Hiring the Silk Road Dance Company Frequently Asked Questions Thank you so much for your interest in hiring the Silk Road Dance Company! We've performed for embassies, at weddings, for government agencies, charitable organizations, international festivals and ethnic celebrations such as Noruz (Persian/Kurdish New Year); we also do full-length concerts on formal stages, including the Kennedy Center. We look forward to designing a program that will beautifully suit your event. Many clients have similar questions and we've found the page below often helps save your valuable time: What are your requirements? Please see our Guide for Potential Clients to learn more about what we require from our hosts to ensure a safe and successful performance. What are your fees? We create a package appropriate for your event; each performance and its fee are unique. This is not a way of being evasive – there are so many factors that go into tailoring a performance we've found it impractical to offer a fee schedule. To give you an idea: weddings start at $600; full-blown, 2-hour dance concerts are in the thousands of dollars. To discuss fees, please contact us. Will you dance for free? Each year we donate a handful of performances to non-profit organizations, but since we do not have any private, corporate, or government sponsorship, we must limit the number of charitable performances in order to cover our operational expenses. If you would like your charitable or service organization to be considered for a performance, please contact us with your details. PLEASE NOTE: We have filled our quota for charitable performances for this year but would love to hear about your events for the upcoming season. We're offering you great publicity so why don't you perform for us for free? We truly appreciate publicity and realize that publicizing events is a lot of work! But unfortunately, we must limit our charitable performances each year (please see previous question and answer). Can I attend your rehearsals? Rehearsals are a time when we are working hard to refine our choreographies; we are in workout garb, sweating, stopping and starting, drilling, reworking. This does not provide a picture of what our performances look like and having observers at rehearsals is distracting. For this reason, our rehearsals are closed to the public, including clients and potential clients. However, you can attend one of our other performances, study the images on our web site and see our video footage at the Kennedy Center web site to see us in action. Will you send me photos and video so that I can decide if I want to hire you? We do not routinely send video and print photos out except to clients contacting us for 45 minute-long (or longer) performances. We dream of the day when a generous benefactor will fund us so that we can create and distribute demo videos and slick press kits to all our potential clients. In the meanwhile, however, as a non-profit, volunteer entity working to make ends meet, we cannot afford to do this and so we strive to provide you with images and information on this web site. You are always welcome to attend a performance to see us in action; you can consult our performance schedule to see our client list, and we can send some images to you via email if an image is missing from our site for a particular dance. Could we meet so that I can tell you all about my event? For almost all of our performances, we do not meet the client face-to-face until the actual performance. We have found that email and phone are more than adequate in setting up a gig; and the use of these methods saves your time and ours. Our client list, photos, and experience should speak for themselves in terms of our suitability for your event; the contract and email correspondence will take care of all logistical details. If a meeting is vital, please contact us to explain your special needs so that we may find a way to accommodate you. I'm having a wedding. Will you do an entrance with the bride, then have dinner and dance more later? Unfortunately, we are unable to make such arrangements. Dancers do not eat meals close to performance time and do not socialize or dine in dance costumes or in our professional stage makeup. This is also a very expensive arrangement for the hosts as it demands several hours of our time that must be paid for and eliminates the possibility that dancers can do more than one gig in an evening. We have brought dance to many weddings and are certain we can help you find a program including dance that will delight you and your guests. What will I be committing to in signing a performance contract with you? The contract we ask you to sign details all the logistics of the performance (where, when, how long etc.), what we are providing (e.g., which dances, how many dancers) and the details regarding stage, lighting and sound. We ask you to commit to providing for basic needs, such as a private changing area, access to running water, a safe dance surface, security and parking/unloading or other transportation concerns. We also ask that half the fee be given as a deposit before the performance date and the remainder of the fee be paid on the date of the performance before the performance begins. When you are ready to make arrangements, please contact us and we can forward you a contract. May I take photos or video you and your performance? Like any other dancers, singers, actors, musicians, or visual artists, we wish to protect our intellectual property and maintain some control over how and when our image is displayed. Photos and video may be taken with written permission from the Artistic Director; otherwise we do not allow photos and video. Can I pick the dances you'll perform at my event? We want to make you happy and appreciate clients who have favorite dances or who read through our repertoire list to select those that most capture their imagination! When you hire us, you are paying for the expertise formed by years and years of experience that enables us to create dance programs that have a logical and appropriate flow and that fit the atmosphere of your venue — our Artistic Director will work with you to create a program that suits your preferences and is appropriate for your event. Do you do "bellydancing"? The term "bellydancing" usually conjures one of two images: 1) scantily-clad dancing girls unabashedly shaking cleavage and hips in an overtly sexual manner; 2) the modern expression of "raqs sharqi" — Egyptian style dance — characterized by sinuous movement and skillful hip isolations but with an air of elegance and friendly playfulness. We do the second one and are proud that our repertoire includes folkloric, modern and fusion pieces in our "bellydance" repertoire that delight all ages with grace and spirit. I have a question not listed here. Please contact us. We look forward to working with you!