There’s a funny thing about dance competitions.
At the time, they feel like everything.
The costumes. The rehearsals. The nerves backstage. The trophies. The scores. The placement announcements that can completely change the mood of an entire team in under thirty seconds.
And as studio owners, teachers, and parents, it’s easy to get swept up in it too.
But every now and then, a conversation comes along that reminds you what actually lasts.
This week on the podcast, Amanda sat down with choreographer and creative powerhouse Stephen Tannos, and somewhere between stories about giant stage skirts and dancers dressed as Victorian bicycle riders, they uncovered a really important truth:
The performances people remember forever are rarely the ones that simply “tick the boxes.”
They’re the ones brave enough to be different.
Stephen shared the story of one of the first routines he ever created for Amanda’s studio.
It involved quirky costumes, human bicycles, Queen’s Bicycle Race, and a very nervous young choreographer wondering whether he’d completely lost the plot.
The piece was weird. Creative. Unexpected.
And Amanda loved it.
Not because it looked like every other winning routine at the time — but because it didn’t.
That moment became the foundation for years of creative collaboration between them. Wild ideas were encouraged. Strange concepts were explored. Big artistic risks were taken.
Some routines won.
Some didn’t.
But the routines people still talk about decades later?
They were often the ones that never placed at all.
And honestly, that says a lot about our industry.
One of the most powerful parts of the conversation was around the pressure young dancers feel today to fit in creatively.
Social media has changed everything.
Students are constantly consuming choreography online. Viral trends dominate. Everyone wants the next “TikTok moment.” And because of that, originality can feel risky.
Why create something different when doing what’s already popular feels safer?
But here’s the problem:
The artists we admire most are almost always the ones who leaned harder into who they already were.
Stephen talked about choreographers like Paris Cavanagh and Bob Fosse — creatives whose movement is instantly recognisable because they stopped trying to move like everybody else.
That kind of artistic identity doesn’t happen accidentally.
It develops when young dancers are given permission to experiment, fail, play, and trust their instincts.
And as studio owners, that’s such an important question for us to ask ourselves:
Are we creating environments where dancers feel safe to discover who they are creatively?
Or are we unintentionally rewarding sameness?
Now let’s be clear — competitions themselves aren’t the problem.
Competitions can build resilience, teamwork, performance quality, discipline, and confidence. They can be incredibly valuable experiences for students.
But when placements become the only measure of success, creativity can quietly disappear.
Stephen shared a story about a routine involving dancers dressed as musical instruments — including one child literally dressed as a double bass.
The piece never really placed.
At the time, that felt disappointing.
But years later?
People still talk about it constantly.
Meanwhile, many of the routines that actually won during that era have long been forgotten.
And maybe that’s the reminder we all need sometimes.
Success in dance isn’t always immediate.
The things that leave the biggest impact are often the things that challenge people at first.
Another part of the episode that really resonated was the conversation around virality.
So many dancers and studios now feel pressure to create content specifically designed to “blow up” online.
But Stephen made such a good point:
The moments that truly go viral are usually the ones created organically — not strategically.
His most successful choreography online came from a routine he almost threw together casually at the last minute. There was no master plan. No calculated formula.
It simply felt authentic.
And that’s something worth remembering in business too.
Not every post needs to perform perfectly.
Not every idea needs to become a trend.
Sometimes the things that resonate most deeply are simply the things that feel honest.
One thing both Amanda and Stephen touched on was the challenge of helping teenagers understand the importance of foundational training.
Because let’s be honest — technique classes aren’t always the “cool” part of dance training.
But they matter.
A lot.
Stephen openly admitted that while students may see commercial classes as exciting and inspiring, the real long-term growth often comes from the classes they resist the most.
That reminder feels especially important right now when quick success is so heavily glamorised online.
The strongest dancers — and often the most successful creatives — are usually the ones who learned how to stick with the unglamorous work too.
At its core, this whole conversation really came down to one simple idea:
Be yourself.
Which sounds incredibly cliché… until you realise how hard it actually is.
Especially for teenagers.
Especially for artists.
Especially in a world constantly telling people what they should look like, dance like, post like, and create like.
But the dancers who truly leave a mark on the industry?
They’re rarely copies of someone else.
They’re the ones brave enough to lean fully into who they already are.
And maybe that’s one of the greatest gifts we can give students inside our studios:
Permission to be different.
Permission to experiment.
Permission to fail sometimes.
And permission to discover their own creative voice along the way.
