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Dance recital music: from the running order to show night

For dance schools putting on an end-of-year recital or a Christmas show, where someone has to look after the music.

At a dance school show, the music is rarely run by a sound tech. It’s the principal, one of the teachers, or a parent who’s “good with computers”, clicking through a folder of songs while the audience sits in the dark. You can do much better, for free. Borrow the theatre method: decide everything beforehand, so that on the night you have one job — press the spacebar at the right moment.

1. Collect the tracks early, with rules

• Set a deadline two weeks out, not the night before. Ask for the final edit: the cut the class actually rehearses to, not “the original, I’ll tell you where to stop it”.
• A file, not a link. A link depends on the venue’s Wi-Fi. WAV is best; a good-quality MP3 is fine.
• A name that says it all: 07 Junior Jazz - Dance title.mp3. ZasCue uses the file name as the cue name, so what you type here is what you’ll read mid-show.
• Ask each teacher two questions and write the answers down: are the dancers set on stage when the music starts, or do they enter on it? Does the dance end with the song, or before?

Two running-order tips: put the little ones on early (by 9pm the four-year-olds are done). And never schedule two numbers back to back with the same dancers — they need time for the quick change.

2. Match the levels

A current pop track is usually far louder than a classical ballet recording. Leave them as they are and the ballet number sounds thin, then the next one blasts the back row.

• Audacity is free and has Loudness Normalization (Effect → Volume and Compression) to bring every track to a similar level.
• Or do it by ear in ZasCue: every cue has its own volume in dB. Turn the loud ones down rather than the quiet ones up.

Set levels in the venue, on the real system. Never on headphones.

3. Cuts and fades

Each cue has a trim in the inspector: drag the edges of the waveform, or type a Start and End. The original file isn’t touched.

• Silence at the top: trim it off. Three seconds of nothing with a line of seven-year-olds frozen on stage feels like a minute.
• The dance ends before the song: set the End where the choreography finishes and add a 3–4 second Fade out. The fade happens at the end of the trim.
• It ends on the last beat, in a pose: no fade. A fade there eats the ending.

4. House music, links and bows

What the audience notices most is what happens between numbers.

• House music while people take their seats: one track with Loop → Whole track. It will never stop on its own, so plan how it goes out: tick On start, fade and stop the others on the first number as well, or add a Fade cue pointed at it with “fade and stop” ticked, for when the house lights go down or before the welcome speech.
• Link music while one group clears and the next sets in the blackout: another looped track. On the next number’s cue, tick On start, fade and stop the others and give it about 2 seconds. Press GO and the link music fades away as the dance starts.
• Finale bows with every class on stage: something long enough to spare. To end it cleanly, add a Fade cue (Insert → ＋ Fade) pointed at it, with “fade and stop” ticked.

5. Turn the programme into a cue list

Drag all the tracks onto the window (or Insert → ＋ Audio (tracks)…) and drag the rows until they match the printed programme. Leave the numbering until the end of step 6.

• One colour per half, or per style, so you can find your place at a glance.
• Notes on each cue with what you need to know in that moment: “dancers set in blackout — GO when the lights come up”.
• The top bar shows an approximate total running time (Σ). It only adds up tracks that don’t loop, so house and link music aren’t included: if the dances alone already come to more than two hours, the show will overrun. Add changeovers, speeches and the interval on top.

6. Each dance’s name on screen

Got a projector or a TV in the hall? ZasCue drives it from the same list. Insert → ＋ Image / Title creates a projection cue. In its inspector, set Type to 🆎 Title for a caption (text, colour, background, size and a soft fade-in), or leave it on 🖼 Image for a picture, like the show poster. ⬛ Black clears the screen.

• Plug in the projector and press Win + P → Extend.
• In the cue, press Projection on/off, drag the window onto the projector and, with it in front, press F11 for full screen. In the browser version, if Chrome blocks the window, allow pop-ups.
• Put each title just before its music: one GO brings up the caption while the class gets set, the next GO starts the dance. Keep the text short and big enough for the back row.

Finally, the numbers. Leave them until every cue is in (house music, links, titles and Fades): each new cue takes the highest number plus one, so the # column gets jumbled while you build. Tools → Settings → Renumber cues (1, 2, 3…) puts them back in sequence, but it numbers every cue, so cue 7 in the list won’t be number 7 in the programme. If you want them to match, type them yourself in the Number field in the inspector, which takes any text: the programme number on the first cue of each dance (its title, if you’re projecting) and something else on the rest, like “7m” for its music or “H” for the house music.

7. On the night

The highlighted cue is the standby — the one the next GO will fire. Press Space, it plays, and the standby moves on by itself. View → Operator screen shows what’s playing, how long it has left and what’s next, in big type.

• Esc fades everything out. Press it twice quickly for a hard cut.
• P pauses; press it again to carry on from the same spot.
• Before the doors open, Tools → Lock editing, so nothing gets changed by accident.

8. When the order changes or a number is cut

It always happens: flu goes round the class, a costume isn’t ready in time.

• Before the show: drag the number to its new place. If you’re projecting titles, that’s two cues, and they move together: title first, then music. If a number is cut, untick Armed on its music and on its title too, so the caption doesn’t come up on screen. Both show a 🔇 and won’t fire even if someone presses GO; when the standby reaches them, move past with ↓.
• Mid-show, with the show locked, leave the order alone. Type the cue number into the Go to # box (the one in the # column, which only matches the programme if you numbered it that way) and press Enter: the standby jumps there. Afterwards, use Go to # again to get back on track. The ↑ ↓ keys move the standby too.
• The Operator screen covers the Go to # box. With it up, use ↑ ↓ (you’ll see NEXT change), or close it with ✕ Exit to type a number.

9. The dress rehearsal is the one that counts

In the venue, with the laptop, sound system and projector you’ll use on the night. The whole show with GO, not in bits. Check View → Show warnings: it flags any cue that has lost its audio. And leave some headroom — a full house sounds deader than an empty one.

Save with File → Save into a new folder just for this show, say “Summer Recital” inside Documents. The cue list and all the audio sit together in it.

Frequently asked questions

What software should I use to play the music at a dance recital?

A cue player: every number in running order with its cuts and fades, and the spacebar to fire the next. ZasCue does this free on Windows, or in the browser on a Mac.

Can I put the name of each dance up on a screen?

Yes. In ZasCue, an Image / Title cue with its Type set to Title puts it on a projector, from the same cue list as the music.

What if a number is cut at the last minute?

Before the show, untick Armed on its music and on its title: they stay in the list but won’t fire, even if someone presses GO. Mid-show, type the cue number you need (the one in the # column) into the Go to # box and press Enter.

Keep reading

• Sound for the school play, step by step
• Theatre sound cue software for Windows
• How to run sound for a play on Windows
• A real case: a theatre in Poland that runs its show sound on ZasCue

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