Dance

[Boy Scout]

We had another dance workshop today, and our last one will be tomorrow. It is rather hard to learn the steps when you can't see them (even if you are tall like me)!!

[De_De]

Had my first experience as a dance teacher today My sister got sick so she asked me to teacher her mini groups that are preparing for a show. I didn't have to do much, just a simple warm up and practising their dances again and again. This was the first time I was in class alone with kids, what I mean is that before I was the assistant teacher helping my sister. I was extremly nervouse, but everything went well

[RubyGamgee]

De_De, that's so exciting! I'm glad you had a good first teaching experience. I'm aspiring to be a dance teacher some day as well. I've assistant taught in my dance school for a few years now. Since I started college, I haven't been able to dance as much, but I am not going to give it up for anything.

Do you dance ballet exclusively? I've never danced ballet or tap or anything really besides Irish Step dance. Okay, I've done a bit of contra dancing and line dancing but that's about it. I really love Irish Step though and I know that we sort of "steal" a lot of techniques from ballet and tap, because we dance both with soft shoes called ghillies and then the heavy or "hard" shoes with the fiber glass toes and heels.

Boy Scout, I love dance workshops. Our school doesn't have them frequently enough, if you ask me. We have them about once a semester maybe if we can manage it. For workshops, we like to bring in guest teachers from schools that we're associated with. The guest teachers are always highly competitive dancers who've competed in the World Championships and such, so they offer a lot more perspective and enthusiasm that we don't often get in our small-town dance school.

[De_De]

Pffffffft noooo I am actually not very good a ballet I just failed my ballet exam, gonna have to redo it in January. I danced rock-n-roll in my childhood, but for the past three years I have been dancing in my sister's dance studio where we do a little bit of everything, but mostly jazz modern. I am curently studying to be a dance teacher where we do a bit of everything. Btw, here is a little montage my sister made of my historical ball dance exam. It's one of my favorite subjects Basically we learn ball dances from the late 16 to the late 19th centuries, and along with the dances you learn a lot about costumes, manners and just the way people would act in those times. It' a lot of fun
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_oj9q_ePq0
(P.S. I'm in the green skirt )

You do Irish step? That is sooooo awesome! I am a biiiiiiig fan of Irish step! I never danced it, but I love watching videos! Fiberglass toes and heel? Wow, that must be heavy! How do you dance with all that wieght? Do you have any videos of you dancing? I would really like to see you dance

[RubyGamgee]

I am curently studying to be a dance teacher where we do a bit of everything. Btw, here is a little montage my sister made of my historical ball dance exam. It's one of my favorite subjects Basically we learn ball dances from the late 16 to the late 19th centuries, and along with the dances you learn a lot about costumes, manners and just the way people would act in those times.

That's so cool! This winter I went to a ball hosted by a Christian family and community. It was a formal event, but a few people were dressed in period costumes and we danced a lot of English folk/contra dances and even some Irish folk set dances. We learned the "Mr. Darcey" dance from the A&E adaptation of Pride & Prejudice, the one starring Collin Firth. I was seriously geeking out and having the time of my life.

I wish I could do more contra dancing, because it's so fun! Do you think you'd ever want to be involved with historical reenactments? Given what you're learning, it sounds like you'd be good in those.

Here's a video of our school performing at our recital last winter. http://youtu.be/RwOhvMAfsP0 I'm in the center front, with the big dark curly wig. I wasn't dancing very well in this recital because I had forgotten my hard shoes and was wearing my dance teacher's, which were a size too small for me. I was terrified of slipping and whatnot, but we still did a pretty good job as a whole group overall. I hopefully should be putting up some video footage from our latest dance recital which was our very best recital ever, I'm pretty sure. We had a lot of new choreography and everyone danced well the entire evening.

[De_De]

Wow, that must have been soooo cool. I participated in a couple of dances and the contra\polka kind of dances are always the funnest. Aaaaah you learned 'Mr. Darcy's dance' sooooo cool!!!! I really like it! Must learn it, must!!!

