July 31st, 2007 at 10:26 am
Journal
This is an opportunity for you to journal some of your movement & choreographic experiences in class throughout the semester. Please relate your comments to class only. Throughout the quarter/semester I am asking that you journal at least once each week.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 31st, 2007 at 10:26 am and is filed under Beginning II Dance, Intermediate Dance.
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I really like doing yoga and mat work. It relaxs me and it helps me soak in my day, along with being able to exercise. It’s my favorite part of dance class because the movements in yoga that we do is very easy for me to repeat at my house. When we do crazy dances across the floor, those are harder for me to remember and I don’t really think I would be able to do different leaps and dances at my house, but after I work out it is very nice to be able to do a few yoga positions or even some crunches that Julie has taught us.
November 19th, 2007 at 10:24 amI agree with Christine. I think that the unique and new movements I have learned from the combination of our pilates mat workouts, yoga phrases, and stretching/relaxation days, are really good to learn. I think that because our days are so fast-paced, it is nice to take some time to concentrate on stretching and breathing.
Aside from the physical benefits of yoga, mat work, and stretching days- these days are a nice way to break up units. Its exciting to take a break from a normal routine to do something new and different.
I think we should continue having these types of days in the future.
November 25th, 2007 at 8:28 pmToday we did an exercise where we worked to accomplish the ability to sense your parter or company moving with you; you were able to use sight at one point, and then use your senses. We started out by mirroring our partner but then we switched and faced opposite ways and tried to feel our partner. This was quite difficult, but after a while you learned to use other things other than your vision to move the same as your partner. I was able to use my hearing to hear where she was moving.. and I was able to focus on the kind of breaths that she was taking. I could also focus on the amount of wind and air that was passing through my fingers at the bottom. If I was feeling a lot of wind and air, then I knew that she was moving. At this point, I could also feel her arms and legs go back to our neutral position.
I hope that we spend a lot more time improving because I greatly enjoyed the experience! I think that I will become a lot better with my timing and senses by doing this.
Thanks Julie!
Catie Reimer
November 26th, 2007 at 6:57 pmI have to say that my favorite things in dance are yoga and ballet. I have an obsession with The Nutcracker and learning some of the moves that they often use was really fun. I am also a very tense person so being able to relax while doing yoga is a definite plus!
November 27th, 2007 at 12:19 pmMy favorite thing in class is when we work on yoga and pilates! It is a very fun and relaxing exercise that i seem to really enjoy. In yoga and pilates, there are many different forms and movments that touch every muscle. Its a great stretch and makes your body feel renewed.
I am also enjoying the group work we are now doing because it gets the students involved with eachother and allows us to be very creative while using movement from our choreographer.
December 12th, 2007 at 10:01 amFor the past couple weeks we’ve been working on improve in 4th hour and I’ve found that it is really helping me come up with movement. It relaxes you on staying to typical movement and really helps expand to what we usually see. With different situations presented each day it really brings out different things in each of us. Working with levels has been the most interesting to me this far. I found it really interesting how people relate to each other in the space, as well as how they use the negative space around them. I tend to drift off and look at one person or a pair and how they work off of each other in what they are doing. When restrictions are placed on a group people seem like they are a little nervous but once they get into what they are supposed to be doing it is really fun to watch. Friday we started working with our recipes and I found it really hard. I think that the biggest challenge is including the props with flowing movement and making sure that it is clear the viewer. It’s a challenge; but it’s fun!
December 16th, 2007 at 5:35 pmThe last couple of weeks we have been working on various forms of improv in class. First we did “flocking” in which there were four people to a group and one person led the group, depending on which direction that was faced. I really enjoyed this exercise, it forcing you as a dancer to become creative with movement and also teaching you to move in unison with the other dancers. I think that the exercise is excellent for those of us that are in the orchesis show as we often have large, unison group pieces and “flocking” gave us a sense of moving as one.
December 17th, 2007 at 7:10 pmWe also did improv using platforms. Four or five dancers started at various levels and improved based on restrictions, such as moving with only right angles. Giving us restrictions like this actually forced us to be more creative with our movement and I saw a lot of really cool things in class. I realized how effective level, facing, and tempo changes can be. Even the simplicity in the contrast of a dancer moving fast and one moving slow is powerful and interesting to watch. The exercise definitely gave me some ideas of how I can make my choreography for the spring more visually appealing.
I have to say that I LOVE the improve unit in dance! When you first said that we were going to try improve, I immediately thought of getting up and doing a random monologue or some kind of theater actor games. But, we ended up doing something completely different! I love it! I feel like I’ve learned to connect so much more with the dancers around me. My favorite thing so far was the platform exercises. I found it so interesting to see dancers, with given restrictions, (which is uncommon in most choreography)end up dancing so uniquely from one another. I especially loved when two or more dancers would randomly move together, or at the same tempo, without knowing it. It was almost like they planned out that contraction, level change, or whatever it was. Right now, we are working on the recipes, and I love it! Once again, this project is so unique! I loved seeing how others interpreted different actions that are involved in baking, and can’t wait to see the rest of the recipes tomorrow!!
