars. They are so fun to play with. :) It has been my experience with dancing, particularly in AT, that pillars only add interest to our dancing! THat is, if my partner is aware of them and decides to use them as props.

etp777

10-24-2009, 09:26 AM

In my main studio we have two pillars, but they're setupso that as long as you're paying attention to LOD, you just go around them. Other studio has no pillars, but also has smaller ballroom

mad123

10-24-2009, 08:07 PM

The main room has two, but they are in the middle and do not impact dancing too much. In the smaller practice rooms there is one that is oddly located but still workable.

Wide, open spaces without pillars can be tough to find. I remember when helping a friend look for a new studio location this was a big issue.

etp777

10-24-2009, 08:12 PM

Thinking of studios I've been in in area othre than my main two, it seems they've all either got pillars (or at least one), or they are noticably smaller spaces. Like one that is long and thin, tough to have say beginners doing box in middle while we do waltz around edge. Or one that has no pillar per se, but is l shaped with a wall in between the legs. Definitely not a lot of big open floors aorund here, outside of the various hotels ballrooms, of course.

mad123

10-24-2009, 08:15 PM

Part of it is a structural thing and in certain zoning areas buildings are required to use support pillars every certain number of feet. For a large space you seem to have to look at places that used to be things like warehouses or car dealerships that aren't subject to the "pillar rule." At least, that is the case in my area.

etp777

10-24-2009, 08:17 PM

Guessing you're right. And definitely doesn't help for studios near my office, since they're normally part of multistory building, so even tougher and more expensive to build without pillars, even if zoning allows.

I'd love to turn an old aircraft hangar into a ballroom. Of course, the flooring would cost more money than I've made total at every job in my whole life. :)

fascination

10-24-2009, 09:20 PM

sigh...in a previous life I was looking at potentially being part of a studio purchase...and one of the most viable options was a glorified pole barn sort of shell...one can put a jillion dollar floor down in a fairly cheap building and make it work....while it didn't pan out (at least for now and not with me as part of the equation) it had it's merits....my current studio has that look on the outside, but is freaking enormous and elegant on the inside...with the biggest studio floor I have ever found (not that I have danced on more than a dozen) the long wall is as long if not longer than some comp floors...then again, w/FP we danced in his itty bitty living room and functioned respectably aside from some minor cuts and bruises...where there is a will, there is a way

etp777

10-24-2009, 09:21 PM

Heh, I used to practice in tiny bit of floorpsace in my apt bedroom in kuwait. Mostly rhythm though. :)

Hrmmm, now you have methinking about the studio thing again since I had plans of that too at one time.

10-24-2009, 10:27 PM

On the flip side of the space constraint issue, sometimes even when I dance at the largest venue in my area -- quite large and pole-free -- I go off the floor once in a while. Without fail when this happens, I complain jokingly that the room is too small.

As for poles, I often dance at a particular studio that has one. When I was a total beginner, it was always in my way. Happily it's padded! Eventually I came to see it as just another part of the dance space, but not a problem. It shapes traffic at social dances there in a particular way.

There's another studio in the area that has a grid of pillars -- I don't remember exactly but there's something like a 4x4 grid of them spaced every 15 feet or so. They're not padded. Figuring out the angles for standard floorcraft -- including the merging patterns for traffic -- was "interesting."

etp777

10-24-2009, 10:31 PM

On mythbuster's ep I saw today they were in old military structure that was 480 ft long and looked to be about 100 ft across, no pillars, completely level Now that'd make a heck of a dance floor. Though would take a serious sound system to get music through that. :)

Terpsichorean Clod

10-25-2009, 12:41 PM

Just pretend the pillar is a slow moving couple that can only do a box. :)
Humans are softer.

Terpsichorean Clod

10-25-2009, 12:45 PM

Guessing you're right. And definitely doesn't help for studios near my office, since they're normally part of multistory building, so even tougher and more expensive to build without pillars, even if zoning allows.
I suppose I should be grateful for Californian sprawl. :)
I'd love to turn an old aircraft hangar into a ballroom.
http://www.uss-hornet.org/calendar/bigband/ ;)

Terpsichorean Clod

10-25-2009, 12:49 PM

....my current studio has that look on the outside, but is freaking enormous and elegant on the inside...with the biggest studio floor I have ever found (not that I have danced on more than a dozen) the long wall is as long if not longer than some comp floors...
Up until a year ago, there was a 118' x 48' (5,664 sq. ft.) dancefloor at a local studio, coincidentally named Starlite. ;)

Terpsichorean Clod

10-25-2009, 12:54 PM

As for poles, I often dance at a particular studio that has one. When I was a total beginner, it was always in my way. Happily it's padded!
I like the padding idea. Ski lift tower bases are padded. I've seen a studio "pad" a pillar with artificial plants. Or maybe the idea was more to conceal...

