Hi all,
I got a dance show in where is important to amplify the dancers noise
(wich is very silent!) to the audience.
the location is a small theatre and the stage is wood.
The biggest problem is, obviously, the low gain before feedback.
The low frequencies produced by the steps are the most difficult to deal
with.
I set up the micing in two section:
One for the top frequencies using three crown boundary microphones
placed in a half circle shape around the center of the stage;
The other section is for the lower end, solved with cheap contact
microphones (as the ones used to pick up some wooden musical instrument)
placed directly on the stage surface.

Anyone has other suggestions, wich may be more efficent and reiliable as
mine?
Any help will be appreciated.

Bye
ale

Depends on what kind of dance noise you are picking up... The Crown PCC160
is one of the better mics out there for it. The Sanken CUB-1 also is pretty
awesome and you may get more gain before feedback with it. If your system
isn't EQ'd with a 30 band graphic, I'd also suggest doing that as you'll be
able to get a lot more gain out of your mics.

For Tap, I'll even go as far as to place a lav mic on the instep (above the
arch) of the shoe. Putting the mic there is great for getting all the
various tap, scratch and slide sounds. Beware, though, it is easy for the
dancers to bump it and that isn't a pretty sound.

--Ben

--
Benjamin Maas
Fifth Circle Audio
Los Angeles, CA
http://www.fifthcircle.com

Please remove "Nospam" from address for replies

"ale" wrote in message ...
Hi all,
I got a dance show in where is important to amplify the dancers noise
(wich is very silent!) to the audience.
the location is a small theatre and the stage is wood.
The biggest problem is, obviously, the low gain before feedback.
The low frequencies produced by the steps are the most difficult to deal
with.
I set up the micing in two section:
One for the top frequencies using three crown boundary microphones placed
in a half circle shape around the center of the stage;
The other section is for the lower end, solved with cheap contact
microphones (as the ones used to pick up some wooden musical instrument)
placed directly on the stage surface.

Anyone has other suggestions, wich may be more efficent and reiliable as
mine?
Any help will be appreciated.

Bye
ale

ale wrote:

Hi all,
I got a dance show in where is important to amplify the dancers noise
(wich is very silent!) to the audience.
the location is a small theatre and the stage is wood.
The biggest problem is, obviously, the low gain before feedback.
The low frequencies produced by the steps are the most difficult to deal
with.
I set up the micing in two section:
One for the top frequencies using three crown boundary microphones
placed in a half circle shape around the center of the stage;
The other section is for the lower end, solved with cheap contact
microphones (as the ones used to pick up some wooden musical instrument)
placed directly on the stage surface.

Anyone has other suggestions, wich may be more efficent and reiliable as
mine?
Any help will be appreciated.

Have the dancers go barefoot and prerecord the show.

Harvey Gerst
Indian Trail Recording Studio
http://www.ITRstudio.com/

Harvey Gerst wrote:
ale wrote:


Hi all,
I got a dance show in where is important to amplify the dancers noise
(wich is very silent!) to the audience.
the location is a small theatre and the stage is wood.
The biggest problem is, obviously, the low gain before feedback.
The low frequencies produced by the steps are the most difficult to deal
with.
I set up the micing in two section:
One for the top frequencies using three crown boundary microphones
placed in a half circle shape around the center of the stage;
The other section is for the lower end, solved with cheap contact
microphones (as the ones used to pick up some wooden musical instrument)
placed directly on the stage surface.

Anyone has other suggestions, wich may be more efficent and reiliable as
mine?
Any help will be appreciated.


Have the dancers go barefoot and prerecord the show.

Harvey Gerst
Indian Trail Recording Studio
http://www.ITRstudio.com/


I mic dancers feet with SD condensors
but if that is not enough for you I be some of the thin film transducers
like the "Pick up the world" product woul
contact (i think) www.putw.com
or ask over at rec.music.makers.guitar.acoustic
a guy from the company hangs there
UI think they call him DOC real name possibly
Dave Enke
george

On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 20:31:01 +0000, ale wrote:

Hi all,
I got a dance show in where is important to amplify the dancers noise
(wich is very silent!) to the audience.
the location is a small theatre and the stage is wood.
The biggest problem is, obviously, the low gain before feedback.
The low frequencies produced by the steps are the most difficult to deal
with.
I set up the micing in two section:
One for the top frequencies using three crown boundary microphones
placed in a half circle shape around the center of the stage;
The other section is for the lower end, solved with cheap contact
microphones (as the ones used to pick up some wooden musical instrument)
placed directly on the stage surface.

