If you know anything about dance studios, then you may know that the flooring in dance studios is commonly referred to as “Marley dance flooring”. It’s a generic term adopted by the industry to describe the performance vinyl dance flooring surface that dancers practice and perform on.
Marley dance flooring isn’t limited in use to just dance studios, however. The type of flooring can be commonly found and used as well in theaters, athletic facilities, yoga studios, physical therapy facilities, churches, and anywhere with a stage. While the flooring may be pretty common, its maintenance is different of course from other flooring materials, and even a little different than other types of vinyl flooring. Here are three tips to keep your dance studio flooring in top shape:
Create Separate Checklists for Daily, Weekly & Monthly+ Tasks
One thing that performance vinyl dance flooring maintenance has in common with the maintenance of any other flooring types, or more broadly, the maintenance of any facility commercial or otherwise, is that proper and adequate maintenance is done only by separating maintenance efforts into daily, weekly, monthly, and if needed, bi-annual or annual tasks.
Especially with dance studio flooring, maintaining a healthy environment while not exposing dancers to safety risks requires discipline and routine maintenance. Developing a floor maintenance guide is critical. If you need help getting started on that, check out this super-helpful guide provided by STAGESTEP Flooring Solutions
Invest in Quality Cleaning Solutions
Dance studio flooring material is made specific to the needs and purposes of dancers and their practice. The floor surface will be contaminated daily by dust, dirt, debris, sweat, oils, and more. These contaminants present two risks to dancers: exposure to germs, bacteria, viruses and other pathogens, and risk of slipping or falling and sustaining injury.
All-purpose and readily available cleaning solutions that you can find in your local grocery store or supermarket may or may not effectively clean your dance floors and eliminate the risk of exposure to pathogens, but they definitely will damage your floors and deteriorate the integrity of dance flooring that’s critical for the performance and safety of dancers.
Skip the Tradition
Believe it or not, a longstanding tradition in the dance world is to mop dance floors with Coca-Cola. Yes, you read that correctly. Coca-Cola. Sounds crazy, but this traditional method has a purpose. Mopping with Coca-Cola gives the performance vinyl dance flooring more traction so that dancers can avoid slips and falls. It makes sense, sort of.
We recommend skipping this tradition. The ridiculous sugar content of Coca-Cola and other sodas, while likely being the reason for added traction by making the surface of dance floors more sticky, will attract bugs and other pests. That same stickiness will trap dust, dirt, and other debris, and will also make cleaning more difficult in the long run.