I just dug up an interesting article on how in spite of liability waivers on lift tickets, resorts (in certain states?) still have a duty to pad their tower bases, among other things. I wonder if studios could have a similar issue with pillars.

old dog

10-25-2009, 06:34 PM

Our dance instructor has her studio in a converted olympic-sized horse arena. I can't remember how many thousand square feet of open space there is. She laid a laminate floor having the maximum dimensions allowed by the material specs and it covers only about 1/3 of the whole space. Another third is carpeted -- a place for tables that could easily seat 250-300 people. The "back" 1/3 of the room has a stage and a curtain closing off work and storage areas. There are no pillars or posts in sight.

This is truly a "ballroom" and is more than is needed for studio dance parties where there may be only 60 or 70 people present. There have been a few private events held by the building's owner, but, unfortunately, he does not wish to make the facility available to dance clubs or bands that would attract larger numbers of dancers. Too bad!

fascination

10-25-2009, 06:40 PM

Up until a year ago, there was a 118' x 48' (5,664 sq. ft.) dancefloor at a local studio, coincidentally named Starlite. ;)
the first several times/ months (okay, still a little) I was very intimidated

Peaches

10-25-2009, 06:44 PM

Terpsichorean Clod

10-25-2009, 11:34 PM

Heh. Fun with pillars (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvDh29_sGE0). See 1:25.
Well played! :applause: One of those pillars looks suspiciously familiar. :eyebrow:

BasicsFirst

10-25-2009, 11:47 PM

With the luxury of selection, we (DP and I) will neither practice, nor take lessons at a studio where there are pillars.

fascination

10-26-2009, 03:07 AM

Well played! :applause: One of those pillars looks suspiciously familiar. :eyebrow:
snort

fascination

10-26-2009, 03:07 AM

With the luxury of selection, we (DP and I) will neither practice, nor take lessons at a studio where there are pillars.
really, you find it that critical?...or are there other factors?

Chris Stratton

10-26-2009, 03:41 AM

Pillars can make some - typically quite classic - phrases of dancing either impossible to execute, or impossible in a way that leaves consideration for others on the opposite wall. Yes, there are still fun noodly things you can do, but it feels like having an unbalanced diet.

The other problem is that they tend to create eddies, rapids, and backwaters in the flow of social traffic.

But in some areas the default archtecture is built around them, making a space without, or a workable width between, a real treasure. What can work nicely is if a row of pillars demarcate the line between the floor and sitting / mingling area.

10-26-2009, 08:23 AM

What can work nicely is if a row of pillars demarcate the line between the floor and sitting / mingling area.

....except that sometimes this layout leaves no good space for people to find new partners at the edge of the floor for the next dance.

DancinDrea19

10-26-2009, 01:45 PM

luckily I don't think my studio has any pillars that i can think of....If it did I'm sure I would have crashed into them by now!

davedove

10-26-2009, 01:59 PM

We have two big pillars at our studio, but they are situated in the middle of the floor and really define the line of dance well.

I can honestly say that my floorcraft has always been good enough that I have never run into a column, wall, etc. Other couples now......:oops:

BasicsFirst

10-26-2009, 02:39 PM

really, you find it that critical?...or are there other factors?

I wouldn't say "that" critical, but they are (the studios with pillars) significantly outnumbered around here, (2 that I can think of compared with the umpteen others available). The pillars I've run into (hehe) are never dead centre to the floor, or maybe they wouldn't have bothered me.

So in short, just enough to be annoying, and negative emotions of any sort during dance practice... just aren't good.

Flyingkamakiri

10-26-2009, 11:44 PM

I feel blessed that the studio i go to has no pillars. But when parties come around and people decide to Practice their Cha Cha during a quickstep song, then things get ugly...

Tangoqueen

10-27-2009, 12:12 AM

Thank goodness for the huge studio I'm at: NO PILLARS......OF ANY KIND! :-) I've been to one of 'newer' studios but in an 'older' building and tried to dance there, and nearly ran into 2 pillars they have there. No thanks, I don't want any at a place I dance.

