Making the Impact Spotlight: ICDR and the Future of Competitive Dance

ICDR's launch vision: protecting dancers through verification, secure media access, trusted records, and industry collaboration.

In a January episode of Making the Impact, hosts Courtney Ortiz and Lesley Mealor welcomed Jamie Hodgins, Executive Director of the International Competitive Dancer Registry (ICDR), alongside studio owner and ICDR advisor Rebecca Brettingham-Filice. Together, they discussed a major new initiative designed to address structural challenges within the competitive dance industry.

Introduced just as the platform was preparing for launch, the discussion revealed that ICDR represents far more than a simple digital upgrade. It was built as a direct response to longstanding challenges experienced by dancers, parents, studios, competitions, and industry partners.

At its core, ICDR is a secure online platform created to protect young performers through identity verification, privacy safeguards, and secure media access. By introducing tools for waiver management, participant tracking, and centralized verification, ICDR aims to help studios and competitions improve safety, fairness, and operational efficiency while giving dancers lasting recognition for their achievements.

For Jamie, this mission is deeply personal. Dance gave him the confidence, purpose, and opportunities that shaped his life. After building a diverse career as a dancer, teacher, choreographer, adjudicator, host, and event owner, he explained that leading ICDR has become the most rewarding role of his career because it allows him to protect the ecosystem that raised him.

A recurring theme throughout the conversation was that while competitive dance has grown exponentially, the administrative infrastructure supporting it has lagged behind. Jamie contrasted the dance world with traditional youth sports, where participant verification and centralized athlete records are standard. In dance, fragmented systems frequently cause duplicate dancer profiles across different platforms, frequent registration and data entry errors, and inconsistent, easily lost participation records.

These issues create massive administrative bottlenecks for studios and competitions, making it difficult for families to maintain an accurate history of their child’s achievements. Rather than serving as a heavy-handed governing body, ICDR operates strictly as a universal verification layer that works seamlessly alongside existing studios, events, registration providers, and media platforms.

ICDR creates structure without governance, and collaboration without control.

The conversation highlighted a guiding principle for the organization: dancers deserve both recognition for their hard work and strict protection throughout their competitive journeys. ICDR's long-term vision includes creating trusted, unalterable records that preserve a dancer's entire training history, convention participation, and accomplishments. This ensures that years of dedication are accurately documented when dancers apply for scholarships, post-secondary programs, or professional careers.

This commitment to protection extends heavily to performance media. As performance photos and videos are increasingly distributed online, families face growing concerns regarding privacy and unauthorized sharing. Jamie discussed the vulnerabilities of traditional media systems, where content is often accessed through easily guessed identifying information or shared links distributed past their intended audience. ICDR introduces greater consent, control, and accountability, ensuring that families have a definitive voice in how their children’s media is accessed and shared.

Rebecca brought the practical perspective of a studio owner to the table, highlighting the administrative exhaustion of managing student registrations across dozens of separate, disconnected competition platforms. She emphasized the growing, urgent need for parents to have centralized control over their children's digital footprints.

Throughout the discussion, Rebecca reinforced that for any new platform to succeed, it must offer immediate, tangible benefits to the people using it. whether through day-to-day administrative efficiencies, robust media privacy controls, or modern resources that support overall dancer well-being beyond physical trophies.

Both guests stressed that ICDR is not being built in a vacuum; it is being intentionally developed through active collaboration with studio owners, competition organizers, dancers, parents, and industry partners. The ultimate goal is to provide universal tools that strengthen trust, improve competitive consistency, and support safer environments across the competitive dance sector.

This early snapshot reflects the exact core vision that continues to guide ICDR today: verified identities, protected media, trusted records, family consent, and deep industry collaboration. By providing these baseline protections entirely for free, ICDR acts on the belief that safety is a universal right, not a privilege, successfully removing barriers for every family in the competitive space..As Jamie concluded, ICDR is ultimately about respect–for dancers, for families, and for the athletic art of dance itself.

Listen to the full episode here.