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Spotlight Feature - International Competitive Dancer Registry · Making The Impact - A Dance Competition Podcast

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: Have you ever wondered what goes on behind the table at a dance competition?
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly what are the judges looking for anyway?
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_02: This is Making the Impact, a dance competition podcast.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: Each week we'll cover a different topic related to the world of competitive dance from the perspective of the judges behind the table.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_02: The International Competitive Dancer Registry, or ICDR, is a secure online platform for youth in competitive dance, designed to protect dancers by verifying identities, anonymizing sensitive data, and safeguarding performance media.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: We chat today with Executive Director Jamie Hodgins and studio owner and advisor Rebecca Breadingham Felice about what the ICDR aims to achieve for the dance industry.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_05: Hello, dance world, and welcome to this week's episode of Making the Impact.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_05: I'm your host, Courtney Ortiz, and I'm here with my co-host, Leslie Mueller.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: Hey Courtney.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: Hey listeners, happy end of January.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, it's end of January, and we have a competition season right in front of us, right here, right now.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_05: I'm sure many of you have already started competing.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_05: Maybe we're gearing up for our very first weekend.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_05: I feel like this is the time for preview shows for a lot of studios.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_05: They're doing final dress rehearsals, preview shows, uh, get ready to hit the stage.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_05: But we are here today, and we are talking about a brand new organization in our industry that I can't wait for you all to learn about.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and you probably don't know about it.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's that new.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: So we are excited to share the good news, hear more about it, and just chat with our friend because we made friends this summer.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, we did.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_05: We're changing it up a little bit and we're actually doing a spotlight feature.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_05: Now, you've heard us through the years do many different types of spotlights.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_05: We've done studio spotlights, we've done spotlights on different competition companies.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_05: But this time it's not just a competition company.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_05: It is an organization within the competition community called the International Competitive Dancer Registry that we are so thrilled to feature here on Making the Impact.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_05: And Leslie and I actually had the honor of meeting the executive director all summer long at many of the conferences.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_05: We had a really great time this summer connecting.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_05: And we knew that that this new organization for our competitive dancer industry is so, so, so important.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_05: And we, as well as wanting to share with all of the dance community that we want to learn a little bit more about what they're actually doing for our future in dance.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_05: So the International Competitive Dancer Registry, also known as the ICDR, is a secure online platform for youth in competitive dance designed to protect dancers by verifying identities, anonymizing sensitive data, and safeguarding performance media.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_05: With powerful tools like waiver management and participant tracking, the ICDR helps studios and competitions streamline operations, elevate safety and fairness, and provide dancers with lasting digital records of their hard work and achievements.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_05: I am very thrilled to welcome the executive director of the ICDR, Jamie Hodgins, to the podcast.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_05: Welcome, Jamie.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, Courtney.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, Leslie.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Nice to see you.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very excited to be chatting about all things dance with you guys.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I do have to say to start off, I applaud you for, you know, having tough conversations, bringing awareness to issues that affect all of us.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's only through these conversations that we find a better future for everyone.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Happy to be here.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_05: Of course.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_05: We're we're so I know that we connected and we immediately shared a lot of the same values for dance and where dance is right now, and in particular, competitive dance, um, not just in the United States where we're based, but where are you located?
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm calling in from Toronto, Canada, where I call home.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I love what you just said about, you know, the realities of what dance is now, but what could it be?
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: What could it be?
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many things that we can talk about, which we will today.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, we will.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_05: We have a lot to cover.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_05: And I can't wait to learn more about the ICDR.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_05: But before we jump into that, I'd love to learn more about you.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_05: So if you could share with everyone a little bit more about your background in dance, your training, any credits, and then also how you got into this role at the ICDR.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Great question.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I started like so many of us as that, you know, aspirational competitive dancer.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, dance gave me purpose.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: It made me feel better in my own skin.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: It helped me be characters on stage that I would never feel comfortable being otherwise.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it gave me the confidence to not just level up my dancing, but you know, my sociability skills because of the teamwork it taught me.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: I then became an adjudicator, a choreographer, a teacher, an event owner, host.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: And now, and through that as well, I was a professional dancer.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I toured with Hairspray, I danced for Ariana Grande, I did the Disney Camp rock movies, you know, I worked with Madonna, I've worked with Cheetah Rivera, Joel Gray, the name, all of them, but I'm not trying to name drop.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just trying to say that the most rewarding position, the most rewarding seat of my career is where I'm sitting right now.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm taking all my lived experiences, all my conversations with you, with Leslie, with you know, Rebecca Breadingham, all these amazing leaders to find a solution to a lot of the pain points that we all experience in dance.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just so inspired to be sitting where I am now, representing dancers, studios, parents, everyone, because it's really inspiring what we're building.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, it is.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_05: And when you first introduced this to me, I was like, wow, this is so innovative and needed for our industry, a secure platform to protect, help protect competitive dancers around the world.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_05: So Leslie, do you have any kickoff questions that you'd like to jump in about the ICDR?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, for sure.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: Jamie, the first thing I want to say is just shout out to your wording of sort of how you got here and why you're excited about it, because it's very true.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_02: Your lived experience informs everything that you do leading up to this moment and in the future.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: So I just want to shout that out because there's, you know, I think still in this day and age, there's still people who look at dance and think, well, isn't that just a hobby?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_02: It can be so much more.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: It can just be a hobby, but it can be your life's career, your life's work, your life's influence around, you know, influencing kids and influencing, shaping the industry the way we want it to be.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: So yay for you.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: But so I'm I'm curious, what are you the person behind the inception of this platform?
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: Or is there somebody that is did brought you on?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like how did you end up here?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Great question.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, essentially, dance has exploded in terms of popularity and growth, and the systems haven't really matched pace, right?
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: To support fairness, you know, safer experiences because so much of our lives live online.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I sort of sort of got connected to people that were going down this road, but I want to identify that, you know, something you said, Leslie, about validation, about legitimacy, about, you know, the contrast from what we see in sport to what we see in dance.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I had a firsthand front row seat to athlete treatment versus dancer treatment through my sister.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: My sister is the president and CEO of the Canada Gains, a national sport organization that requires her competitors to be verified, protected, supported.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's all these standards that are in sport that don't really work for dance, but the the trust, the integrity, the fairness, and that safety side.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: I started to ask all the right questions that get connected to, you know, the right bodies that serve sport to ask why doesn't dance have something like this, you know?