Hiya.
I did a show touring show recently with moveable tap floors, and we had a
play around with contact mics inside them, with a radio pack.

The problem we had was that the delay between the direct sound from the PA
and the acoustic sound from the floor's contact mics was annoying, and we
could not get a consistent digital delay setting that sorted it (the PA
was for reinforcement only). Also, the contact mics sensitivity fell off
really fast if the dancers were not right on them, and it was too much
loud when they were. We used cheap acoustic guitar contact mics too.

We ended up using a few cheap cardiod SE1 condensers in the wings, a
couple of feet of the ground and pointing somewhat upstage. All the black
tat around the place kept most of the PA out of them. If the wings mics
were about the same distance from the dancers as the dancers were from the
PA, the timing issues were not too bad.

This was just for a tap section of the show though (hence timing being
critical), and we had more ambient signal to play with then you do.

Not much help I'm afraid, other than to say you succeeded where I failed!

Oh, one more thing... Perhaps making sure the PA's speaker cabs are not
touching the stage floor might help a bit for low frequency feedback
through the contact mics.


Anyone has other suggestions, wich may be more efficent and reiliable as
mine?
Any help will be appreciated.

Bye
ale

Harvey Gerst, just home from the Superbowl, wrote:

ale wrote:

I got a dance show in where is important to amplify the dancers noise
(wich is very silent!) to the audience.
the location is a small theatre and the stage is wood.
The biggest problem is, obviously, the low gain before feedback.
The low frequencies produced by the steps are the most difficult to deal
with.
I set up the micing in two section:
One for the top frequencies using three crown boundary microphones
placed in a half circle shape around the center of the stage;
The other section is for the lower end, solved with cheap contact
microphones (as the ones used to pick up some wooden musical instrument)
placed directly on the stage surface.

Anyone has other suggestions, wich may be more efficent and reiliable as
mine?
Any help will be appreciated.

Have the dancers go barefoot and prerecord the show.

Hey, isn't that what Kevin Doyle's boys suggest?

--
ha

ale wrote:

I got a dance show in where is important to amplify the dancers noise
(wich is very silent!) to the audience.

Any help will be appreciated.

I typically use PCC160s or other variants of PZMs. Usually
five across the front, but I've used five across the front,
two on each side and three on the upstage side. EQ and some
judicious gain riding is important. I did a "Stomp" type of
show a few years ago where I used 17 PZMs plus contact
pickups on several of the dancers. Those pickups fed into
effects synthesizers.

Liam Harney uses wireless lavs on each shoe. I have
Countryman B3s that I use with him. They are very effective,
but EQ is again important to match the sound of each shoe.

Of course, the company is picked up with the floor mics, and
Liam is highlighted as necessary, and sometimes out of the
mix depending on who's being featured. Part of their recent
show is a percussion feature using buckets, drum sticks on
the floor, and all manner of other "instruments". It's a fun
and interesting twist on Irish step dancing, and since they
usually play it downstage, good microphone placement and
control helps to bring out all those nuances of uncommon
percussion toys and the vocal "effects" produced by the
dancers.

Whatever you wind up doing, try to make it sound as natural
as you can. If you're doing something like Flamenco that low
end is part of the music.

You've probably figured out that a show like this isn't a
set and forget. You'll have to be controlling it continually
(depending, of course, on the type of dance show it happens
to be).



TM

(hank alrich) wrote:

Harvey Gerst, just home from the Superbowl, wrote:
ale wrote:

I got a dance show in where is important to amplify the dancers noise
(wich is very silent!) to the audience.
Any help will be appreciated.

Have the dancers go barefoot and prerecord the show.

Hey, isn't that what Kevin Doyle's boys suggest?

Dunno, it's a little trick I picked up from watching Ashlee Simpson on
"Saturday Night Live", The Backstreet Boys, and Britney Spears. Worked
great for most of them.

Harvey Gerst
Indian Trail Recording Studio
http://www.ITRstudio.com/

On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 23:44:46 GMT, T Maki wrote:

great stuff snipped

Whatever you wind up doing, try to make it sound as natural
as you can. If you're doing something like Flamenco that low
end is part of the music.

