Dance Floors

Dance Floors!
Not a lot of information on the net about it. This is my meager, humble attempt to put some information about Dance Floors and make it available.
NB: If I have done a poor job on any of these sections, please e-mail me, and I'll tidy it up!

This page is in five sections:

1. Sprung Floors
   • Basket Weave
   • Foam Rubber
2. Dance Floor Coverings
3. False Floors
4. A Dance Floor FAQ
5. Phone Numbers and Addresses

Sprung Floors
Simply put, a sprung floor has some spring in it. It gives the dancer the ability to get some bounce from the floor.
Dancing on concrete or a hard surface will give the performer shin splints, bad ankles and can hurt the back. A Very Bad Thing.
I have heard of floors that literally have springs built into them. They can be cranked up and down depending on the desired amount of bounce.
However, in today's technology the typical sprung dance floor is either a floor that has a basket weave under the floor or foam rubber.

Basket Weave

Basket Weave is taking a bunch of 1 x 3's and weaving them together then laying a plywood top. The idea is that there is no one point where there is a direct point for the foot not to get some cushion.
Typically they are screwed together and the plywood is screwed on. Then some type of linoleum covering is applied to the surface.
The Good News is that it works! It will provide a decent spring and give a good surface for the dancer to perform on. The Bad News is that the screws can work their way up over time. Little bumps in the linoleum make for crummy side lighting and can be a trip or cut hazard to the dancer. There is a company out of Salt Lake City that sells D'Anser flooring. It is a basket weave design. Oasis Stage Werks is the link to their homepage.

Here is a quote from the Oasis Stage Werks Homepage about the D'Anser floor..

The D'ANSER" floor provides the safest most resilient surface ever created. Constructed in modular 4' x 8' units, a predictably "soft" sub-surface can easily be installed over any reasonably level floor, including concrete. Each 4' x 8' unit, comprised of three ievels of "basket weave support" with a top level of tongue and groove finish flooring, is hand-built using the finest grades of Ponderosa and Long Leaf Yellow Pine. The interconnection of units is achieved, without the use of locking hardware, by a support level of one unit fitting into the gap of the next unit. The result is a remarkably even "give" over the entire compieted surface, from center to edge. The D'ANSER" can be installed almost anywhere an "instant" flexible floor is needed, with hard stages, outdoor performing areas, gymnasiums, etc. It is aiso ideal for dance and exercise studios as its ease of installation and comparatively low cost make it a viable alternative to permanent construction.The D'ANSER" flexible floor is a portable, modular fIoor. Its purpose is to provide a "soft" sub-surface for dancers which is portable and easily installed over any reasonably level floor, including concrete. Constructed in modular 4 foot by 8 foot units, 3 inches thick the units have three levels of off-set wooden supports under a top level of tongue-and-groove flooring. With a support level of one unit fitting into a gap in the same level of the next unit, they inter-connect without locking hardware in such a way that the "bounce" is the same at the center and edges of all units resulting in an even "softness" over the entire area.

Here is a scan and the specs for the D'Anser floor.

Foam Rubber

Foam Rubber is the way to go, IMHO.

Okay, it isn't really foam rubber. My friends over at L'Air describe it thusly: "The cushion material used is not foam rubber (which can deteriorate and lose its resilience over time) but is a high durometer, proprietary neoprene blend closed-cell sponge".

This type of sprung floor has three layers.

• A 3/4"plywood top
• A bunch of foam rubber squares, about 1/2" thick
• A 1/4" masonite bottom

The squares are about five inches square. And are glued to the plywood and the masonite, making a foam sandwich. The masonite is cut just a little smaller than the ply. A neoprene tongue and groove edgeing on the ply means zero screws. Either it runs to the wall or has blocks (like mini-ramps) on the sides to hold it together.
The floor can be permanently installed or used as a portable surface. We have saved several 4x8's from the installation and put them together for our occasional tap dancer. Good sound, the Tapper's love it.
The Good News is that it is wonderful for dancing on! The Bad News is that it is only for light to medium theatre use. No big genie lifts or even grand pianos. I believe it is where the joins are - the four corners of the modules. Very fragile.
The CalArts Dance School uses a foam rubber floor. A product called L'Air from L'Air International out of Texas. In fact, we just did our studios as well. Good stuff.
There is no homepage for L'Air but contact info is as follows:

L'AIR INTERNATIONAL P.O. Box 136848 Ft. Worth, TX 76135 USA Phone: 817-237-9390 Fax: 817-237-9407 Contact: Rebecca A. Cannon (ext. 100) Manufacturer and distributor of L'Air Pneumatic Suspension Floor Systems, a wood surfaced modular system created for professional dance. Designed for permanent or portable applications in theatres or studios. The L'Air system provides a 100% suspended, predictable dance surface.

