Pillars in the Studio

Does your studio have pillar(s) or similar obstacles?

  • Yes

    Votes: 24 44.4%

  • No

    Votes: 30 55.6%
  • Total voters
    54
Terpsichorean Clod

Terpsichorean Clod

Forum Master
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.
 
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
 
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.
 
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
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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. :)
 
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
 
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.
 
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."
 
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. :)
 
etp777 said:
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.
Click to expand...
I suppose I should be grateful for Californian sprawl. :)
I'd love to turn an old aircraft hangar into a ballroom.
Click to expand...
http://www.uss-hornet.org/calendar/bigband/ ;)
 
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