Session Two Day Ten (MW)

Class One General Dance:
I began teaching modern this time, and it was a lot of fun! We started class by watching part of the Taylor Swift "Shake It Off" music video to show them different kinds of dance. It was a fun way to introduce a new style of dance. We did a combination with the "x" and fetal positions, plies, tendus, walking and leaping patterns and began learning a dance/combination. It was a fun day, and the dancers really enjoyed it! I had quite a few who said they liked it better than ballet, which is kinda fun.

Class Two Ballet (Younger):
Today was a little crazy. The boy and the three younger girls were very hard to get to pay attention. One kept swinging on the barre and the boy would alternate between kicking or punching one girl to the other. It was chaos. I'm starting to realize he needs a lot of personal attention, to keep him on task and to give him the encouragement that he needs. I am very excited to have an assistant!
We made it through plies, tendus, rond de jambs, eleves, releves, kicks, sautes, pas de chat, leaps and chaines, and I tried to have them do a pirouette combination where you do four quarter turns, two half turns and four whole turns, but after the eleves and releves they were pretty tired, so it didn't work very well. I think I'm going to do something else next time.

Class Three Ballet (Older):

I did a few new things to try and help this student progress a little bit more. I had her try and do the combinations without me saying anything and only directly following me on the first side. She did pretty good, but I think I want to keep working on it. I want her to get to the point where she can count and remember most of it on her own. We did plies, tendus, rond de jambs, eleves, releves, pirouettes at the barre, sautes, center tendu and pas de bourree, chaines, pas de chats, and leaps. The pas de bourrees are looking a lot better! I made a center tendu combination that ends with three pas de bourrees and it's helping a lot! I'm excited and I think I'll be able to put them in her dance! She really struggles to remember things, and I think she's not as hard of a worker as the other student who has her own class and I forget that sometimes. I want to inspire her to push herself or even just exert herself so she can do even better without me telling her exactly what to do next. 

I've been struggling with finding ballet music that I like to create dances for the showcase. Everything I find is either too slow or just doesn't fit. I'm going to keep looking and hopefully I find something soon so they can start learning it!

Day Twelve - Showcase!

I arrived late (due to car trouble) but the girls were there and so excited to go!

We began by doing a simple warm up (some free dance and the rhythm song) and then did some quick stretching. We then practiced our "explode" combination, and ran through the dance a few times. We had to practice not talking and narrating through the dance (which I realized we shoul've practiced a lot sooner). I then sent the girls to grab a drink and bring in their families. We were waiting for one parent so I had the girls show their chaines (since they are the main thing we didn't do in our dance) which was very fun. We then did the dance, and besides some giggling it went off without a hitch! They all did so well, and I was so proud of them for remembering and picking up so much! It was really exciting and fun to see them so happy and excited and to see how far they'd come!

With my plans to get a teaching job out of state after I graduate I was a little sad to have this session be over. I'll miss these girls, and I hope they sign up next session as well! But I am also excited to get an opportunity to try some of the new ideas that I've had with this next group of dancers.

Day Eleven

Today was one of the late comer's last day. (The other student hasn't shown up for about a week and a half, and I realized that I don't have any contact information for her because she signed up late.) We had her mom come and watch which was really sweet. It is so cute to see how much these girls love and are excited to show their parents all they've learned. I was also impressed with how well she focused and paid attention even though she had an audience.

We continued in much the same pattern as last time; we went around the circle picking one stretch to do, practiced our technique and then ran our dance. Today I did better with time management and didn't stay on one thing too long. We made it through everything fairly quickly and got right down to the dance. The girls were very concerned about how things would work with one of them missing, but I told them we would practice on Thursday before their parents came.

I handed out fliers with the details of the performance and what each dancer was to wear and expect. I'm having the students come in to warm up and practice and then the audience members enter after that. Hopefully it will go well!

All in all, even with the late start, I think we are ready to perform!

Day Ten

Today the main focus was completing the dance.

Things went a lot better today. We began by all picking a favorite stretch (to test their memories and condense the preparation before we began the technique). It was quite fun to see what they remembered and which stretches were their favorites. We then practiced most of our usual technique. I did not keep good track of time, and we ended up spending more time on technique than I had intended. Next time I'll have to pay better attention and try to go faster.

Next we worked on their dance. They remembered it fairly well! All of the dancers participated in learning and doing the rest of the dance, and everything went pretty smoothly. At the end I planned to have each student do a "trick" or favorite move and then come together for an ending pose, but it turned out to be a bit of a mess. They all picked poses instead of movements, and then I let them arrange the ending pose to allow them creativity. While we made the pose symmetrical, it was a little strange. I think I'll have to change the ending so there's only one thing instead of two that blend together and seem messy.

Hopefully we'll be able to practice enough to be ready to perform!

Day Nine

Today went pretty well. I came prepared with a dance for them to learn, and they got most of it down! I kept it pretty simple because I was worried about the younger dancers being able to remember it and execute it, but with the older girls leading it's going well.

The youngest dancer still refuses to do a lot of the things. She starts to pout when we do the combinations but she came and did them (if in an upset manner) after I told her they would be in the dance. She did the first part of the dance well and happily, but when we added kicks and turns she started to pout and wouldn't do anything. I didn't really baby her today; I wanted to get through as much of the dance as I could, and didn't really want to stop the other girls learning by stopping class to convince her to participate. I'll probably try and do more next class to help her, but I'm not sure what...

I had each dancer pick a stretch to do after warming up today, and that worked pretty well. I wanted to keep everything quick and simple, so we could get to learning the dance, and we were still able to stretch pretty well in all directions. I kept all the practicing technique pretty simple and quick since most of the steps were in the dance.

After the other girls left we practiced chaines and pirouettes and then did some free dancing and walking through the jungle. I wish we had more students that stayed longer so that this one student could experience imagining and dancing with others her age better, but it was still fun.