Hi Dancers and Parents,
After some concerning incidents with the costumes at the Civic Show and Utah Classic, I asked Candi to write some IBA Costume Guidelines. Please open the attached document and read these through with your dancer. Candi visited every team a few weeks ago to personally explain them to the dancers.
These are three examples:
- costumes were all over the floor of the dressing rooms, being walked on in some cases. Costumes were not put away after the competition, it was like costume shrapnel everywhere.
- name tags were taken out of several costumes. Our sewing moms spend a lot of time fitting every single costume to the dancers. There is a name in every costume piece. Sam totaled that up - it’s 970 costumes! When the names are taken out, it creates more work for the sewing moms. One team had to be entirely re-fit after Utah Classic.
- girls costumes were found in the boys dressing room. We don’t know if this was on accident or on purpose. But, it meant that the coaches were looking everywhere for these costumes and couldn’t find them to put them away.
We are really serious about helping the dancers understand the importance of taking care of their costumes. We will be starting this policy: If any dancer is found mis-treating their costumes, taking names out, hiding them, or any other malicious or harmful actions, this dancer will be dismissed from IBA. We know this is a severe reaction, but we feel that we need to make sure that these problems do not continue.
We are beyond grateful for the work that Candi, her assistant Meredith, and all of the sewing moms do to create, sew, fit, alter, clean, and pack the costumes for our dancers. We want the dancers to be mindful of all that has been put into their costumes, and help to care for them more diligently.
Parents, we appreciate your help in talking with your dancers as a reinforcement of this. We’re very excited to watch our dancers this week! We want it to be a positive experience for everyone!
As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns -
Janie Fisher Director, Idaho Ballroom Academy 208-201-6366 idahoballroom@gmail.com