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  • 1.  Bottle Dance for Fiddler

    Posted 01-24-2015 08:58
    I'm looking for ideas as to how to help my high school students keep their bottles on their heads during the dance. Can anyone give me ideas that have worked for them? Thanks! ------------------------------ Angel Neal Teacher Briarcrest Christian High School Eads TN ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Bottle Dance for Fiddler

    Posted 01-25-2015 10:54

    We had a very successful run of Fiddler last year, and ran the bottle dance as it is written in the choreography book. I think we had 6 dancers. No bottles dropped at any performance!

    We used Bailey's Irish Cream bottles (the older style, not the newer, taller style). They have a heavy base which makes it a lot easier to balance. And they are pretty thick, so they can take a bit of a beating.

    The hats our dancers used were "Zorro" style hats that had soft tops that could flatten out. It almost gave a little seat for the bottle to sit in. We also made sure they practiced as much as possible with the hats and bottles (they labeled their hats and bottles so they always used the same ones).

    We are fortunate because we have a black box where we could just run bottle dancers during many rehearsal days. The wood floor has a bit of give, so even if a bottle fell, it tended to bounce. 

    As a precaution, during the wedding scene, the actor who played Mordcha had an old dustpan and small broom in case we had a glass emergency. But if your stage has any give, the bottle will probably just bounce (or your actor will catch it). 

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    Bret Cherland
    Hemet CA
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  • 3.  RE: Bottle Dance for Fiddler

    Posted 01-25-2015 11:56
    We purchased black top hats made from plastic and cut holes in the top just large enough for the bottles. We lined the inside of the hats so they would not slip off. Windy City Novelties has the hats. Cheating, but it worked :)

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    Robin Rothman
    Director
    Margate FL
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  • 4.  RE: Bottle Dance for Fiddler

    Posted 01-25-2015 14:49
    I didn't really think that we would be able to be successful with the bottle dance but my choreographer begged me to let her try. I was thrilled that we did it, every night, no dropped bottles and no special rigging! If we could do it, so can you! Have faith! The kids feel amazing when they do it! ------------------------------ DJ Queenan Savannah GA ------------------------------
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  • 5.  RE: Bottle Dance for Fiddler

    Posted 01-26-2015 08:00

    A couple suggestions:

    We used green glass and covered the bottles with clear packing tape.  That way if they fell, they wouldn't shatter.  We also put some small rocks inside to give the bottles some bottom weight.  You could use whatever material would serve the same purpose.  We had felt black hats that would easily go flat on the top of the head.  The boys practiced and actually got very good at it.  As a back up plan, we decided that if someone's bottle fell, their character would act like "oh, well, I'm out" and go back to the crowd to watch and kept it as though the last one or two with bottles still on their heads "won."  If they all stayed on, which they did most of the time, all the better.

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    Gail Bartell
    Altamonte Springs FL
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  • 6.  RE: Bottle Dance for Fiddler

    Posted 01-26-2015 09:40
    We produced this show with 5th-8th grades, and really struggled with this. We wanted so badly to keep those bottles up with no rigging, but we had great choreography and didn't want to simplify it for the sake of the bottles. We eventually decided to play it safe. We glued small round magnets to the inside of each hat.  We then glued a small round magnet to the bottom of the bottles. If you use hot glue, it doesn't ruin the hat.  We were able to remove all magnets from hats without ruining any of them. We loved this rigging because we could show the bottles being placed on the head. (We found some great plastic soda bottles that had a nice shape to them and painted them brown...they looked great).

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    Liz Norling
    Glendale AZ
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  • 7.  RE: Bottle Dance for Fiddler

    Posted 01-26-2015 15:13
    We used plastic root beer bottles, the ones that are brown and have orange caps, and filled them with various amounts of water until each of us had figured out at what volume we were most comfortable. We were able to remove the labels and they looked pretty realistic. For our full performance we used hats that we balanced them on, but we spent a lot of time in rehearsals balancing them on just our heads. It did take a lot of practice and we did break a few, but it was a lot of fun! Good Luck and Break Legs!

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    Annie 
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  • 8.  RE: Bottle Dance for Fiddler

    Posted 01-27-2015 09:32
    I agree that practicing a lot is the only way to go. We also hot-glued a circle of felt to the bottom of each of the bottles. This gave the bottles a little additional friction and made them less likely to slip off.

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    Kathleen Greisenbeck
    English / language arts / speech teacher
    Moline School District #40
    Davenport IA
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  • 9.  RE: Bottle Dance for Fiddler

    Posted 01-28-2015 07:33
    Thank you all for the great ideas!

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    Angel Neal
    Teacher
    Briarcrest Christian High School
    Eads TN
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    Original Message


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