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think we'd ever agree on a governing body, you know, who are we, who's gonna represent jazz, who's gonna represent contemporary or evolving genres, you know, but we can all get behind safeguarding imagery and videos of minors protecting data, not offering an opportunity for studios to falsify registrations and change birth dates.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_03: Oh yep.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's happening whether we want to admit it or not.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: And this is tough conversations, serious problems, with now finally a serious solution.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm super happy.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is not happening in a silo.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: I have a team of wonderful uh advisors, one of which you're gonna meet today, Rebecca Breadingham Felice.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: I have competition advisors, US advisors.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is not being built in a silo.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: This is being built with what you said shared experience, lived experience, and a direct correlation to why dancers are continually left with illegitimate records of truth of what they've won, what they've invested in, invested in.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's just that's essentially how it all started.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's the ideation behind ICDR and the conversations with people like you that is ensuring we're steering this platform, safety verification platform of the competitive dance industry, not governance, not a governing body in the right direction.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we I mean, I don't know about Canada, but at least in the States, there have just been like failed after failed governing bodies that have tried to govern, you know, and it's it's an I don't want to say we're ungovernable, but like the dance world is is very different in different places.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_02: So I I like I think that our listeners will appreciate hearing that it is not a governing body necessarily, but it is a safeguarding body.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um, now that being said, what does it actually do?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_02: What does this look like?
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_02: Is it a website?
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: Is it an app?
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: Is it something I have to sign up for?
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: Is everybody gonna have to sign up for it?
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: How does it work?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so ICDR is not a governing body, it's not a competition, a convention, or I mean, essentially it's just the verification layer that can work with all of those things.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: We can integrate with any system to provide verified legal guardian data to support and protect a dancer's journey online.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, media is paramount to a dancer, it's how they measure their own progress.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: They're so excited to see their imagery and videos.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: The least that we can do is make sure that it's only accessed by legal, verified guardians.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: They're not wearing hockey gear, right?
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: So this is an integratable system that can work with all these different registration providers that need to be more privacy compliant as well, right?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: We are the privacy compliant layer for the in in industry because the reality of what we're talking about is there are multiple profiles for you, Leslie, and for you, Courtney, living on as many systems that your studio ever registered you in.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Right, sure.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: That you may not even know about.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: That devalues competition, it opens up the opportunity for clerical errors, for cheating, for you know, vulnerable media, whether we want to talk it about it, talk about it or not.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: The web is a very dark place.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're just using a publicly available birth date to somewhat restrict the access to performance media of someone that's seven years old not controlling what they're wearing, it's just alarming that this is actually happening.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: But finally we have a solution.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: So ICDR is the verification layer.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: You will be able to, it's a single sign-on system.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: The same way you can toggle back and forth between Gmail accounts.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's the sort of added technology that we're adding to the dance industry.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just overdue.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_05: Wow.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_05: That's you that that sounds really interesting.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_05: So this is going to work in partnership with the registration softwares of the competition organizations.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_05: Now, do the competition organizations have to be a part of and registered with the ICDR to participate, or is this um based on by studio or based on individual?
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_05: How does it work with those channels involved?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Great question.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, our first fully integrated partner is Dance Bug, and I applaud them for kind of answering our call and making sure that they're fully aware that there is a way out of a lot of the issues that they deal with on the daily.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not just about dance bug, it's about the dancer and honoring what they invest in this beautiful industry and not honoring the division, you know, because one competition might use one provider and another competition rightly so might use another one.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: But it's that scatteredness, it's that fragmented, you know, uh using multiple profiles.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: And even a studio director has to build 150 routines on one system and then write another one.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_04: Like it's just a lot of work.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: We have to help the studio directors.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Their job is hard enough, right?
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what this is becoming it's relief for the studio directors, adding more clarity so that they can communicate properly to their clientele.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's more assurances for our parents and peace of mind that we're protecting their data and their children's media.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: For a dancer, it's that legitimacy and validation of that digital IMDB style record of everything that they've ever done.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, we have to be integrated with that provider, in turn, integrated with that competition.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and it's up to them how they want to leverage our verified information.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: We've talked to so many competitions that have been struggling with live streams, you know, and choreography stolen.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: I know that you guys have been highlighting that issue, and thank you for doing that.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: But imagine a world where, you know, we have a fully verified uh roster of studios.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Each studio has their own roster, everyone's verified.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: We know exactly who's dancing on a Saturday through unique participant IDs.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's what this verification through government-issued photo ID for the parent unlocks standard in every other major youth activity.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the magic that that ID number can protect that dancer inside of Dance Bug and inside of any other system that chooses to work with us, right?
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, um what I'm getting at in certain in terms of uh that record is they can start assembling a digital profile of everything that they've ever won, right?
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: They can start to, we can start to communicate with each other and have a new collaborative way out of this wild, wild west because we've been labeled that because we're the last frontier, the last major youth activity to work together to organize and respect our competitors.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's what ICDR is becoming.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_05: Wow.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_05: I I actually I love that you continue to to reiterate that every other youth activity does something like this because I don't know, I didn't know that.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: We didn't we didn't do anything else.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I only have dance.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_05: What's another activity?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_05: Don't know people that do other things.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: And we don't have kids either.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_02: So it's that's very good to hear.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_05: It is, and it's and it's refreshing to know that like that has adapted to other other activities.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_02: So, like you said, why is dance well and it's almost like it's a no-brainer for basketball or youth wrestling or whatever.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's it seems to have been standardized a long time ago, even though you have, you know, the the things I can think of off the top of my head, it's like your city organization, but Pop Warner and also the, you know, gym or whatever.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like, if all of those are already compliant with something like this in youth sports, like we really are the Wild West.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, I don't know that people really think of it that way until you start talking about it this way.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_02: And you're like, oh, oh, that's true.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like this is just people's information's everywhere.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: And it's kind of funny, like you were saying you can toggle between things, sort of like your Gmail.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: And my company just changed health insurance.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm like trying to do my prescription thing, but I had this health insurance like 10 years ago.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: It won't let me have an like I have to create a whole new account, even though I already have an account because nothing's talking to each other.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, well, it's 2026.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_02: Like, so this is happening in systems.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is happening in systems, Leslie.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like literally, sometimes, you know, a dancer already has five profiles in one system, and then, you know, uh a studio registers again, and then it's net new again because there's a spelling mistake or a mistake on the birth date, which you know, once a comp a competitor, a dancer arrives at a competition, you know, and then we're moving them categories and trying to uh emergency figure out where the placement is or the level confusion, that that's devaluing everything they ever they worked for.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, all the money we invested, that should be a positive, fun experience, you know.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: And even Rebecca, who you're gonna meet very soon, her we've experienced that together, her at the studio level, me at the host of a competition where everything's chaos backstage because there hasn't been a system to find these errors well in advance of showtime.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_02: Then that's well when you have just human beings like combing through stuff and like, where is their birth certificate?
