MDF Dancefloor

[LXbydesign]

Hello peeps,

 

Now as a lighting chap, im not graced, quite, with the tips and tricks of stage management type things - and so im looking for a bit of advice.

 

Ive had to lay a 24ft square of 4mm MDF onto a floating wooden floor (ie - underfloor heating). Its now been taped togther, painted and on Monday once ive focused, I shall apply a couple of layers of glaze. Normally for most shows / events, this would suffice - but I think as this is specifically for a dance festival, I need to make the surface a bit more 'shiny' so that the dancers are able to do their slide type stuff over the floor - and yes they will be barefoot.

 

Whats the best soloution to achieve this?

 

Cheers

 

Dom

[paulears]

Painted and especially glazed MDF is normally slippy anyway - so are you wanting 'extra' slippy? If so, polish with silicon works pretty well - as I've found out many times when over zealous cleaners polish the floors!

[Jivemaster]

Most dancers seem to want a grippy floor apart from some break dancers who like it slippery You have to ask them what they want!

 

Dancers WILL whatever you say spread talc, french chalk, resin/rosin etc on the floor just cos thay want to.

[LXbydesign]

Thanks Paul. Thats great.

 

Well the choeographer saw the floor today , painted but un glazed and said ooooohhh no , this isnt slippy - the dancers need to be able to slide on it - so I informed her that it wasnt indeed finished yet (but thinking about it, even when its has been glazed, I dont recall it be slippy enough to 'slide'.) Yes, it has a nice sheen and all - but im not quite certain of the context.

 

Im a wee bit concern as we have London Contemp. school of dance in on tuesday and if I get a red light on Monday once its glazed but not up to scratch, im gonna be quite short of time. I might even miss East-Enders. god!

 

is the silicon you mentioned something the cleaners would have in their supply store - and is it applyed with one of those electric buffer things ?

[Bryson]

Before you mess your floor up with silicon application (something the contemporary people will NOT thank you for...) I'd investigate putting down a vinyl dancefloor with the correct "slippyness" for each application.

[LXbydesign]

Id love to Bryson - but thats simply not possible. Becausae of the logistics of the space, where hanging points for LX etc are and so on, and the actuall floor not being able to be touched, we only had this MDF available to use.

 

There was no money to be able to hire in rolls of dancefloor and so im trying to keep everybody happy with 'one size fits all'. Having worked on numorous dance tours , I know that, actually, by the time the painted MDF has been glazed, for most dancers - whatever style , it will be fine.

 

To be honest, I know they will be more concerned about the temperature of the room and if they have enough bottles of water!!!! I do hope to come to a soulution though, and, more than likely - the above will be it.

[paulears]

What is 100% certain then is that if you 'slippy' it up, then the next lot of conventional dancers will declare it unsafe and insist it's made non-slippy. If a group need an 'non-standard' surface, then they need to have the funds to do this. Very few places with decent generic dance floors would allow this kind of thing so it's really up to them. If you do use polish - it will be a real devil to get off, and the usual coking will sit on the surface and get claggy and sticky and you'll then spend ages washing it off!

[LXbydesign]

Yup - ur right.

 

Im just gonna put down a couple more coats of glaze. its been done many times before here and it works. I think the C was just getting in a bit of a tizz becasue she was trying the floor out in its 'just painted' stage and of course vinyl matt paint on MDF isnt quite the most smoothest!

[GRisdale]

Next time talk to LCDS - they are based at The Place and may be able to borrow a floor from the Robin Howard, esspecially if you tell them they'll be dancing on MDF otherwise!

 

Also, a propper dance floor should be the first line in the budget, esspecially if professional dancers are involved. The problem with an unusual floor is that it isn't standard. Choreographers and dancers are fully aware of what you can and can't do on vinyl or propper wooden dance floor, and they will have choreographed and rehearsed the work in a studio with such flooring. If you get a company that are really pushing it to the limit, athletically, the unknown floor may become an issue. Obviously this would hopefully be discovered in rehearsal, and the work adjusted to the limitations of the space, but that means the audience aren't seeing the work as intended, which is always a real shame, and puts additional pressure on the performers.