Flyingkamakiri

10-27-2009, 12:28 AM

Actually TC might know more about this, but are there any studios with pillars around the Bay Area?

Chris Stratton

10-27-2009, 12:38 AM

We have two big pillars at our studio, but they are situated in the middle of the floor and really define the line of dance well.

The thing is that the progressive dances evolved material to use the entire floor many gnerations ago.
Unless there is 15 feet or so on each side of the pillars, what they tend to do is prevent the whole family of inside sequences from being used, leaving only the outside sequences. And pillars plus a corner lost to elevator / restroom / desk can be enough to mean a basic foxtrot can't run through to the three step unless you start go on the wrong side of the pillars.

Standard Dancer

10-28-2009, 11:07 AM

Actually TC might know more about this, but are there any studios with pillars around the Bay Area?

I can't think of any that do ...

Lioness

10-30-2009, 06:25 AM

We don't have pillars - our studio isn't big enough. At one stage we nah a couple of low hanging TVs in the back room that DP almost hit his head on, but nah. No pillars. I wouldn't trust our social dancers not to hit them. Most of them have a floorcraft level of not.

Terpsichorean Clod

10-31-2009, 02:50 PM

etp777

10-31-2009, 02:51 PM

Good advice tc. Make your partner sacrifice themselves to the pillar, tangoqueen! :)

Terpsichorean Clod

10-31-2009, 02:53 PM

Actually TC might know more about this, but are there any studios with pillars around the Bay Area?
Vima has one. Allegro has two in the backroom.

Oh, and Allegro has one in the main ballroom, a few inches off the dancefloor. If you can hit that one, you're pretty talented.

Terpsichorean Clod

10-31-2009, 02:53 PM

latingal

10-31-2009, 03:49 PM

TC, you're killing me... *grin*

Tangoqueen

11-02-2009, 09:07 PM

You do smooth, right? Break apart. The pillar can't get both of you at the same time. :razz:

We do both, Smooth and Standard. At this particular time, our Standard waltz fell victim to the pillar. I was shaping so nicely at that time, up until my head nearly collided with the culprit!! Good thing we weren't pivoting, huh? :o

Tangoqueen

11-02-2009, 09:13 PM

Good advice tc. Make your partner sacrifice themselves to the pillar, tangoqueen! :)

Yeah, to heck with him! Let the pillar get him! :D
No, I don't really mean that. (or do I?)

fascination

11-02-2009, 09:32 PM

lol...I have just now had the realization that I know you TQ...belated welcome...and see you tomorrow

Terpsichorean Clod

11-03-2009, 12:23 AM

We do both, Smooth and Standard. At this particular time, our Standard waltz fell victim to the pillar. I was shaping so nicely at that time, up until my head nearly collided with the culprit!! Good thing we weren't pivoting, huh? :o
I'm glad the pillar didn't add any extra shaping to your body. ;)

Lioness

11-03-2009, 05:30 AM

Social dancer here. I can hit a pillar whenever I want. :razz:

That's why I said *our* social dancers. Most of them are pre pre pre bronze standard.

Terpsichorean Clod

11-03-2009, 10:31 PM

That's why I said *our* social dancers. Most of them are pre pre pre bronze standard.I knew what you meant. It's all good. :cheers:

Tangoqueen

11-04-2009, 11:30 AM

lol...I have just now had the realization that I know you TQ...belated welcome...and see you tomorrow

Oh no! So much for remaining anonymous....;)
I didn't make it until about 5:30 yesterday.
Either way, I'll see you THERE at some point.

Tangoqueen

11-04-2009, 11:34 AM

I'm glad the pillar didn't add any extra shaping to your body. ;)

I know, right???
Thank goodness, I already have enough little injuries (knee, arch...) Nobody said dancing was easy.......repeat phrase as necessary. I have people asking me why I do it if I get all those painful things, but anybody on this board can probably answer that: if you really LOVE it, you do it anyway!

fascination

11-04-2009, 11:50 AM

Oh no! So much for remaining anonymous....;)
I didn't make it until about 5:30 yesterday.
Either way, I'll see you THERE at some point.lol...no worries...i was only joking...i am under no illusions as to my anonymity/lack thereof...i just don't generally have folks calling me by my first name around here :)