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like it's a lot that you don't need on a day like that or in a weekend like that.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a time where our teachers, you know, because we're roughly the same age, you know, had birth certificates that are ready backstage.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, paper in a pamphlet.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_05: Yep, ready to go.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: What happened to that fundamental step of verifying someone's age?
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Some people have kind of been challenging when I present this idea because they think that it's only about age verification.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's definitely a part of it.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Once we verify a competitor's age, that age and birth date becomes locked.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because why would that ever change?
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: But they do change anyway.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: So it becomes locked with ICDR, you know.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then we know exactly we can pull that information via a hashed ID.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: So dance bug, all of our partners, they don't get the proprietary information, they only get an ID number that you know we're pulling that information from.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: So it's all anonymized and protected.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's where the privacy compliance comes in, right?
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine a central source for a dancer that's fully protected.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: We have all of our COPPA compliance, Safe Harbor, GDP, GDPRK, Pipeda, BIPA.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: These are all evolving privacy laws that we take care of for our partners.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a forward-thinking solution before circumstances force the conversation.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: We've had issues in our industry before that we're still coming back from.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: We've lost trust, we've lost faith.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think this will open the door to more respect, more legitimacy, and even post-secondary schools looking better at us, you know, um, and and having better perceptions for what a dancer does, what they achieve, and what they possibly could be with more of the structure advancement and options we see for athletes.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_02: So, how does this will absolutely be a question that I'm sure our listeners want to know, with social media being what it is and how we function as a society and learning about new things and finding talent and, you know, things like that.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_02: What does this have to do with posting media of children on social media, whether that's from you, you as a parent, uh, you as a as the person themselves, or as a company like a dance competition who is using, you know, obviously everybody signs a waiver and you sign away your rights to whatever.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: So what is how does this help with that?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: Great question.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's really ultimately about controlling the distribution of the media first, right?
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, access, right?
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: Who has access to it?
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: When do they have access?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: And what do they do with that content, right?
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: I've been calling a competition for probably 14 months, trying to get them to, you know, understand what we're doing.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the second I sent them something that was on an account called Worst Performances Ever.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_05: I've seen that account.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: They called me back.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because they're it was their brand fully in the background, you know, those poor dancers, you know, that maybe that was a bad day.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: They had a bad day, they had a bad day.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: The you know, whatever happened, you know, I don't want to call them out because it's just really scarring.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and there's been other, you know, conversations I've had with dancers bullying in their own school, in their own studio.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you know how to get your media, you know, using your birth date, you know, Lucy Q's uh birth date, you can easily get hers.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: And even some studios, sorry, some competitions, events are sending Dropbox links, Google share links, just accidentally sent it to the wrong studio.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then that gets shared to mom, grandpa.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: The boyfriend, and that's how this you know media gets distributed in places we don't want it.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: So ICDR is all about you know control.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's about consent and it's about a starting point to make sure that we're delivering the media safely, which I think is a standard we can all get behind.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, because a lot of there's a lot of talk lately in 2026 about the live stream aspect of competitions that you brought up.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I think that more competitions need to password protect at minimum.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_05: A lot of them still aren't there yet.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_05: A lot of them, a lot of them still don't have live streams, so they're in the clear.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_05: But I have seen many competitions post, like you said, distributing Dropbox links.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_05: I've even seen public open live links of all of the photos because they advertise free photo and video.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_05: But then anyone can go to this random website and click on the folder for this weekend's event and download away.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_05: And no one's screening.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, no one's screening those.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, you you what?
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_05: Like you actually did it to show how easy it was.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I mean, you know, when I first started this, you know, it was six months of research.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it was talking to all these sport associations, talking to all the wonderful friendlies that have helped me and taken time out of their busy schedules to tell me their real experiences, right?
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and I went digging into the media side and a very reputable competition, front-facing gallery.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: I purchased a very unflattering photo of a dancer in a very unflattering position for seven dollars.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_05: No way.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: Seven dollars.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I just wanted to see if it was possible.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: So the only thing holding back, you know, someone from downloading it is a payment firewall, right?
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, and whether we want to admit it or not, there are really dangerous people out there.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: My identity was stolen, and that's has nothing to do with competitive dance, and I couldn't even sell my condo.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like we have to be careful.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: Our lives are moving so much more online.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: So we're just trying to give people consent and control over their own journeys because I want to say something else.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's those decisions about where they compete, where they invest their money is often made for them.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: They don't have the choice, right?
