(Figure: Professional dance studio of CY Ballet)
2077 Victoria Ave, Saint-Lambert, QC J4S 1H1
Ballet is known as the art on the tiptoes.
What is the most important thing for a dancer’s toes? Is it the shoes? The other dancers? Nope, it’s the floor!
Each time a top-level ballet company goes on tour, they are always equipped with three 40 square feet containers.
Guess what these companies bring inside the containers, besides costumes and props? They also bring sets of floors! Not one, but THREE sets of floors for training and performing!
Our new dance studio is bright, spacious, and neat. It’s equipped with brand new barres and new flooring made of soft polyvinyl chloride, as well as a huge mirror that can show your beauty from every angle.
But would you guess which part of the studio was the most expensive?
Are you thinking “No doubt, the mirror!”
Sorry! Once again, the answer is the floor.
(Figure: Professional dance studio of CY Ballet)
As part of the “Fun Facts About Ballet”, every time a dancer lands from a jump, their ankles and knees are subjected to eight times of their body weight.
The average duration of a classical ballet repertoire is around two hours. If you watch the Christmas performance of “The Nutcracker”, the principal ballerina who played the part of the Sugar Plum Fairy had to jump 196 times on stage. Normally, the male dancer has to jump much higher than the ballerina, such that the height of all jumps in a repertoire could add up to 900 ft. or 274 m. in total.
That’s as high as a 90-story skyscraper!
(Figure: Professional dance studio of CY Ballet)
According to our interview with a professional ballet dancer who has suffered two severe injuries during his career, that 70-80% of dancing injuries occur during the landing count. Indeed, no matter the genre of dance, it is important to choose a professional dance studio to train in.
The research findings of Dance Scientist and Biomechanics Specialist, Dr. Luke Hopper, suggest that hard flooring increases the pressure on a dancer's ankles. The only way to reduce this pressure is through high-quality flooring. The ankles are subjected to the greatest pressure during landing which happens in less than one-tenth of a second, and no dancer can avoid the impact, no matter how skilled they are.
To sum up, for dancers, the importance of a good quality floor is even greater than any costumes, props or cosmetics.
(Figure: Professional dance studio of CY Ballet)
With the students’ safety in mind, our founders invested the majority of the school’s capital into the studio’s professional flooring instead of other aesthetic renovations.
The different types of flooring range from simple to more complex, proportionately to the capital investment required, and can be ranked as follows:
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Residential wood flooring (one layer of wood keel, one layer of flooring)
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Sports flooring (one layer of wear-resistance, one layer of reinforcement, and one layer of vibration-absorption)
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Professional ballet dance studio flooring (one layer of shock-absorbing pad, three layers of wood keel, two layers of wood grade plywood, and one layer of PVC flooring)
The layers in a professional dance studio are three times that of other kinds of flooring, and require thrice the installation and labour costs.
(Figure: Professional dance studio of CY Ballet)
Although there are no industry standards for flooring, CY chose to implement the highest standard for every student.
To achieve this, the founders consulted with an internationally well-known ballet flooring company to review the interval and thickness of the wooden keels and planks required for the PVC flooring to fit in the calculated area.
(Figure: Stretching time of Pre-Ballet II class)
For now, our students are very young, and their weights are still light. Since they are only starting to practice the basic movements up to two hours per week, their joints are able to take the pressure at this age.
However, CY is always thinking about our students’ health and safety. With time, our little dancers will grow and their weights will increase. With the introduction of pointe shoes at around 10-12 years old, the pressure on their joints will be exponentially greater.
Therefore, CY believes that we are in duty bound to equip the studio with a top-level dancing floor for our little dancers.
(Figure: Stretching time of Grade I class)
CY hopes that every dancer is able to enjoy the fun and health brought by ballet.
Not every ballet company brings the highest standard flooring on tour and not every ballet school equips their studio with the best flooring available.
(Figure: Stretching time of Pre-Ballet I class)
Every student in CY is a treasure, we are committed to bringing the finest quality ballet training to our area while providing a warm, supportive, fun, and safe environment for our dancers and their families.