Director's Notes

It's exciting to prepare for performances of the students in festivals and Nutcracker. The dancers need to be uniform in the style of the hair and makeup. Below is a picture of a face and should be used as a guide for make up at performances. The eye make up on the face picture is for smaller stage performances like Fort Walton Beach Civic Center or dances in the park. The eye make up below the face is for the larger stage performances like OWC. The difference is in the use of the white (clown white) under the eye brow line and in the crease of the eye as well as two dark lines surrounding the white.

The best way to put the dancers hair in a proper bun is to start with the hair wet, preferable dirty not just washed hair and lots of gel. The pony tail needs to be at a specific spot. Take your hands and place them under the dancers chin and follow diagonal to the back of the head. Where the hands meet is where the center of the pony tail needs to be. Always use two pony tail holders that match the hair color of the dancer. Once the pony tail is made rub a handful of gel into the pony tail. Divide sections of hair, if the dancer has thick hair usually 6 sections if the hair is thin then not as many sections will be necessary. Take a section and twist the hair then coil it around the pony tail using thick end big open hair pins. Catch outside edge of section and flip hair pin in tight. Repeat using a section of hair from the opposite side of pony tail. Continue until all hair is coiled up and this will create a rosette style bun. Use two color matching hair nets. For bangs, and wispy in the back put in tons and tons of gel use a fine tooth comb and comb it to the pony tail and secure with closed bobby pins that match the dancers hair.

All make up must be earth tones (browns, wine, apricot) no blues, pinks or reds.
First use concealer under the eye and where deep shadows on the face occur like deep set eyes.
The foundation needs to match the dancers skin tones. Not too light or too dark.
Blush needs to be earth tones not rosy or pink. The dancer needs to make a fish face and the blush is applied under the cheek bone to create a shadow and carry the blush out and up toward the hair line.
Eye shadow starts at the middle of the eye not the corner by the nose and apply a dark brown eye shadow and carry out to the eye brow. This should be done on the lower half of the eye lid. Then apply a lighter brown above the darker shadow still from the middle of the eye and follow up to the eye brow.
Use eye brow pencil but only black, brown or dark grey no blues.
Black mascara on eye lashes
Lipstick needs to be deep burgundy, deep brown, apricot or wine. NOT RED

The eye make up for a larger stage needs to be darker and have white accent lines.
The eye shadow needs to be the same as the above example but now apply a white line under the eye brow and following the curve of the eye brow. Use clown white for this.
White also needs to be applied at the crease of the eye and carried out towards eye brow.
Dark eye liner is placed both below the bottom white line from the lower eye lash out to eye brow and above that same white.
Use the dark liner on the eye brow.
This eye is an example for our 10 year old dancers and younger. The dancer only needs one brown line under the white.