Have been thinking wether the rectangular shape of the dance studios we all know is the best one? Have you had any experience of performing in other types of spaces? If so than how did it affect you and your performance? Joh

Non-parallel walls and non-right angles make it oh-so-much harder to accomplish the task of dance training. It is very disorienting. And your image in the mirror keeps showing up in the "wrong place".

I think it depends on the type of dancing. Certainly ballet is easier to teach in a rectangular space, since the correct form has so much to do with symmetricality and orienting yourself to the front and to 45- and 90-degree angles from the front. I can imagine forms of dance that wouldn't require that sort of orientation.

I'm studying at LABAN in south Lonodn and pretty much none of the studios have right angles. I am used to it, but I think ballet training would have been a bit easier in the early stages when the focus was on postural alignement. as for the other styles, it didn't make much of a difference I don't think. What I don't like is the lack of windows in the building - I value natural light!
A

the studio I go to is far from rectangular, but bit doesn't matter so much ; like Arnaxela, I miss the sun light (we 're in the basement) ; the wosrt is that there's a square pillar quite in the middle of the room !

I've certainly taken class in studios that weren't perfectly rectangular, but the angles were all 90 degrees. But when you account for avoiding the piano/table/doorway, it gets very strange.

Both studios I've taken class in recently have natural light, with one even having a skylight. However, the skylight was sometimes a problem in the evening hours because the setting sun would get in our eyes at the barre.

Kate

Aren't some of the Paris Opera Ballet's studios famous for being non-rectangular (octagonal?)? And there are also the Russian studios with tilted floors to simulate their stage rake.

--Andre

In the old Broadway Dance Center studios in NYC there was this one studio that was like a square with one side strangly curved. Madam Darvash used to always use that studio to teach in and it was very very strange to dance in there or atleast for me. I have a hard time in well lit spaces that are oblong or not square, maybe it is an excuse but I do notice a significant difference in my ability to balance.