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: So the least we can do is give them a little bit more control and you know, tangible sources of truth that can help them get a part-time job, you know, to show their team commitment if they're involved in pre-competitive dance.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is not just for the evolving dancer that will go into the professional sphere.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is honoring everything that they're in front of that they know because the stakes are high for them.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm really tired of some events, some people saying that, oh, this is just for those professional dancers.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's not, you know, like it's for everyone.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what ICDR is the most beautiful thing behind it is people have helped me build this.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe this is a good time to introduce to you someone that has been instrumental in helping me navigate the fragmented waters of the industry.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: She has a studio in London, Ontario, and was uh a very important person when government closures were being put on dance studios in COVID.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't want to tell you the whole story.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we can meet uh Rebecca Breadingham, please.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome, Rebecca to the pod.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for having me.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate being part of this conversation because I think it's extremely important and dealing with lots of studios, as Jamie mentioned with Dance Safe Ontario is one of the founders.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: The struggle is real.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: So when Jamie asked me to be involved in this, it was from a studio perspective and the challenges as a studio owner and what we go through.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so as Jamie mentioned, being able to put all my students and routines in one platform and it be shared between all the platforms is huge for me.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: I do have a large studio and lots of routines, and having to put those in.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, last year we had to do it in four different systems.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: That was a lot of work.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: It was a lot of man hours.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, that's huge.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, Courtney, you mentioned about live stream.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: So one thing I have said to Jamie that I think is really important is for parents to be able to decide whether or not their child solo duet or trio, not groups or lines, because that needs to be a studio decision, but solo duets and trios need to be able to decide if their child is live streamed or not.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: They need the permission to say no, yeah, or have the option to have a code so they can give it to grandma who lives on the other side of the country so they can watch, but for it not to be public.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: Me, these are the things that are important for myself and my clients.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: I look at this as a studio owner and I look at it for other studios.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: How do we protect children, minors?
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, we all have a different level of what's appropriate and what's not in terms of choreography, costumes.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: You will never get studios to decide on that.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's just the way it is, and that's fine.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: However, I think that we need to put some control into the parents' hands to make those decisions for their children.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: And these conversations with Rebecca are instrumental in helping us understand what her clients need, which might be a little bit different than what the clients need on the West Coast of Canada.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: So we are definitely, you know, involving everybody.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to encourage anyone listening to go to competitive dancer.com because you can learn more, you can get involved, you can have a say where dancers don't often have say or consent from families, you know, with the way their journey is happening.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what this is all about.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's not, it's no fear of losing autonomy.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: There's no fear of a governing body, it's just more control and protection for and clarity for the whole competitive experience.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, thank you, Rebecca, for that thoughtful um, you know, introduction because it's it's it's been really inspiring talking to you and it's been really helpful.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: We're just leveling up our relationship and uh yeah, it's just been so uh helpful to me personally.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_02: Has this has ICDR been implemented yet into anything or is this still in like beta testing things?
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: We are in the final testing of our um platform.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: Essentially, first full integration will be with Dance Bug.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um and we're really looking forward to welcoming projections are about 100 to 150,000 dancers into our safe ecosystem now because there is an urgent need now to protect these images and videos.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: There's more than one billion taken each season in just North America.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's a lot.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's a very, you know, and again, we've talked about the different vulnerabilities of open links or password protected with just birthdays, or, you know, sometimes not password protected at all.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: But the the breadth and power of what this could be, going back to Rebecca's point, you know, um, there just hasn't been a solution to give parents more consent and more control over their own child's digital footprint until now.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: I love that feature that we would like to move forward with, with you know, having a parent toggle saying, I do not allow my soloist to be used in promotions, even though they've signed a waiver.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, our partners can print uh all of their routines with unique ID numbers, and there will be a red X, you know, beside those soloists that they are not allowed to promote that, you know, image or video.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it might happen, and there's no, you know, the recourse with that would be, you know, we would go to that competition and say, please remove that, you know, but that's a level of consent, a level of control that has not been available for our dance industry until now.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_05: That was another question that I was going to ask you, Jamie.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_05: So I'm so glad that you brought that up because I think that that's another issue at hand is how, like you said, the distribution from the from the jump, right?
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_05: But then if everyone is signing this waiver, how can the parent actually control if they don't want their kid's image on promotion or in videos or whatever it may be?
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_05: It feels like that, oh, well, sorry, then you just shouldn't attend the event or you just shouldn't compete or you just shouldn't go there if you don't want the potential or possibility of that competition using your image for their marketing.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_05: So it sounds like that there could be a nice solution there.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: And you're spot on, Courtney.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to talk specifically.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: I hope there's a lot of registration providers listening.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: There aren't too many out there, but and competitions because they know about us though.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: They know about us.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: So hello, hello to you.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you're listening because this involves you, right?
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, going back to what you were just saying, Courtney, like waivers.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: Do we have any assurances that a verified legal guardian that is, you know, responsible for said child is actually signing that waiver?
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: Waivers sometimes are sent very last minute.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, sure.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is where you know, I want to defer to Rebecca for this because I don't understand why Rebecca, as the owner and studio director, is racing around getting signatures on behalf of said competition to release the liability of that competition that she is supporting and paying tens of thousands of dollars to.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like I Rebecca, does that speak to you?
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I have lots of frustrations with what's asked of us as studio owners by the competitions.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we during COVID, there was obviously a massive blow-up between studios and competitions.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, many competitions not refunding for events that didn't take place and studio owners feeling that they were tied to what was offered to us being a credit, um, but their fees went up, so the credit didn't actually cover the new fees, it only partially covered it.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: The credits could only be used within a year, and if their new dates didn't match what you had credits in a whole bunch of competitions and they overlapped and you couldn't use one, then you lost it.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: We weren't given refunds for kids that graduated or who no longer danced, and people's numbers went down, so then they didn't have as many kids to use up all that money because for me, my studio, the year of COVID 2020, our competitive program had grown really large.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: So my credits were huge.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: So there was a lot of issues there.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: And uh why was money being taken without a service being provided?
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: Why is money not going into a trust that then gets paid to the competition when they like this?
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: Is this happens in other industries and not in our industry?
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: And why?
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_05: Exciting news for dancers and parents.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_05: This season, the International Competitive Dancer Registry, also known as the ICDR, launches an incredible opportunity to be championed by dance leaders and safety advocates, forward thinkers, key brands, and privacy experts.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_05: Dance families can finally take control of their dance journey, securing their identity and achievement, safeguarding sensitive performance media, while dancers gain verified recognition and respect for their hard work.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_05: This is your chance to lend your voice in this vital transition, take charge of your digital footprint, and ensure dancers receive the overdue support athletes have deserved for decades.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_05: Self-verify today.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_05: Claim your safeguard ID and inspire change in the industry.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_05: Join the movement at ICDR's website, competitive dancer.com.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it goes back to, you know, uh Rebecca being so heavily involved in Danceafe Ontario at the studio level because we had to emergency speak together and work together to fight government closures, at least north of the border in Canada, where studios were placed in the same categories as gyms.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't have a governing body to speak on our behalf, you know.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: So Dance Safe Ontario, Dance Safe Manitoba, Dance Safe, all provinces emergency, you know, started speaking together to work together to fight something, right?