Yes I am very interested in historical reenactment. You see I do historical reenactment...just a different century. I reenact Russia 14th century. My sisters are very very interested in the early 19th century, and we do plan to sew costumes and research that time period, but it's sorta a gradual switch because we are soooo into the 14 century But it's all in our plans

Wow, wow, wow!!!! I LOVE your dancing!!!! AAAAAAAA I think you did wonderfully! How do you guys keep such straight lines??? That's one of the most difficult things for me, to keep a straight line. I'm always either to much infront or too much in the back. And all of the movements are so clean. Love it, love it, love it!!!!

[TheGentleWarrior]

Wow, there are so many great dancers on here! Lovely videos guys! I'd love to share a video, but that probably won't happen anytime soon. Besides, I'm not exactly the best dancer anyway.

Ruby, you're so good at Irish Dance! I've always wanted to try it so badly but have never had the chance to. The most irish step dancing I did was a small bit of footwork I got offline to put in my ballet recital dance a few years ago.. our song was Lord of the Dance. I wonder if irish dance has any similarities at all to tap or ballet? I sometimes wonder if it'd be easier to pick up since I already take both of those already.

Soo.. I haven't been on here in awhile, but lately things have been nuts regarding dance. All my costumes have come in and of course, with my luck two had to be returned. They didn't fit! In fact, my pointe costume was so tight, I got stuck in the bodice and had to get yanked out of it by my classmates. I'm still waiting on a larger size for both costumes!

Anyone here ever do italian fouettes/grande fouettes in ballet before? I just got them on pointe, YAY! Those things are so HARD!

De_De, congrats on teaching your first dance class! That's such an experience, and probably quite exciting and scary at the same time! I'm still assisting but last week and this week is different.. I'm kinda like.. somewhat in charge of the class now more so than before.. it's hard to explain but I can't really go into detail here.

[De_De]

Wowie new costumes!!! I always love new costumes! I really want to see them, do you have any photos of them? Haha I know how you feel about costmes being too tight/ Recently my sister chreographed a new dance that called for a solo, so she asked me to do it. But because it was all done kinda in the last minute we didn't have a costume for me, so my sister gave me a dress that was sewn for her. Now my sis is a bit smaller that me, you should have seen me trying to put it on Boy did I feel fat And taking it off was a whole deal, but at least we had a good laugh

Ha, you kidding grand fouettes...nah, I'm nowhere near that But that it sooooo awesome Warrior! Congrats

It is difficult to be in charge of a class, because it's you're responsibility to make sure that everyone is doing it right, and most important of all that no one gets hurt.

[TheGentleWarrior]

De_De, I don't have any actual pictures of them in person right now. (Not allowed to touch them until dress rehearsal) But I can provide links if you'd like.

My pointe costume STILL isn't in yet! I'm starting to panic. It was returned 2 months ago now, and my replacement isn't here. We only have 8 weeks left until recital so I'm not exactly very calm right now. I'm waiting on another size of a velvet leotard that I also returned two months ago. It's part of one of my duet costumes (tap/pointe). We couldn't find a decent costume so we need to have one custom made. We have every base piece ready except for the leotards.. We're having the rest of the costume sewn to the leotard, if they don't hurry up and arrive soon I don't know what we'll do! Panicking over that, too.

Aaand, to add to the whole "recital is in two months nothing seems ready help panic!!!" list, ( ) I just found out I'm going to have one of the nuttiest costume changes of my entire life during one of the shows I'm in. I have to go from my tap/pointe duet to a tap dance in 4 minutes.

That means in four minutes I need to go from a leotard/tutu/jacket with pink tights, pointe shoes + padding, and my hair in a bun with headpiece.... to tan tights, tap shoes, dress, complicated ties wrapped up my arm, crazy makeup, and my hair a crazy mess ALL in four minutes because my music this year is "Witch doctor" and my class decided to take "crazy" a tad too literally. *sigh*

I'm scared to death honestly. I've never moved so fast in my life, and unfortunately I've seen students miss getting onstage because of these changes! So.. that's not going to be fun. Since my ballet teacher has only two dances in this particular show, and they're spread far apart from eachother, she'll be there to help me change and rip my hair out... I'm forever going to be greatful for that. She's one of the only people I think who will help me stay calm.

