Candle Tray Dance Workshop

photo by moiPerforming with a candle tray during a segment of your show is a wonderful way to engage and mesmerize your audience. The fire, the mystery, the sensuous music and the suspense of such balancing act can take your audience's breath away and get you more work.

But the candle tray dance is indeed a balancing act. Just because an experienced performer can make it look easy, it doesn't mean that it is. You need lots of practice, a strong dance foundation and at least a basic knowledge of composition, showmanship and musicality for it to be effective. Oh, and very important: you need feedback.

For the past few weeks I have been developing a candle tray workshop with my students at Serena Studios. Here are some notes, enjoy them and don't forget to leave your comments.

Your Routine

Let's begin this workshop thinking about the big picture: the structure of your tray routine. We will go into the particulars later.

As with most other things in life, you want your tray dance to have a curve:

beginning - development - climax - ending

Start simple, build up to a climax and have a meaningful and memorable ending. The most important factor to consider is your venue. What kind of entrance and exit does it allow? Is the floor smooth enough to do floorwork?

Some possible beginnings: 

• Entering from offstage carrying your tray. 
• The actual act of lighting your candles in a ritualistic manner.
• Dancing "for" the tray (kneeling on the floor), then lifting the tray and dancing while holding it.

Sample routine:

1. Pre-set your tray center stage (you can ask a friend to do this for you.) 
2. Enter from upstage. Travel diagonally towards the tray.
3. Kneel and dance focusing on the tray in front of you.
4. Lift tray and balance it on your head. Do some floorwork while balancing it.
5. Stand up and dance, still balancing.
6. Create a shimmy section to raise the energy, still balancing.
7. End the shimmy section with a big, clear accent, such as a quick lunge or a sharp arm shape, still balancing.
8. Lift tray from your head, in time with the music, using a clear and deliberate arm pattern. Pause as the tray is high up. Slowly place tray on the floor. Do arm movements and hand flourishes to the tray.
9. Finish in temple pose, kneeling. 

In the outline above, steps 6 and 7 are the highest point, the climax. We will talk more about this later.

Your Palette

We will now take a look at all the elements you have at your disposal to craft your candle tray dance. You will make choices as to where they fit in your routine's outline.

These elements include: musicality, dynamics, movement groups, floor patterns, story, emotions and showmanship.

Next Page: Musicality 

CANDLE TRAY WORKSHOP
<< index | part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6 | part 7 >>

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