[GRisdale]

In January I'm taking a contemporary dance piece to a studio to be filmed. The studio has a permanent dance floor type covering, but the sub floor is solid (feels like screed concrete). Am therefore concerned that this will be a bit hard on the dancers.

I have an 10m x 8m Harlequin Reversible floor to lay on top, but am pondering whether to try and put an underlay of some kind beneath it to add a bit of give to the floor. Obviously it's not going to be like a proper sprung floor, but I want to try and make it better for them if I can. Don't have the time or money to build a temporary sprung floor, so am hoping there's a 'roll out' solution.

Has anyone done this before? Any suggestions? I'm currently looking at laminate flooring underlay.

Gareth.

[Bryson]

Harlequin make a roll-out cushioned floor - Allegro. (A small square of which serves as my favorite drinks coaster on my desk, but I digress...)

Doubt you'd find it in rental stock anywhere though - the rolls would be amazingly heavy and large for the length. If you were planning to buy, though....

Or you could get all clever and use a portable wooden sprung floor. I know of at least one that exists in "rental" stock. That's the route I've gone down before. I forget whose it was exactly (Adventure in Motion Pictures, maybe?) but I know it "lived" at Greenwich Dance in a storeroom under the stairs. It was labour-intensive but easy enough to use, and the results were much appreciated.

Even the type you get from a Marquee company would be better than raw concrete with some reversible over the top.

[J Pearce]

We have a 10m x 10m wooden panel sprung floor that takes 3 men around 2 hours to lay. We use it for dance events in our concrete floored black box studio. It's harlequin liberty but with sprung metal clips to help keep it all together.

It could be available for hire if you are interested, but you'd have to collect and return including shifting it out of its storage container.

Alternative is to lay two layers of dance floor, dancers have reported this solution as 'a bit spongy but better than concrete'.

[cfmonk]

+ 1 for talking to a marquee company.

We could lay a raised interlocked system which feels a bit like a springy stage, would have to ratchet strap the whole thing together but if you had something to go on top then it could work.

[GRisdale]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. In the end we're going with a few layers of vinyl dance floor. The performers are happy with it and there just isn't enough time to put anything more complicated in (or the money to buy cushioned floor). Thanks for the offer Jonathan - will store that one away for the future

Cheers,
Gareth.

[LampTramp]

A few layers of vinyl that sounds expensive!
Why not just put down sheets of skim gaffer it on the joins and edge and the dance floor on top...
only about £4.00 a sheet, that's what we put down for a temporary dance surface in fringe venues etc.
Just an idea and not mega bucks.
Regards