American Harlequin Dance Floor

From LoveToKnow Dance

If you've danced at any kind of professional venue in the U.S., odds are you've danced on an American Harlequin dance floor. Whether a boot-scootin' country line dance or a fine arts ballet pas de deux, their floors have been welcoming dancer's feet for close to thirty years.

The British Invasion of Harlequin

Harlequin Floors was started in England in 1980. Its managing director, Bob Dagger, set it up to meet the demands of dancers and companies that found traditional hardwood floors both difficult to maintain and also hard on the bodies of the dancers themselves. Boni Rietveld, MD, the head of the Dutch Medical Centre for Dancers and Musicians, stated in a whitepaper published in Dance Review that "It is as dangerous to dance on a hard floor as it is to constantly dance on different types of floor… In my opinion, a dance floor should be neither too supple nor too soft."

This is the challenge that Harlequin floors undertook to meet, and for the most part, the company has been doing it all over the world. Spreading from Great Britain through Europe, Asia, and Australia, the installation of an American Harlequin dance floor is becoming part of a global standardization of dance surfaces.

Features of American Harlequin Dance Floors

Part of what has brought American Harlequin dance floors to prominence in the field of dance, both socially and professionally, is the wide variety of solutions the floors provide. There are several different varieties of floor systems available:

Liberty™ Sprung Floors – Consisting of shock-absorbing panels pre-manufactured on blocks, these can be used as either a temporary or permanent dance floor for a studio or theater.
Woodspring™ Basketweave – This floor system weaves three bands of yellow pine and also contains elastomer blocks to reduce the force of impact. It is topped with plywood or hardwood and finally surfaced with either vinyl or hardwood, depending on the preferences of the performers.

Six other types of coverings are available for the dance floor surface, depending on the kind of activities that are going to be on them. Swing dancers are going to have different needs than capoeiristas, and there may also be other activities on the floors besides dancing.

Cascade is a heavy duty general-purpose flooring
Studio is used both in rehearsal spaces and touring floors.
Allegro is billed as the "thickest dance surface in the world" and is useful in reducing injuries to dancers.
Studio “B” and Tempo are designed for dancers who don't wear shoes, such as modern or contact improv performers.
Fiesta is used for more social dancing such as country western and ballroom.

All of the flooring systems come in a variety of configurations, both permanent and portable, and there are also "individual" dance floors available from the company for breakdancers, hobbyists, and fitness buffs.

Customer Satisfaction: Mostly Good, With Some Exceptions

With such a wide variety of products, American Harlequin dance flooring and their overseas counterparts have a great number of testimonials on their website. Victoria Lyras of the Indianapolis School of Ballet, for example, loves her Harlequin dance floor because "…it allows my dancers to feel secure and to have their primary focus during performances be on the choreography - not the floor." Some of the most successful companies in the world such as Riverdance have used Harlequin to supply their touring floors.

When interviewed in person, though, not all the customers are as happy. Claude Heintz, Technical and Theater Director for the University of Wisconsin- Madison dance department, was not happy with the American Harlequin floor he found in the theater when he took over eleven years ago. "The floor started having problems one year after it was installed, and in the ensuing decade it has gotten to the point where the gaps in the seams are showing." The University is in the process of now acquiring a basket-weave floor system for their dancers.

All in all, American Harlequin seems to satisfy customers around the world, being a common flooring solution for dancers world-wide.

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