 

Gareth.

[Grahame]

Gareth is absolutely correct. It is simply unheard of for a professional dance company of any variety to dance on anything other than a proper vinyl dance floor. The risk of injury to dancers who are used to a proper dance lino having to suddenly switch to a newly-glazed MDF floor are simply too great for a company to ignore. A sudden change in floor texture could be disastrous for a dancer. Many of them even notice the difference when you change the tape on the seams of a vinyl floor!

I've spent almost my entire career working with dance companies, and I've never come across one happy to dance on MDF - the only exception I can think of would be perhaps a 'musical'-type dance piece or a tap show.

Russian ballet companies like the Kirov used to be happy to dance on a bare wooden stage, as that's what they have at home, but nowadays even they use dance lino on tour as there are just too many variations in floor surface from venue to venue.

 

You don't say who the choreographer works for - if her piece is suitable for dancing on MDF, it is extremely unlikely that it will suit the other companies in your dance festival, especially LCDS I would have thought. I would strongly advise that you try to beg or borrow a proper dance lino from someone ASAP.

[LXbydesign]

Ok, thankyou for the replies , however , this is turning into tittle-tattle now.

 

I too have spent plenty of times in my professional life touring / working with dance shows of different formats and my post was not about the rights and wrongs of the presence of or lack of a vinyl dance floor. Im well aware of the fact that one is not present and actually, all of the said companies taking part in the show know this as well.

 

The reasons as to why there is not a 'proper' dance floor is nothing to do with me and im not getting involved in the politics of the situation, all saying, if I was PM' ing this gig - then that is, of course, the first thing I would have hired / borrowed.

 

So, because im trying to make the best of a bad-ish situation, I just asked some advice on how to make the surface of the painted MDF as close to the surface of vinyl flooring as I could!! Thats it!!

 

Oh , but thks Gareth for the heads up about the dancefloor at The Place. Might come in handy soon!!

[LXbydesign]

Well., for anyone who gives a **** - id just thought would end your sleepness nights by concluding that the turns all arrived and actually liked the floor!!!

 

I guess becasue even though it was MDF , it was still laid on a sprung floor, so gave the dancers the slight 'give' they needed. All were happy with the surface - (id glazed the damn thing about 8 times ) and one group even ended up preferring it to vinyl!!!

 

So, all in all - happy twirlys!!

 

Thank you &

 

Good night!! :P

[Grahame]

Glad it worked out for you in the end.

 

I did spend some more time thinking about the implications of NOT providing a proper vinyl floor for (say) a professional ballet company, and wondering a) how you would risk assess that, and b) the insurance implications if a dancer slipped and injured themselves.

 

Having worked in such a company where a dancer sustained a career-ending injury from a relatively minor floor imperfection and ended up suing the company for compensation..... well, let's just say I'm glad I wasn't the one responsible for laying that floor.

 

Likewise, I'm glad I wasn't in your position in this particular case. But happy twirlys = all good. :P

[LXbydesign]

Thanks Grahame,

 

I was still totally p***ed off over the cost cutting of the production though. Luckily, becasue I know the producer well enough from other work I was able to explain to him 'quite frankly' why he should never have cut the cost of flooring for reason of your post.

 

Not only that, but taking up more of my time having to prepare something not totally applicable for the job but passable, but not totally acceptable.

 

At least one good thing came out of it and that he now wants me to PM his shows as well as LD them - so more £££ ! Yay!

 

( on the next one, the vinyl rolls will be on the back of the truck ready to go straight down . . . . . !!!)

 

(( PS - LCDS even praised it as well! )

[cho_drummer]

I do appologise for hijacking, but I'm just wondering, how glossy was the finish on this? is it similar to a high gloss vynal dance floor as seen on TV?

I ask because I'm looking into a very similar project. The plan is currently to use MDF over a sprung dance floor with Le Mark Studiotak stuck onto it but if a painted black gloss with a few coats of glaze will give a very similar effect for a lower price I'd be very interrested in that. Do you have any photos?

 

Cheers,

Chris.