Seeing real Flamenco for the first time was one of the
high points of my experience. I can't even imagine what
would be required technically to reproduce the sensation.

I could believe an argument that it would be forever
impossible, like ballet.

Chris Hornbeck

The Flamenco artists I've worked with (and, I'm sure, all
accomplished ones) actually play the resonances of the
surfaces they are using - often a specially constructed
table. It's very much like the resonant qualities in a tuned
drum or a steel drum where the tones are played by the
dancer's feet.

If you really want a challenge, reinforce or record a steel
drum orchestra. I did that several years back, and spent
many hours at rehearsals and learning the attributes of both
the construction and technique of steel drums. It was an
interesting experience and a successful project.



TM



Chris Hornbeck wrote:


Seeing real Flamenco for the first time was one of the
high points of my experience. I can't even imagine what
would be required technically to reproduce the sensation.

Harvey Gerst ha scritto:

Have the dancers go barefoot and prerecord the show.

Harvey Gerst
Indian Trail Recording Studio
http://www.ITRstudio.com/

not possible, Harvey.
This is a modern dance show based on improvisation, and the dancers
moves are not synchronized with music, simply THEY ARE THE MUSIC!!
Prerecord them will be equal to a pop artist singing in playback, and
we'll lose all the improvisation related benefits of the performance.

regards,
Ale

In summer 1998 i worked on the show "Fuego y Flamenco" by Antonio
Marquez here in florence.
I was very impressed by effectiveness of the micing solution used, four
pcc160, equally distanced, placed on the front edge of stage aimed to
the back.
The sound of the shoes was very clear and loud, and really a big part of
the music played live.
But, flamenco dancers are VERY noisly!!! They jump and beat the stage
with very hard shoes and produces much grater sound level as barefoot
modern dancers. Shoes noise in flamenco is intended to be effective
WITHOUT the use of microphones or PA, equipements that are available
only il the last decades.
Sadly i need to reinforce the "silence"!
The dancers in my show are barefoot, but the little sound they produce
is a great part of the project and i'm looking for the most reliable
solution available.
Simply i want to get the higher possible sound level from a barefoot
dancer jumping and walkin on a stage.
Yes, a very big challenge, not so easy as flamenco!

"ale" wrote in message
...
Harvey Gerst ha scritto:

Have the dancers go barefoot and prerecord the show.

Harvey Gerst
Indian Trail Recording Studio
http://www.ITRstudio.com/

not possible, Harvey.
This is a modern dance show based on improvisation, and the dancers moves
are not synchronized with music, simply THEY ARE THE MUSIC!!
Prerecord them will be equal to a pop artist singing in playback, and
we'll lose all the improvisation related benefits of the performance.

I ran sound on a series of stage shows once where we had to get good foot
sounds for the dance numbers, and what worked pretty well was some PZM's,
each mounted on a 1'x1' piece of 1/4" thick clear plexiglass. I used three
of them, evenly spaced across the stage, they obviously weren't completely
invisible, but with the clear plexi, they were reasonably unobtrusive, and
certainly didn't look any worse sitting up there than did the mic stands
used by solo vocalists. They also worked great for picking up chorus vocals!
We used simple 8" or 10" long (can't recall exactly) chunks of 2x4's painted
black with an angled slot cut in them lengthwise to slide the plexi into as
a mount. Dunno if something like that would work in your case.

Neil Henderson

T Maki wrote:
The Flamenco artists I've worked with (and, I'm sure, all
accomplished ones) actually play the resonances of the
surfaces they are using - often a specially constructed
table. It's very much like the resonant qualities in a tuned
drum or a steel drum where the tones are played by the
dancer's feet.


Live Flamenco has been perhaps my most joyous and challenging work in
live sound. The troups I work with usually use a hollow sprung floor,
which acts as a giant resonator, which creates a LOT of acoustic energy
- one dancer literally put his heel THROUGH 3/4" MDF - TWICE - in one
show. This creates lots of problems as well, particularly in smaller
rooms. Until you get to big halls, you have to think in terms of sound
reinforcement, not merely amplification. The OP may want to keep this
in mind regarding low frequencies.

Chris Hornbeck wrote:


Seeing real Flamenco for the first time was one of the
high points of my experience. I can't even imagine what
would be required technically to reproduce the sensation.