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is a new way that we can all work together.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, seeing obviously we want to safeguard imagery and videos now.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's an immediate problem.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: But imagine a world where a hundred competitions are on board, right?
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: A hundred competitions and we poll our competitions because we can't make the decisions for them.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's up to them.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: But knowledge is power.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: So imagine I send a poll with like five questions.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: One of the questions being, how many acro tricks do you allow in your jazz categories?
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: What is part-time for you?
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: What is novice for you?
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: How what how many hours deems what level?
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: Those questions would go to our hundred competitions.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then when they we get the feedback, we would send it to all of our partners, and then they can make informed decisions about what everyone's doing in all their individual silos to bring more clarity for people like Rebecca that struggle to clarify to their dance families that are confused why this is this here, and that's that there, and this is over here.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, again, we are not going to make the decisions for our partners, but we are giving them tools.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: ICDR is a tool for them to use to create safe spaces online and to give more fair and legitimate experiences for anyone that partners with us.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_02: Rebecca, in your experience, what do you like?
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_02: You know a lot about the ICDR at this point.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_02: What would be some of the skepticisms that a studio may have in thinking about joining this organization?
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_02: Because it it's gonna take everybody, right?
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's gonna take a studio, a competition, like the platform, like everybody has to be on board, otherwise, this doesn't work.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that Jamie and I have talked about this.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think that it has to offer value for parents.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: At the end of the day, the parents are the ones who are paying for this ID.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: They need to have value.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, right now, the parents are getting dinged by the competition for entry fees that are going up astronomically for less value, in my opinion.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: They're getting dinged now because all these competitions are doing media fees.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_01: Why is that not in these fees that have gone up so much?
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: Why is a pre-competitive parent who has one or two routines paying the same for a media package that a competitive dancer who has 10 to 20 dances?
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't make sense.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: And the problem is these media packages at a lot of these competitions, they're mandatory.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: They're not all right.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: Now the parents have been dinged twice.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: They're already paying fees to the competition.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: The studio or the parents think the comp the studios are making all this money because of the fees they're paying.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: I personally do not up my entry fees.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: I know many studios do.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think that it's a bad thing that they do it.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_02: Well, because you just spent 17 hours entering the information.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_02: So, like somebody has to pay for that.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: So, yes, a lot of people do that.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: I so the way I do it is I use my early bird money to pay for that.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how I make the money on the competitions.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's my choice.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: However, I think that parents are feeling strapped.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think the economy and what's happening in the world around us right now is toll uh taking a toll on everybody mentally, and I do think that ICDR needs to have true value for these dancers and parents to get them on board, which is why I offered Mindful Dancers to Jamie because it is a true tool for parents.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yes, we have paid resources and product, but we also have a lot of free resources on there for dancers, and we want to add value.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_01: We want to add true value for the parents to be a part of this.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_01: I want Gamy to also go to all the ballet, jazz, tap examinations so that families, dancers have a record of every examination they take through the dance career.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: So whether they are applying to scholarships and grants for university or college, they're applying for uh dance post-secondary education, or they are dancing, want to dance professionally for their resume, it is verified the things that they're putting on this resume.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: When someone is applying to any of these three things, how do any of these people know what they are putting on there is verified?
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: There is nothing to say that they're not lying.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're so right, Rebecca.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sorry, I don't want to interrupt, but like I was at the National Dance Educator Organization sitting in on a session on applications for post-secondary dance programs.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to name the colleges, but they were sitting up there, you know, talking about applications and in a sea of I think a hundred people, I stood up and I said, What are dancers putting on their applications?
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then they kind of looked at each other and they're like, Oh, well, that they were at this studio for 10 years and that they won this award at this competition, attended this convention.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, is anyone checking and verifying true?
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then they all just went, No.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: And one of them said, I do.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Do you?
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: Do you maybe want?
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: Who are you gonna call?
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, they're not gonna answer.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to jump back to what Rebecca said because that's where these in conversations and Rebecca as a studio advisor for RC ICDR has really helped me because I hear her say, you have to add value.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I go to add value.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: We are offering participant accident insurance, which will be monumental south of the border.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: Our policies will be primary.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: So you don't have to execute private insurance, no deductible, up to$25,000.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: So if your dancer goes down at the studio, training, rehearsals, performances, competition, convention participation for under$5 a month subscription to a parent, you're protected.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's cute.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: I want that.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's huge.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: That is just one thing, not to mention the verified portfolio, not to mention Rebecca's resource of mindful dancers, which sits on a studio parent and dancer dashboard.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: I am reaching out to everyone now.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, no, I have been for a year and a half, two years, but now they're responding, right?
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: So finally they're coming back to me because this is a snowball situation, right?
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: I've got some big players on board now, and I'm very excited to release who they are, but we're very busy in the background, making sure that the integrations are perfect and ready to go, you know.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: But it's just, I'm so excited for this year because, you know, there's just a solution and the and going to that value, it's my job.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's my job.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: I know dance, I know what a dancer would want to see.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_00: And if I if I want to know what a studio director needs, I'll call Rebecca.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'll call my friend Rachel Segay, who also runs a studio and has a competition, right?
