Conference entertainment - opening an event with a bang!

Event Flair was asked to provide dance entertainment in Auckland, New Zealand for a conference - to kick off the event with a bang! Our dancers in suits delivered a slick, impressive and energetic routine as entertainment to start the event, and to build excitement for the evening to come.

The brief was a mash up of style - the client asked for hip hop dancers but also requested a club classic song and had inspiration videos of vogue style dance, we decided to take influence from contemporary, jazz and hip hop dancing to create our finished product, with a touch of vogue for style.

The client's logo/brand colours were blue, pink and purple, so as the dance was quite masculine and strong, we went with blue jackets to create a uniform feel. This looked really effective as it stood out amongst the formal corporate black that many of the crowd were wearing, and as they were larger fit jackets they created more movement as the dancers performed, which looked very effective.

The performance itself was not on the stage but in the crowd. The client wanted it to be a surprise and we felt this was the best way to do it. It also allowed the audience to be able to view the routine from all angles, and we took advantage of the extra room by adding more complex formations, turn sequences and jumps. The song was an expressive piece which the dancers’ facials and movements mirrored, so we felt it would be really powerful for the audience to be up close and personal with the performers.

The client had a saxophone performer who was playing his instrument as well as DJing as guests were arriving and before our dance. The client’s request was to have him continue to freestyle play throughout our dance performance, to increase intensity and also tie the performances all together. To prepare for this/to practice with the additional music happening, we had one of our Event Flair guitarists record a solo over our practice music so we could get used to the additional music. It is really fortunate that we have a mixture of talents here at Event Flair to allow us to prepare in this way, as excellence is really important to us.

The choreography itself took inspiration from contemporary dance to start as the first part of the music didn't have a drum beat. We used a special contemporary technique which involves locking into each others energy and movement in order to stay in sync, as relying on the beat of the music wasn't an option. We used lots of cannons (that is, dancers repeat a move one at a time, slightly after each other) which create a really beautiful visual effect, as well as playing with gravity and catering to each of the dancers strengths - there were moments of flexibility and strength from each individual dancer.

Once the beat kicked in, we built momentum with the routine starting slow with pops of flair - big jumps, turns, mixtures of slow and quick movements, partnering and playing with various formations and levels. As the song reached its peak, so did we - the routine broke into an energetic hip hop/jazz style routine designed to get the crowd really excited. As requested by the client, we ended the routine continuing the dance through the audience to spread the energy and create a blended transition into the formalities of the conference.

The combination of dancers were chosen specific to their strengths - some were strong contemporary dancers, others were jazz and musical theatre trained and others had trained in vogue dancing. This was all on purpose to meet the client's brief to cater to a creative crowd who loved visuals - we had to think outside the box for our entertainment to cater to them best, and the client was so pleased with the result:

“OMG - That was amazing last night, thank you! Loved every minute and will use your team again for sure”

We loved opening this Auckland conference with a dance routine and are looking forward to working with this client again!

You can watch snippets of the performance here.

Learn more about event dancers and dance entertainment here.