It's always like Scotty in Star Trek - "Cap'n, I canna give yew na
mooore..."
But the passion of the performers forces you to kick it up another
notch.

FWIW, to pick up feet, I usually surround the dance area with 5-7 mics
(2-3 downstage, 1 SR, 1 SL, 1-2 upstage), usually 57s, 87s, or PZMs,
tho I don't feel the PZMs I've used have the reach I need. Then I ride
faders like a madman - oh, for a matrix joystick instead of faders...
To the OP: See if you can hang 2-4 mics over the dancers. If it doesn't
interfere with sight lines, it will give you more options. Contact
pickups are a bear to work with, unless you can find a set of
Helpinstill or C-Ducer piano pickups.

Enjoy riding the wild bull, you'll be a better person for it.

Mikey Wozniak
Nova Music Productions
This sig is haiku

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 02:52:57 GMT, T Maki wrote:

The Flamenco artists I've worked with (and, I'm sure, all
accomplished ones) actually play the resonances of the
surfaces they are using - often a specially constructed
table. It's very much like the resonant qualities in a tuned
drum or a steel drum where the tones are played by the
dancer's feet.

I've only seen one troupe, the Maria Benetez Theatre Flamenco.
They have a regular summer gig in a hotel in Santa Fe (the one
overlooking the military cemetery, on the road out to the
opry), and they are .. well, what can I say? the real thing.

Everyone on stage, instrumentalists, dancers on a breath
break, everyone, is keeping elaborate beats going on anything
handy or stomping on the floor; playing it, as you say, like
an instrument.

In a basement room seating maybe 200, it's fairly loud. And
the level of communication (sorry, can't think of a better word)
is deafening.

If you really want a challenge, reinforce or record a steel
drum orchestra. I did that several years back, and spent
many hours at rehearsals and learning the attributes of both
the construction and technique of steel drums. It was an
interesting experience and a successful project.

Sounds like that would be even further beyond my abilities.
Wouldn't have minded observing the process though. Never
too old to learn, s'what I say.

Thanks,

Chris Hornbeck

ale wrote:

The dancers in my show are barefoot, but the little sound they produce
is a great part of the project and i'm looking for the most reliable
solution available.
Simply i want to get the higher possible sound level from a barefoot
dancer jumping and walkin on a stage.

I think you're going to have to work to tailor the low end, rolling it
off gently. I don't think with sources that quiet you're going to be
able to get the bottom as loud as I think you're imagining (the _nerve_
g), and that if you try to get that portion of the spectrum so loud
you'll get mud and/or feedback. As someone said, make sure the FOH
cabinets aren't sitting right on the stage surface, but then work with
the low end to get some balance against SPL.

--
ha

hank alrich ha scritto:

As someone said, make sure the FOH
cabinets aren't sitting right on the stage surface, but then work with
the low end to get some balance against SPL.

--
ha
Already done, the cabinets are suspended from the ceiling, this was the
first thing i done.
Of course i'm goin to eq the whole thing to get the most from it,
psychoacoustically using the armonics to figure aut the presence of the
bottom end, but this will be the second step!
The first step is getting the most gain from the bottom end, to be sure
living far away from possible feedbacks during the show.

bye and thanks
ale

ale wrote:

The dancers in my show are barefoot, but the little sound they produce
is a great part of the project and i'm looking for the most reliable
solution available.
Simply i want to get the higher possible sound level from a barefoot
dancer jumping and walkin on a stage.

Damn, I'm good; at least I got the barefoot part right.

Shotgun mics might work well, or at least good enough. Can you have a
riser for the dancers and mic them from underneath?

Try taking apart some cheap headphones and screwing them face down into
the stage, then use the phones as mics. That way, you can have a number
of pickup points that might not feed back, but will amplify only nearby
sources.

The most workable solution that I can see is trying to get the mics VERY
close to the dancers, underneath might be best.

Harvey Gerst
Indian Trail Recording Studio
http://www.ITRstudio.com/

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 05:08:45 GMT, ale wrote:

Simply i want to get the higher possible sound level from a barefoot
dancer jumping and walkin on a stage.
Yes, a very big challenge, not so easy as flamenco!

You might have to consider some non-acoustic pickup solution.
Maybe something like accelerometers coupled to the floor.

Just at first blush, microphones seem a couple orders of
magnitude too sensitive to the SR speakers to be useful.