I was contacted by Dance Equipment International (a division of Victoria's Dance-Theatrical Supply) asking if I would include their sprung floor on this page. I'd be more than happy too. I visited their easy-to-navigate web page and found that they have lots and lots of materials (cleaner for dance floors, tape, barres,supplies etc.). But while much can be found anywhere they offer a unique sprung floor they call Springflex. Visit their web page for more info - I'll think it's worth looking into.
Here's the info.

DANCE EQUIPMENT INTERNATIONAL P.O. Box 6331 San Jose, California 95150-6331 Phone: 1-408-267-1446 Fax: 1-408-286-7866 E-Mail: info@DanceEquipmentIntl.com Homepage: www.danceequipmentintl.com

Newsflash! I was just at Alva's Dance and Theatrical page (http://www.alvas.com) and see that they offer a do-it-yourself foam floor. They sell kits and bags of foam blocks. They price the starter kit at $450. I haven't tried it, but it is worth looking into.
Have fun!


I was at USITT last year and noticed that Harlequin is now offering this type of floor in addition to their linoleum products.


I also have an article in front of me from the Health Section of Dance Magazine by Phillip S. Grayson called Reconstructing Floors. (Dance Magazine October 1992) It looks like James Madison University made their own Foam Block floor. The foam they used was two inches thick and had a tensile strength of 150 psi and a sixteen-pound density. It seems they were very happy with the end result.

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Dance Floor Coverings
The original Dance Floor Covering was the Marley Floor. A European company (Germany?) made this floor and set the standard for portable dance coverings. A low standard.
The original Marley floor was two sided (black and white or gray) so it was reversible. It came in rolls and the width was about 5'2". I dunno what that would be in metric. I hope a rounder number! I remember well lugging these rolls off the trucks of touring dance companies and watching the lumpy floor unroll across the stage. We'd add heat (by way of stage lights), jump, hop, drag to try and stretch it and just about anything to get it to lay flat.
Once it was stretched and flattened, gaffers tape was applied to the seams. At the time it was the standard for portable dance flooring! Today I realize how much a pain and how ugly it was.
We still use the term Marley to mean flooring much in the same way we use Kleenex for tissue. However, Marley has been out of business for about 15 years (I'm guessing) and there are three products that now take it's place.

I recieved this kind note from Randy Swartz. Thank you for your kind words about Stagestep's web site. Let me get you up to speed on Marley. Marley is an English company, still in business, that still makes a variety of roofing, flooring and wall treatment products. Back in the 60's, they invented the reversible, portable vinyl flooring called "Stageflor". Everyone called it Marley. It was six feet wide and was black one side, gray the other side. Stagestep was one of two American companies to import it. They stopped production in 1979. We took the product and made it here in the United States, replicating the "Stageflor" product and renaming it Bravo. Sincerely, Randy Swartz

Rosco Floor

Rosco Floor comes in three color choices; black, white and gray. So it is a reversible floor. It comes in the standard width of 5'2" (!). I would guess it's about one-sixteenth of an inch thick. It lays smoother and flatter than Marley ever did even when it has been cold. Still, if poorly rolled and stored it can be very lumpy. The typical solution is to buy 6" diameter PVC tubing to store it on. This is the floor the CalArts Dance School rarely uses. Mostly we use it to change our floor to a white color. Or if we are performing outside of CalArts.
Rosco does not sell direct. One must contact a local supplier and buy thru them. However, I will provide the Roscso Homepage for reference.

http://www.rosco.com/products/floor/floor.html

At this time (August 5, 1998) there is not much more than a logo on Rosco's page.