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I have I know the people to call.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, following my tour where I met you guys in the summer, where I went to Dance Teacher Web, I went to Dance Educators Collective, I went to EDCC, I went to NDEO, UDMA.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: We all love acronyms so much in dance.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_00: We really do.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_00: We really do.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, that's where I got connected to more people.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_00: So again, competitive dancer.com, reach out to me, Jamie at competitive dancer.com.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_00: We want to make a dancer the best version of themselves.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: We want parents to have more centralized resources, studios to have centralized resources because it's a fragmented industry.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, that was a rant.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_00: That was a rant.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_02: We love a rant.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_02: Well, speaking of the benefits that the ICDR is going to offer to you know the value that we're talking about.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_02: We mentioned earlier Rebecca's programming uh called Mindful Dancers.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_02: Rebecca, can you speak to what That is and what that brings to the table.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, so uh Mindful Dancers was created uh due to COVID by my partner and myself, Kianna Simmler.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: And basically, her being a former student, she saw the benefits of the mindfulness and life skills we've always taught at my studio, and the benefits that mindfulness had for our students during COVID and getting them through a very difficult time.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: It is really important that we are looking at the whole dancer, mind, body, and spirit, and connecting with dancers and helping them to understand things, helping parents guide their dancers in a mindful way.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_01: So we have done many seminars for dancers, parents and teachers in the United States and Canada.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: Mindfulness is not a one and done.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_01: Mindfulness is something that you practice daily and it takes practice.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_01: It takes work.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: If you're just teaching it to your dancers, it's not gonna help.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_01: We need to get the parents involved.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: The parents are the ones who are with their kids every day.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: And if the parents are being mindful, then it's easier for the kids to be mindful.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: Kids are not all the same, they are individuals, and all of them need to be looked at individually in dance training and in life.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, so I have a question about one of the hottest topics in competitive dance, and that is levels and leveling your dancer.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_05: I'm curious to know if because every competition has a different guideline structure, way of choosing, we're really doing the honor system here with the with the studio on where dancers are placed and how they're categorizing their dancers based on their level.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_05: But I'm wondering if the system has any ability to help maintain the integrity of proper leveling.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_05: Obviously, I don't know if there's a way that like studios are inputting the dancers' hourly total, you know, maybe it's not that, but maybe there's like comparisons from one event to another.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_05: Hey, why did you enter advanced?
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, yeah, one year to another.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_05: Like, why did you enter advanced here?
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_05: But now you're entering intermediate, you know, that type of thing.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_05: Is there any is there any progress with levels?
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_00: And we know that this is a massive problem, you know, south of the border.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's different a little bit in Canada because we have, and it's different across the Canada.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_00: So it's there's a lot of inconsistencies, but pre-competitive and competitive up here.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then in that you have different, obviously, age levels as well.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_00: But all I have to say with the level confusion is give us time, right?
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_00: We have to start somewhere, right?
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_00: And elbows have been up since I started my tour trying to get people to understand that we can actually solve a lot of the problems they complain about on in the car on the way home from an event that they don't really speak openly about, you know, and just give us time, right?
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_00: So there are definitely integrations that we can have with class management software to verify levels.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_00: There are many things that we can do, and it's gonna take, you know, my providers and other people to find those solutions, but let's just start with age.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just start with verifying ages because that's easy.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's very easy.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_00: Should be easy.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_00: It should be easy.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and just to be very clear, when we when you do verify, you only have to verify once.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_00: A parent does use government-issue photo ID to prove who they are.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: We do not require government-issue photo ID for a child because they may or may not have a driver's license.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like they have a birth certificate, but that's too far down that sort of verification level.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_00: At this stage, we want to, you know, softly introduce this.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_00: And there are sources of truth via our competition partners, our provider partners.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where it's really exciting because, you know, in Canada, novice means something very different than it does south of the border.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_00: Novice in Canada is a luxury extension, an easier scoring uh rubric, because it's that dancer trying that genre for the first time, right?
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's what novice is in Canada, and it sometimes it's different per event.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_00: But no one's checking novice history, right?
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I went up to a studio director and I said, um, we'll say Lucy.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently that's the name we usually say.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_00: I did Lucy's hip-hop solo in 2024, novice.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_00: She's never done it before, and she competed again in 2025 when I wasn't the choreographer.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it she didn't really understand, you know, what novice placement meant to her.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the stakes are still high.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: But I went up to the studio director and I said, Well, I did her novice hip-hop solo.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_00: Why is she a novice again?
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then the studio director said, Oh, Jamie, leave it alone.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not fair for Rebecca that might have a novice dancer that's actually novice competing against that dancer.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the assurances that we're providing because inside that privacy compliant ID number carries history, you know, and you don't get the history, it's a private profile, but we can ping it and in a privacy compliant way, stop that registration for novice in their second year ever from happening.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's 2026.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_00: Technology is, you know, available, you know, we just haven't caught up yet, you know, and that's what we're we're the impartial third-party solution, you know, that anyone can rely on.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_00: Rebecca, have you seen other instances in terms of, you know, level confusion or clear or no non-clarity, I should say?
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, we've been at competition and there's pre-competitive in Canada and two different incidents.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, one, kids who used to be advanced kids who are now in high school and want to dance less hours now qualify for pre-competitive.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_01: So with it, the teachers, the studio owner is not lying.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_02: They they really only dance X amount of hours.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_01: But in my eyes, how does a child who dance 10 years at an advanced level with an incredible studio go to part-time against kids who truly are part-time?
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_01: How is that fair?
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's a question and that's where the I hate the word tracking.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like it.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's Big Brother-esque style.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what this is.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is privacy compliant data that is hashed behind a participant ID.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_00: Again, standard in every other major youth activity, right?
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_00: But it carries history.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to be very clear that only Rebecca has access to her dancer's record.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_00: Only Rebecca and the parent, of course, I should say the parent, because that's very true, and the dancer themselves, right?
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is self-measured progress.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_00: If we wanted to validate or check the history of a dancer, we would, they would have to request it from that verified parent and unlock that profile so that if a dancer comes net new to Rebecca, say from Kingston, Ontario, which was like a seven-hour drive from her, she doesn't really know.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it's seven hours.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, it doesn't matter, geography.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but Rebecca doesn't know that dancer, right?
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_00: So if that parent awards a look into the profile, then we can see that they've won this award, that they've competed at this level.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_00: And Rebecca can make an informed decision of where to place that dancer, only elevating her studio, honoring the dancer's actual journey and expertise.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've done 20-minute assessments for jazz, contemporary, lyrical, and hip-hop and acro.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then we're supposed to know where to place that dancer, you know, because my studio director didn't have any more funds to pay me for like an hour session, right?