December 17th, 2007 at 7:20 pmI have really enjoyed the past couple of days in fourth hour dance. We were put into pairs and assigned a recipe with a brief description of the food, pretty much just verbs and nouns. We brought in a couple of props to help the audience recognize our movement, and eventually we created a piece based off the recipe. Our group had English Plum Pudding, and we had fun using the different verbs to illustrate some movement. It was very interesting watching other groups present because a lot of them used unusual interpretations; some were more abstract and some were simpler and more goofy. Overall, I liked this project because it showed us you can take an unusual concept/promt to create a unique piece of choreography.
December 18th, 2007 at 10:39 pmI loved the improv unit in fourth hour. While it was personally helpful in creating movement, I found it more interesting to watch others in the improv. I saw things that I would not have been able to come up with, especially the days working with the platforms. There were beautiful moments that happened purely by chance. In watching, I saw different ways of looking at movement (space being occupied and the space that was empty around the dancers). I got a lot more out of it that way. I thought it was really effective when some dancers were slow and others showed different speeds surrounding them. It gave me a lot of new ideas of different aspects to work with.
The days we were flocking gave me a lot of new ideas of floor patterns and how effective they are. People were moving in interesting patterns that were not just three lines or two clumps.
December 19th, 2007 at 12:05 pmMy favorite unit has been improvisation. It was really fun to work with other dancers in my hour and learn some different styles from following them. It was also a good opportunity to get blind folded and work on trust with another person. Since the spring show is coming up, the recipe piece was a good way to work with words. The platforms were a interesting way to incorporate other props into movement. I learn a lot of ideas from class and I hope many people apply them to their pieces in the show.
January 6th, 2008 at 6:20 pmMy favorite unit was definitly improvisation. It made us really think about all the types of technics there are and how we could used them in our danse.Even though at first we had no idea how to start we just taught of many scenarios and then just went with the flow.I also enjyed exploring the person that was assigned to us because it just feels good to know about danse and be able to recognized a famouse danser or a dance term. Improve also helps us show our creativity, it lets us explore so many possibilities.
January 16th, 2008 at 6:47 pmI really enjoyed the guest artist! (I thought I would journal in here since there wasnt an area posted for this.) It was nice to experience some new ways of dancing….and not only booty shaking! There is alot more to it than that! To make the movements look good, it takes alot to get the steps right, and I learned that although it may feel awkward, its right. The guest artists said that alot of Hip/Hop is awkward movements, and that you need to realized that everything might not feel good, but it looks good! I also realized that alot of hip/hop invloves your whole body, because your moving everything together as a whole. Also, I’ve been searching for some of the songs we danced to….and I cant find them!!!!
Overall, I really enjoyed a new form of dance!
March 18th, 2008 at 8:47 pmThanks for inviting her!!
These past few weeks in fourth hour we have been learning different dances choreographed by the people in our dance class. I really liked that alot. I feel that I learned a lot and got an opportunity to learn some of my favorite dances from the Orchesis show. There were a lot of different styles that I got to expirience every three days. It was fun to see the styles and choreographic abilities of the dancers in the class. I believe that it was a good expirience for everybody as well as the teachers teaching their dances.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:46 amall last week we learned dances, i loved the dances i got to learn they were all so different and fun,nikkis was more morden and unique style and movement you usually dont experience and constances was lyrical and powerful with movement and i like how her song went from a softer voice to a louder and more powerful voice, it was something fun to do for a week. coming from me becuase i had to teach, i was nervous at first but after i started teaching i thought it was fun. i hope the girls enjoyed learning my peice thanks for being such great listeners guys! =]
May 19th, 2008 at 10:48 amSo I realize I am going a ways back when I am looking at these blogs but I figure why not? Dance this year, even more so than last year, taught me technique, how to portray what we’re dancing and how a dancer lives. There is no mercy in dance. To me, dancers are one of the greater athletes because they move and twist their bodies to fit the unnatural. They devote all of their time, from childhood through their adulthood to dance. It is truly amazing. It makes me wish I had that motivation to do it and that I could have started way before I did. Either way, I will still use the core exercises and such to progress myself. Pilate’s will always have a special place in my heart, haha.
May 20th, 2008 at 9:07 pmFor a couple of weeks in dance we spent the time to learn different choreography from the Orchesis show. I thought that this was so much fun. There were several dances that I saw being performed that I thought would be so much fun to learn and here was my opportunity. I think that my favorite piece that we learned was Nikki’s dance. I really like the song and learning the movement from the performance made it even better. Now whenever I listen to the song I have to do the movements. I really would like to see that next year if possible. This year I also really enjoyed the Yoga and Relaxation times. These exercises were a chance to get away from all the stress that we have in school and reflect on ourselves. I felt that they were very relaxing and calming and were a way for me to get away for 40 minutes before the chaos started again.
June 1st, 2008 at 9:50 pm