Harlequin Floor

The theater CalArts runs in downtown Los Angeles, the REDCAT Theater has Harlequin Liberty Stage Panels with Harlequin Cascade. Harlequin now has eight major dance floors - Reversible Standfast, and Cascade for all-around dance, Studio and Allegro which are padded floors, Studio B and Tempo which are specially formulated for modern dancing, and Fiesta which is for ballroom, country or line dancing. They also have 3 sprung floors: Woodspring - a permanently installed basketweave floor, Activity - a permanently installed floating floor, and Liberty Sprung Panels which are pre-manufactured modular panels, come in permanent or portable models. They offer free samples of all of our vinyl floors (and you don't even have to ask nicely!!) and a Floor Selection Guide and Estimator Kit as well. For a list of all of their products, please visit Harlequin I think that you will find that this newer version of their website loads quickly and has a great deal of information.

http://www.harlequinfloors.com/americanenglish/index.asp?language=4§ion=65

Someday if you are bored, e-mail me and I'll tell you the story of why CalArts owns Rosco floor instead of Harlequin.

Stage Step

Stage Step is a company I'm not very familiar with. It looks like a direct competitor to Harlequin. Stage Step has different floors for different needs.
They list...

• Bravo
• Dancestep
• Timestep
• Linostep
• Quietstep
• Super Timestep

By far the best homepage of the bunch! I'd buy from them just for that.
Here's the skinny...

STAGESTEP 2000 Hamilton Street Suite C200 Phila, PA TOLL-FREE 24 HOURS 1-800-523-0960 1-215-636-9000 By email stagestep@stagestep.com homepage: http://www.stagestep.com/danceafloor.htm

Other Choices

There are other choices. On our permanent floors in our theatre and studios we have a linoleum vinyl product called Lonseal 101. Black for the theatre, gray for the studios. I think it was developed for outdoor patios! I'm not really sure.
It has a good surface chosen for it's blend of use between modern dance and ballet. Stick vs. slide.
And you can use it hard! It's (kinda) a self healing floor, you can drag boxes, ladders, pianos, dancers, stagehands, kegs, flats, platforms, carts, wagons and just about anything across this floor.

Ellen Salyers, the Lonseal Rep in NYC writes: Lonseal is a vinyl product, not linoleum, which has become as standard as Kleenex for a sheet product in flooring. What you have described is our product, Lonstage. Color 101 is a matte finish and is not self- healing but very durable. It is actually a resilient vinyl flooring material. It comes in several colors, matte and shiny black, shiny white, blue, and red. For more information on Lonstage for future referance, Lonseal has a toll free number - 800-832-7111, ask for Barri Brown. She can send you information on Lonstage and other products manufactured by Lonseal.

I think all the floors (Rosco, Harlequin, and Lonseal) begin as a matte finish and over time become more and more shiny. Not real shiny, but not so matte anymore.
I would imagine there are other similiar products like Lonseal. When dealing with an investment of money and being stuck for a long time, I'd recommend a trip to the local Linoleum City and a visit with a salesperson.
Take a coaster with you.

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False Floors
False floors are the poor man's sprung floor. And it's really not that great for dancing on, just better than dancing on concrete. And very easy to put together.
Basically it is a three-quarter inch piece of 4x8 plywood framed by inch and a half frame (a 2x4 cut in half). And a piece at the four foot mark. Then maybe some coffin locks (roto-locks) set into the ply edges to lock them all together.
Yeah, it's springy in the middle but where the runners are it's hard. We use a false floor when we perform in the Walt Disney Modular Theatre. We use our false floor to help tie all the mod tops together. What is a mod top? A long story - basically we have to cover a bunch of four foot by four foot squares. Then we lay masonite across the seams then screw and gaff tape it. It can then be painted. Rough Stuff! A dancer may go thru two pairs of jazz shoes a week. Also the screw heads can work their way up thru the tape. High Maintenance floor.
A drag to use, I suppose, but servicable. Sometimes we hate settling for second best.


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Dance Floor Faq
FAQ or Frequently Asked Questions
A few years somebody on the newsgroups (USENET) put together a thread on dance flooring from alt.dance.ballet or rec.arts.dance or one of the groups and posted the whole thing. It's a great source of information and a fun read. Rather than fill up this already long page, I'll make another page for you to link to. I hate to say it, but click here.
This was years ago, if I could give credit to the collator I would.

Occasionally clever people write to me with their homegrown solutions. I've decided to keep a page for you to read over.     Reader's Write

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Phone Numbers and Addresses
Here is info applicable to our subject. Dance Floors. Also for your enjoyment, we'll include info for mirrors and ballet barres since they are so hard to come by. I copied this info from a Dance Page that is long gone...

I tried to make a table for you to print - try this: Contact Table