Good fortune, sounds very challenging indeed,

Chris Hornbeck
"Don't feed the band until after you have a keeper vocal. Cut everything
at once and mix it live to stereo. Top, tail, send to mastering.
Order pizza." -ha

Harvey Gerst ha scritto:

Damn, I'm good; at least I got the barefoot part right.

Shotgun mics might work well, or at least good enough. Can you have a
riser for the dancers and mic them from underneath?
no, get a raiser is not possible, but the under-stage is accessible.


Try taking apart some cheap headphones and screwing them face down into
the stage, then use the phones as mics. That way, you can have a number
of pickup points that might not feed back, but will amplify only nearby
sources.
nice idea, i want to try with small transistor-radio speakers (even
cheaper) and put it to the lower side of the stage floor. This should
minimize the feedback.


The most workable solution that I can see is trying to get the mics VERY
close to the dancers, underneath might be best.

Harvey Gerst
Indian Trail Recording Studio
http://www.ITRstudio.com/

thanks

"Chris Hornbeck" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 02:52:57 GMT, T Maki wrote:

The Flamenco artists I've worked with (and, I'm sure, all
accomplished ones) actually play the resonances of the
surfaces they are using - often a specially constructed
table. It's very much like the resonant qualities in a tuned
drum or a steel drum where the tones are played by the
dancer's feet.

I've only seen one troupe, the Maria Benetez Theatre Flamenco.
They have a regular summer gig in a hotel in Santa Fe (the one
overlooking the military cemetery, on the road out to the
opry), and they are .. well, what can I say? the real thing.

Ah, the lovely Maria Benetez. I was recording the Gala for Opera Theatre of
St. Louis, with a shock-mounted RE-16 peeking over the lip of the stage to
pick up the announcer. Ms. Benetez did an unnannounced guest spot, danced
downstage, and danced on my RE-16. Needless to say, up in my perch in the
rehearsal room, I watched the woofers of my monitors leap forward;
fortunately, they survived. The RE-16, however, was displaced about an inch
downward, so it bounced on the stage whenever anyone walked around, which
the announcer did most of the time. None of his comments were useable. We
wound up recording voice-overs with our staff announcer back at the station
to replace all of his commentaries, which was just as well, because he was
something of a horse's ass anyway.

Maria. She sure can dance.

Peace,
Paul

On 16 Feb 2005 21:59:34 -0800, "novamusic"
wrote:

Contact
pickups are a bear to work with, unless you can find a set of
Helpinstill or C-Ducer piano pickups.

Sounds like what Harvey is getting at. How should the OP mount
them? Sounds like underneath the floor is possible if advised.

Great info, thanks,

Chris Hornbeck
"Well, it makes a certain kind of nutty sense." -Paul Stamler

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 07:29:02 GMT, "Paul Stamler"
wrote:

Ah, the lovely Maria Benetez.

Hope your RE16 survived; love those mic's. But I guess
there are worse ways to go ... NRGNGRM (think R. Crumb).

Chris Hornbeck
"Well, it makes a certain kind of nutty sense." -Paul Stamler

In article writes:

Seeing real Flamenco for the first time was one of the
high points of my experience. I can't even imagine what
would be required technically to reproduce the sensation.

Probably nothing. It's such a percussive form of music all it needs is
a good pickup.

The key to the original poster's question is that he said that the
dancers' feet make very little noise. It sounds to me like this show
is trying to make itself into something that it's not.

I've worked with Irish groups on festivals who always want to have the
floor miked for the dancer's feet. But they make so much goddamned
noise without amplification that you can barely hear the band. And
they want to hear the feet in the monitor just so they're sure you
don't have the mics turned off.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

You could try to use small diagram condencers on table stands for the mid
and high freq.
For the low freq. try a contact mic under the stage (I mean under the wood,
directly under the dancers). I don't know if that is easy for you or not but
here in Italy is always possible to go under the stage...


"ale" ha scritto nel messaggio
...
Hi all,
I got a dance show in where is important to amplify the dancers noise
(wich is very silent!) to the audience.
the location is a small theatre and the stage is wood.
The biggest problem is, obviously, the low gain before feedback.
The low frequencies produced by the steps are the most difficult to deal
with.
I set up the micing in two section:
One for the top frequencies using three crown boundary microphones placed
in a half circle shape around the center of the stage;
The other section is for the lower end, solved with cheap contact
microphones (as the ones used to pick up some wooden musical instrument)
placed directly on the stage surface.