(Can you tell recital is getting closer? I'm totally not nervous! )

I just started assisting another class to help my teacher out.. the majority of them are teenagers! Yikes.. never thought I'd be assisting 13-14 year olds especially with how close I am to them in age. It's fun though. I've been left alone more often lately with all classes, and have started center/barrework, done attendance, run recital dances and more. It can be scary at times, but I get more comfortable everytime I do it.

Boy do I love these kids.. they grow on you so much. My pre-ballet class wanted to know if I would dance on stage with them! They were quite upset that I wasn't.

[De_De]

AAAAA panic panic panic!!! I tottaly understand! Hope you get all your costumes in time, because sewing everything in the last minute is really stressfull (sad experience).

FOUR MINUTES TO CHANGE?!?!?! Wow, will you manage? You'll have to practise What happens if you're not ready in time? Do they just skip your number?

Oooooo yes, teaching teenagers is a bit weird. I feel like I'm almost their age, and don't really feel comfortable teaching them.

Now I have a question for you . How did you get into dancing? I mean did your parents send you to dance class, or did you decide to go yourself?

[TheGentleWarrior]

Sewing everything last minute sounds terrifying! I only hope we get everything soon. I haven't been in dance all week because of spring break, however I did hear that another huge shipment of costumes came in. I leave to assist in a few hours, and will get to see then if my remaining costumes came in. I hope so!

Four minutes, AHHHHH! I hope I can make it! I'll be practising a lot at home, for sure! I am a bit calmer though, knowing that my ballet teacher will be helping me. She's taught me for years now, and is like a member of my family to me, so she'll help keep my mind clear during this whole 4 minute race to change!

In the past when someone wasn't ready ontime, the class would just go onstage without them and dance. That was really unfair, especially for those in multiple dances. Now if you're the typical "late person" and floating over to the recital 5 minutes before the act goes on, not even in costume... well, that's your own fault. But to those with costume changes? Horrible! A few years ago after a little 8 year old on the competition team missed her dance because of a costume change (she was sobbing horribly! ) they changed things around. Now they'll swap dances or throw in an extra solo if they have to in order for their dancers to be all set, so they'd probably "skip" our dance and move it a few acts down if they had too, should I not be able to change on time. Besides, if I have my teachers helping me change, they can't run the dance anyway! My tap teacher has to be backstage to give the music/lights/dance ques to the stage workers and dancers. They can't do anything without her!

When I was 4 years old, my mom decided to put my sister and I (twins, so we went at the same time) in ballet. It had always been a dream of hers to dance, and it looked like good exercise and fun. So, when September rolled around, in we went. It took my sister a while to actually get into class and enjoy it, however I marched right in and never looked back! Parents were allowed to sit in class and watch at this studio, so my sister made my dad record EVERY class, every single week! Then we'd go home, put the video into the VCR, and practise every day holding onto our tiny Fisher Price chairs as barres! We loved it.

Ever since then, each time we moved from one state or town to the next, we'd look for a new studio. We have never been serious pre-pro students, just recreational... however I consider myself a very "serious recreational student" as pitiful as that may sound. Every class I take, I act and work like I'm at a master class, or auditioning for a summer intensive. I take things perhaps way to seriously for just being recreational. I even dress differently from everyone else! My classmates say I'm the "real ballerina" because of the way I kind of have my stricter dress code.. XD

I've always had a strong love for ballet. I have dozens of stuffed animals in tutus, my Angelina Ballerina collection, dolls with ballet gear, photo frames, figurines and more that have to do with ballet! You name it, I probably have it.

I just finished sewing my new pair of pointe shoes. This has been a bad week. I had to rip out the ribbon twice and one of my elastics once because I sewed them so badly... I've never had to do that before! Now I get to wear them to class tonight... yay, rock hard pointe shoes!