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm supposed to understand who a dancer is 20 minutes so that she can compete fairly in that first season.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_01: And the other issue is, Jamie, that when a dancer comes from another studio, if that studio has lied or misplaced that student in a novice or pre-competitive and they shouldn't have been there, and the parent tells you that's where their child came from, in fairness to that studio owner, they're only going by what the parent has told them.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_01: If the studio owner could actually see the data and figure it out for themselves, then you would stop those types of things happening.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_01: But in fairness, not all the parents, they're not trying to be misleading.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_01: They've been misled, but they don't even know that.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and Rebecca, thank you for bringing that up.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_00: And Rebecca was part of a very important industry roundtable that we hosted in conjunction with Toronto Dance Teacher Expo, where I had, oh my gosh, Rebecca Breadingham, obviously right here, Jerome Bob of Fever Dance Champions, J JT Schrammick, I had Alex Wong there, I had Tara Jean Popowitch, Caroline Torty, you know, dancers, parents, adjudicators, studio owners, competition owners, administrators speaking openly about these problems.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the administrators, you know, literally said that, you know, she accepted new students into her studio that were completely wrongly leveled, you know, um, at their previous studio.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_00: And she was like, oh, well, that's interesting because we were against them, you know, so maybe that's why they were winning.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, they're with us now, so I'll level them up properly.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the same administrator that has been told via their studio director to not go to any competition outside of this ecosystem because they don't want to register more than uh twice with 165 routines.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's where clerical errors happen.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's where we devalue the competition fairness side of things.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I couldn't be more inspired by what we're actually doing because it's it's common sense in my opinion.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I have one more question, sort of the comparison between sports and dance.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_02: You know, plenty of parents have kids who do sports and probably have to go through this sort of situation in those events, you know, and and I don't actually really know what your experience has been with any pushback from anybody, but like, what do you where do you think that would even come from?
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_02: If like we know this works and happens and is mandatory in sports, why is there gonna be pushback?
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_02: Because there's pushback for everything.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I can just see the people with all the questions.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_02: Like, why do you think that that is in dance?
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_00: I would say the fear is that we're going after regulation.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_00: I have no interest.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_00: That is a lot of red tape.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to jump through.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to honor a dancer, honor a dancer's journey because they don't decide where they go, right?
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_00: So as we kind of mentioned that elbows are up.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I think change has been historically scary in dance.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_02: I agree with you.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_02: I think dance, because there are so many varieties of opinions, and we don't in the states, you know, if if you do something like an RAD exam, you are not going to the kind of competitions that we're talking about here.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_02: You guys have different curriculums and and things that are in place at more, many more studios than we do here.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that's the major difference between Canada and the states when it comes to competitions, because we just don't have the same training kind of programs.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's much more individualized here from what I from my experience.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_02: And that's where I think, like, oh, it sounds really great for Canada to have a record of your exams.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's very helpful for you guys because people do exams there.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of people do.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_02: Like we just don't.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's not a thing for the majority of studios here.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_02: So that's not beneficial to us.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_02: So how can you benefit the participants that you're trying to reach in ways that make sense?
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_02: So obviously the mindful dancers programming is excellent for anybody anywhere.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_00: And resources like Inside Dance, and you know, uh, they're fully on board.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_00: So you'll be able on a dancer dashboard to read what's going on in the industry, connecting you further to the industry.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, like Inside Dance magazine?
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, nice.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, yeah.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_00: So there's lots of resources that we're, you know, investigating.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we have dancers beyond labels that are, you know, offering uh healthy dietary tips.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, they're lovely.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_02: I met them this summer.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_00: Me too.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what this is becoming.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, listeners, if you are interested in supporting ICDR, we're interested in supporting you.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_00: If you are helping dancers become better versions of themselves, studios becoming better versions of themselves, that deserves to, you know, be honored and we want to work with you moving forward.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why mindful dancers, Rebecca was like so quick to say, absolutely, performance worksheet, you know, here you go.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we're just, you know, that's a very key 2022, 2023, 4, 5, 26 new mentality that we're we should be really pushing forward because it's tough for kids out there, you know, it's you have to be mindful and you have to kind of have awareness of what's going on and and value yourself and look inwards because it's it it's tough out there.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_01: Leslie, I just like to add to that that I think that it comes down to value.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think that we currently in the US and in Canada are very much in a what does this do for me mentality.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, totally.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think that it's a good thing, but that is reality.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so at the end of the day, competitions are asking, what does this do for me?
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_01: Video owners are asking, what does this do for me?
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_01: Parents are asking, what does this do to me?
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_01: And on some levels, dancers as they get older are asking, what does this do for me?
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_01: And Jamie's trying to check all these boxes to show the benefits for every single group.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I do think that that's the value that people are gonna see from ICDR is the value that it holds for them.
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I do think that's the most important aspect of this entire thing and protecting our children.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you for saying that, Rebecca, because whether we want to admit it or not, our industry is fragmented.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like six months of research, I found more support organizations than I ever knew existed, you know, doing wonderful, amazing work.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to also say that 10% of all of our profit goes towards the ICDR Foundation that is specifically designed for charities, nonprofits, you know, that can help.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we hope to work with dancers against cancer.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's one of the first charities in line for us, you know, and it's it's just time that we can actually give back.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what this position is for me as executive director.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_00: I am leaning on all the friendships and the kind relationships I've been able to maintain and respect throughout my career.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_00: And now I'm calling on them and they're responding, helping me make sure that this is steered in the right direction, that it adds value to every layer of the competitive experience, dancers, parents, studios, events, and the forgotten stakeholder that we don't talk about is media providers and distribution registration providers.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they are a key part of this puzzle and they are talking to me.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_00: They would not talk to me two years ago, and they're responding because they know that they're not privacy compliant and they know that a dancer deserves more, period.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_05: Well, I would love to explain to all of our listeners because we have a variety of types of people listening, primarily dance parents, a lot of teachers, dance professionals, dance competition owners, I'm sure, are listening as well.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_05: And all of these individuals are a can be a part and help support the ICDR or get involved.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_05: So, how would each different entity uh become involved with the ICDR if they're interested?