Anyone has other suggestions, wich may be more efficent and reiliable as
mine?
Any help will be appreciated.

Bye
ale

T Maki wrote:
The Flamenco artists I've worked with (and, I'm sure, all
accomplished ones) actually play the resonances of the
surfaces they are using - often a specially constructed
table. It's very much like the resonant qualities in a tuned
drum or a steel drum where the tones are played by the
dancer's feet.

We had the "Riverdance" Composer on our Morning show several years
back, and I told our Steve Doocy that the music tracks for the large
ensemble pieces have the taps embedded in the mix. He was kinda mad at
me for telling him that actually, because then he felt compelled to ask
on air if it was true. The guy explained that sound reinforcement in
multiple touring venues is difficult to always get right, so there are
some taps in the music mixed in to augment the live audio, for the
audience's sake.

Barefoot dancing is certainly a more difficult live micing
challenge than the Riverdance ensemble.

If you really want a challenge, reinforce or record a steel
drum orchestra. I did that several years back, and spent
many hours at rehearsals and learning the attributes of both
the construction and technique of steel drums. It was an
interesting experience and a successful project.

I once had to mix a 100 piece Steel Drum Orchestra in FX Network's
old Ballroom studio (back in the "TV made fresh daily" days.) 3 AKG
414's hung 15' up spaced over the Orchestra sections and one hung up
over the drum kit worked pretty well really. They need a _lot_ of air.
Not that I had any time or many choices about how I was going to do it
though... g

Will Miho
NY Music & TV Audio Guy
Staff Audio / Fox News / M-AES
"The large print giveth and the small print taketh away..." Tom Waits

WillStG wrote:

We had the "Riverdance" Composer on our Morning show several years
back, and I told our Steve Doocy that the music tracks for the large
ensemble pieces have the taps embedded in the mix.

When my wife and I were in Las Vegas a couple of years ago
for NAB (...I think...too many trade shows to keep track
of), we saw "Riverdance", and it was obvious to me that that
is true. The sound system in the show room was so loud (not
bad, just nearly overwhelmingly loud) that one could not
even hear anything coming off the floor.

Liam's show isn't technically as huge and complicated as
Michael's, of course, but their tracks are recorded (and
recorded well), but no embedded taps. And they are a great
group to work with.

I once had to mix a 100 piece Steel Drum Orchestra in FX Network's
old Ballroom studio (back in the "TV made fresh daily" days.) 3 AKG
414's hung 15' up spaced over the Orchestra sections and one hung up
over the drum kit worked pretty well really.

That's really about all you need. The group I worked with
didn't have a drum kit. About the only difference in your
setup and mine was that I used four PZMs on the floor
downstage of the cellos and basses. The director said during
playback at the sessions that he'd never heard the basses
recorded with such clarity and fullness before.

Next time (and it's about time for them to do another album)
I'm going to try some additional mic positions low and
downstage of the tenors.




TM

Chris Hornbeck wrote:

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 02:52:57 GMT, T Maki wrote:
I've only seen one troupe, the Maria Benetez Theatre Flamenco.
They have a regular summer gig in a hotel in Santa Fe (the one
overlooking the military cemetery, on the road out to the
opry), and they are .. well, what can I say? the real thing.


I saw them in Albuquerque for an outdoor show, and even outdoors
it was pretty loud, they only used mics for the vocals and other
side instruments. I must say it was pretty awesome.

Chris Hornbeck wrote:
On 16 Feb 2005 21:59:34 -0800, "novamusic"
wrote:

Contact
pickups are a bear to work with, unless you can find a set of
Helpinstill or C-Ducer piano pickups.

Sounds like what Harvey is getting at. How should the OP mount
them? Sounds like underneath the floor is possible if advised.

This is the potential advantage of a sprung floor. The troupe I work
with uses MDF or plywood sheets over 2x2 or 2x4. That gives a couple
inches to slip a pzm or contact transducer from beneath. IF you can
find a way to place it, set it down, and keep it in the right spot. IF
you can even get the troupe to leave an opening in the frame...

The OP has his work cut out for him. The soft parts of the show are the
hardest to deal with, in terms of gain before feedback. As you would
expect.

With moving dancers, you have to think in 3 dimensions and try every
approach.

Mikey Wozniak
Nova Music Productions
This sig is haiku