# Spike a Dance Floor



## MNicolai (Dec 3, 2011)

We had a group come in recently that used glow tape to mark their dance floor. They marked it along the downstage and upstage edges at half(ves?), quarters, eighths, etc. 

Is there a standard(ish) way that dance companies want their spikes at?

For example, is half at center stage, or are halves halfway between CS and off-stage?


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## Footer (Dec 3, 2011)

I do a T at center on the downstage and upstage edge. I then do marks at the quarter line, which is half the distance from the center to the edge of the first leg. If they need more then those marks they usually just go to a number line. 

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## techieman33 (Dec 3, 2011)

Most local dance companies here do full strips of 1/2" spike tape at center and 1/4 lines, and an X for any specials.


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## Toffee (Dec 4, 2011)

We do basically what Footer said. but normally it is a red LED attached to a 9v battery for center, a green or yellow for 1/4 and 2 fully off stage on either side, these are all placed at the edge of the marley so that the dancers don't step downstage enough to get off the marley. They normally also put the LED's on the booms too at about chest height.


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## venuetech (Dec 4, 2011)

large center and smaller quarterline T's with the top of the T aligned with the Grand curtain line or aligned with the downstage lighting limits. An set of the same just clear of the upstage traveler. A center stage X


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## Grog12 (Dec 5, 2011)

Footer said:


> I do a T at center on the downstage and upstage edge. I then do marks at the quarter line, which is half the distance from the center to the edge of the first leg. If they need more then those marks they usually just go to a number line.
> 
> Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk


 Most every company I've worked with does at least this. 

We do center, quarter, and eighths. Center is always red quarter is always green. 

I've seen the dolly dinkle dance companies do numbers but they seem to be musical theatre thing more than dance.


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## esmphoto (Dec 5, 2011)

Toffee said:


> We do basically what Footer said. but normally it is a red LED attached to a 9v battery for center, a green or yellow for 1/4 and 2 fully off stage on either side, these are all placed at the edge of the marley so that the dancers don't step downstage enough to get off the marley. They normally also put the LED's on the booms too at about chest height.



I like the idea of Leds instead of glow tape and actually I read in another thread recently, let me see ummm... stage-edge-safety, about several stages that have LED strpis at the end of the stage with color changes to indicate center, half, etc


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## icewolf08 (Dec 6, 2011)

Grog12 said:


> I've seen the dolly dinkle dance companies do numbers but they seem to be musical theatre thing more than dance.


 
Yeah, probably a musical theatre thing, though all things considered, probably gets more talent on spike than just marking center and quarter lines. Of course that could just be that theatre people are more inteligent than dancers....

When laying down dance numbers, they typically go every 2 feet and are labled accordingly. The one exception I have seen to this was for "A Chorus Line" where the numbers were laid down ever two feet, but went 0,1,2,3... as opposed to 0, 2,4,6.


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## MarshallPope (Dec 7, 2011)

More musical theatre-driven, but our stage is marked, from center, 0 --- A --- 1 --- B --- 2 --- C --- 3 --- D --- 4 etc. IIRC, they are every two feet. It makes it easy to do the whole "First row get on the numbers, second row get on the letters" thing.


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## Aerial (Dec 9, 2011)

I'd consider what footer said as standard. Spike tape is semi-permanently placed in those locations on my stage. If they want anything different they will let you know.


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