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Hi my name’s Ellen and I am running to be one of your Competition Reps this year! I am currently in my second year studying Law, and you may know me best as the Butler who got framed in Cluedo (justice for the Butler). I have been part of the competition teams for the past two years and competition season has played a major part in my experience with Modern, being the most exciting part of the year for me, travelling and competing with our amazing dances and dancers, as well as hosting our own Let’s Dance competition. I would love to be one of your Comp Reps next year, and take you to some great competitions, so we can have a fab season next year too.

There are several ideas I would like to implement in order to do this. I would like to organise a group number to perform in the wildcard category, a fun dance that anyone can get involved in that has less pressure than all our other competition dances, to finish off the comp day feeling good and relaxed. I also believe this is a good opportunity for the whole society to have the opportunity to dance together, and to meet other members of the society from other dance styles you may not dance in. Whilst socials are a great way to meet members across the whole of Modern, a group dance would also offer an alternative for our dancers who don’t make the nights out.

Along with the usual responsibilities of the role, such as communicating with the other university Comp Reps, and organising coaches and our night away accommodations, I will choose our away comps with consideration, making sure to have a balance between some of the bigger comps, as well as some smaller ones. For our own Leeds comp, I want to make sure to organise the day, so comp starts at a reasonable time to allow for enough breaks, and so the day also ends at a reasonable time so everyone has time to go home before the after comp social. We all know how daunting it can be stepping onto that stage, and how important it is to have support from the crowd. I want to make sure that all our dancers feel the love from us sitting in the audience, so I am proposing that we make banners, signs, etc and maybe a few new chants to take to competitions, so that our dancers can hear and see us from the stage.

I have always had to balance my studies with extracurricular activities, and I am confident that I will be able to plan and organise a great comp season for you, during my final year. Dance has taught me the importance of collaboration, and I can’t wait to work alongside Modern’s other Comp Rep, sharing ideas and responsibilities for this role. I would love to carry on this role from Rae and Polly who have done an amazing job this year. Thank you so much for reading my manifesto, and I’ll see you around the dance studios soon!

Hello, I’m Annie and this year I’m running to be one of your Competition Reps! I’m new to the competition teams this year and had a great time competing with Advanced Jazz History Repeating 😊 I’m in my second year studying Computer Science (gross I know) and would love to carry on with all the great traditions that make competing so fun (along with a few new ones). The main reason I enjoyed competing so much was the opportunity it gave me to make amazing friends and have some unforgettable and unique experiences, like running around Liverpool in the rain getting lost in Irish pubs! However, I also remember feeling like the only new person in a team of dancers who were already friends. Although this feeling does go away, I’d like to have an ice breaking session in the first comp class to help everyone get to know each other, and to help the choreographers get to know the dancers. Especially in the inter teams, I feel that there is so much unreached potential as new dancers may not feel comfortable putting themselves forward for things that they know they can do! In these ice breakers, I’d want to have a few silly games, some trust exercises and fun dance challenges, so the teams can really gel and get to know each other. Furthermore, if possible I’d really like to create a dance for the wildcard category! We all know that the wildcard category is one of the most entertaining to watch, because every team looks like they are having so much fun and just enjoying being on stage with their friends. I think we could really make an impact in this category by combining our different dance styles and giving everyone a chance to dance together. We did something similar at my old studio, and had a dance which combined tap, jazz, street and even pointe! This was so fun and always got the crowd excited as they never knew what was coming next. I think if we did something similar it would really show off how varied and talented our society is! A wildcard dance would also let dancers from different teams dance together and meet each other properly before competition season starts. I would also like to focus on team spirit next year, as despite our best efforts, we didn’t manage to win a team spirit award this year (we were robbed in Sheffield!!) To help this, I think it would be a great idea to have a sober social, where all dancers (whether you’re in a competition team or not) get crafty together to make signs, come up with chants and practice our cheering so that when it’s time to compete we have an arsenal of fun chants and can take those team spirit awards home! As well as these new ideas, I really want to carry on from the great work that Rae and Polly did last year: being organized with coaches and accommodation; running our Let’s Dance competition smoothly and efficiently (and with pizza); communicating with other University dance teams; and organizing a fun weekend away comp complete with dance awards and a spoons breakfast! I enjoy teamwork and believe I can work well with the other Competition Rep to combine our ideas and have a smooth, (mostly) stress free competition season with opportunities for fun, dance, making friends and taking home all the trophies! Thank you for reading my manifesto, and hopefully I’ll see you at all the exciting dance events to come!