Toronto, ON, United States, April 29th, 2026, FinanceWire
The International Competitive Dancer Registry (ICDR) today announced a major evolution of its platform, becoming free to join while expanding its industry coalition to advance safety, privacy, and fairness across the competitive dance industry.
This milestone marks a shift toward full accessibility, reinforcing ICDR as a privacy-first infrastructure built for dancers, studios, and families. While intentions were to have a baseline subscription to cover development costs, we believe that safety isn’t a privilege—it’s a right and is now free for every dancer, sparking the largest safety and fairness movement in the history of dance. By removing the main barrier to entry, cost, the ICDR is positively disrupting the industry to wake up to current alarming realities and vulnerabilities online, while also looking towards a more collaborative future with solutions and features as optional add-ons, creating a true community ready for the things we need help with now and the things we can’t see.
Developed in response to long-standing gaps in identity verification, media protection, and fragmented systems, ICDR introduces a verified, portable dancer profile that follows participants across competitions, studios, and platforms.
At the core of this evolution is a privacy-first approach:
A privacy compliant plug-in for any dance system to increase the security of their operations and honours studios and parents who are the beating heart of the community. They should have control over their child’s digital footprint.
Rather than replacing existing platforms, ICDR integrates across systems to create a unified layer of identity, consent, and media protection.
Built With the Industry
ICDR’s growth has been shaped by direct industry feedback. Prior to this expansion, the platform reached nearly 15,000 users in Canada, highlighting strong demand for a verified identity solution. At the same time, early rollout revealed a need for deeper engagement with studios, the core of the ecosystem.
“We are actively listening, engaging, and making real-time changes to ensure studios, dancers, and families are empowered to feel a part of this monumental shift in dance operations,” said Jamie Hodgins, Executive Director of ICDR.
ICDR reinforces that studios and parents should play a central role in data control and decision-making, particularly when it comes to dancer identity and media access.
Now Free and Open
To accelerate adoption, ICDR is now completely free to join, removing financial barriers and enabling broader participation across the industry.
Ambassadors and Industry Alignment
ICDR also announced that Brian Friedman and Sophia Lucia have joined as ambassadors, lending their voice, experience and learnings to support the organization’s mission to modernize and protect the greater dance ecosystem.
Friedman is a globally recognized choreographer and creative director with three decades of credits across major pop tours, music videos, films and primetime television, including longstanding roles on The X Factor, So You Think You Can Dance, America’s Got Talent and Dancing with the Stars. Lucia is a Guinness World Record holder, a former Junior Best Dancer at The Dance Awards, and a Dance Moms alum whose career has spanned television, film and international teaching, now on faculty at the Joffrey Ballet School.
This builds on a growing coalition of competitions, organizations, and technology partners working together to strengthen safety and accountability across dance.
An Evolving Platform
ICDR will continue to evolve alongside the industry, with a commitment to ongoing collaboration and real-time improvements that they can have a hand in developing.
“Our focus is simple. Build infrastructure that protects dancers, supports studios, and reflects the reality of today’s digital landscape,” added Hodgins.
ICDR remains committed to advancing a safer, more transparent, and unified future for dance.
To learn more or register, users can visit www.icdrdance.com
About the International Competitive Dancer Registry (ICDR)
The International Competitive Dancer Registry (ICDR) is a secure online platform custom-built for youth in competitive dance, designed to protect dancers by verifying identities, anonymizing sensitive data, and safeguarding performance media. The ICDR was created as a central hub for the dance competition industry, providing dancers the same legitimacy and opportunities afforded to other youth competitive athletes, while also giving dancers and their guardians control over their identity, performances, and history.
The ICDR team combines expertise in dance, technology, operations, and communications; all united by a shared mission to promote safety, transparency, and professionalism in competitive dance.