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the easiest way is to go to competitive dancer.com and you can self-select what role you um sit in, whether it's a studio owner, a competition owner, a dancer.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then that's essentially what that is is a vote for change, right?
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_00: What I can do is I can take those numbers and they're already growing.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I have over 29 competitions on board in Canada.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_00: I have a lot of competitions south of the border that I'm willing to release very soon.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_00: But I have thousands of dancers that are ready, uh, hundreds of dance studios that have given me their support following, you know, uh a year of touring.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_00: So competitive dancer.com, because dancers are often quiet.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_00: We don't often speak up.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's because we're used to using our bodies to communicate.
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_00: But in order to get involved, you can go to competitive dancer.com.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_00: That open verification will be open very soon.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_00: You can get that dance ID, you know, and with that dance ID, I can go to all the registration providers and say, look at how many people are interested in this platform.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_00: Let's work together and let's build more solutions to help with levels.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_00: Blah.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's another rant.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_05: I do have one more question just to clarify any confusion.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_05: Now, let's say someone's listening and they are a dance parent and they're so on board with what y'all are doing at the ICDR.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_05: They're like, after this podcast, I am going to competitive dancer.com and registering my kid.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_05: Can someone individually register themselves with or does the studio have to be on board with ICDR to be able to register?
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_05: How does that work when it comes to dancer studio affiliation?
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_00: Courtney, thank you for clarifying that because that is very important.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we often feel that dancers don't speak up or they're uh they're kind of unsure what they can do.
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_00: So they can go to competitive dancer.com, verify using government-issued photo ID for the parent.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_00: They would get that dance ID, but they can't do anything with that dance ID until their studio director agrees.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_00: We're honoring that dynamic because Rebecca knows what's great, uh, what's best for her clientele.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_00: And we respect that they are a trusted source of education, safe spaces, and we're only helping create that safety and link to competition and online, if that makes sense.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_05: So just to on the other flip side of it, if if parents are interested in being a part of the ICDR, but maybe their studio hasn't heard of it, is unfamiliar with it, maybe parents can say, Hey, I learned about this on a podcast or I've seen this advertised wherever I'm looking into it, and I think the studio should too, because that way more studio owners can get involved and then their dancer can be also taking advantage of all of the great things that y'all are doing.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_00: No, you're absolutely right, Courtney.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's conversation, right?
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, um, it's awareness, raising awareness around the problems that we all talk about, but there's finally a solution, right?
• 1:03:13
  SPEAKER_00: So competitive dancer.com, go self-verify, talk to your studio directors, get involved with us, you know, reach out to me personally, they're dance organizations, competitions, providers listening.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_00: We this is a platform for everyone, built by everyone, following even these conversations where I will ideate on what was said, because you know, it's really important to me that it's built for dancers everywhere versus just Canada, you know, and it's very important that you guys have lived experiences that can help steer this properly too.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_05: So amazing.
• 1:03:47
  SPEAKER_05: Uh well, I feel really great about this chat.
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_05: And I have learned so much about what you're bringing to our dance world.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_05: So thank you for all the work that you're doing, Jamie at the ICDR, and thank you, Rebecca, for also contributing to this fantastic discussion.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:04:04
  SPEAKER_05: I really appreciate it.
• 1:04:05
  SPEAKER_05: Jamie, I would love for you to just lead us out.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_05: We always have our guests to do this on making the impact.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_05: Final thoughts.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_05: Anything that you missed, anything that else that you want to share, you can speak to whoever you want, dancers, parents, studios, competitions, the whole entire dance world.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, final thought all about the International Competitive Dancer Registry.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, ICDR means so much for so many different people, so many different levels, but at its core, ICDR is about respect for dancers, for families, for the athletic art of dance itself.
• 1:04:38
  SPEAKER_00: By adding verified identities, privacy protection, and a shared source of truth.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_00: This is structure without governance.
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is collaboration without control.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_00: And when trust returns to dance, the entire industry can grow and flourish together.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_00: Dance is definitely at a turning point.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_00: More people are coming together, more people are understanding we're stronger together.
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's what this is all about.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I'm so proud to sit in this seat and I'm so happy to talk with such great advocates for dancers like you, to have the support of someone like Rebecca.
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a really collaborative movement.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_00: So go to competitive dancer.com.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_00: I implore you.
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_00: This is for you.
• 1:05:20
  SPEAKER_00: This is, you know, tell me what else you want to see.
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's what this is like really exciting.
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_00: What can this be for dance?
• 1:05:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because it just empowers all of us.
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_05: Thanks for tuning in to our latest episode all about the International Competitive Dancer Registry.
• 1:05:39
  SPEAKER_05: Be sure to follow our guests on Instagram.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_05: You can find Jamie at Jamie underscore Hopkins and Rebecca Studio at DanceIfEustream.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_05: And to learn more about the International Competitive Dancer Registry, visit their website at competitive dancer.com and follow them on Instagram at icdr.dance.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_02: Don't forget to follow Making the Impact on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, and pretty much everywhere you listen to podcasts.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_02: And if you want more exclusive episodes, support our podcast by joining our Platinum Premium membership for only$5 a month.
• 1:06:15
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• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_02: Join now at Impact Dance Adjudicators.com slash Platinum Premium or click the link in our show notes.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_05: Be sure to check out IDA affiliated competition Gems Dance Competition.
• 1:06:35
  SPEAKER_05: Gems Dance Competition is a fresh dance event created by studios for studios with the intent of changing the norm.
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_05: Their competitions are designed to be a positive experience for you, your staff, your students, and your entire dance family.
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_05: With full panels of IDA judges at every event and locations throughout the Midwest, we highly recommend adding Gems Dance Competition to your competition schedule.
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_05: To learn more about GEMS and register for an upcoming event, head to their website at dancegems.com and come show your Sparkle at Gems Dance Competition.
• 1:07:10
  SPEAKER_02: Coming up next on Making the Impact, look forward to an episode all about the junior and teen divisions.
• 1:07:15
  SPEAKER_05: We'll see you next week for another great episode on Making the Impact.