The End of Senior Year

As the year is winding down to an end, senior project is finally over, and all that's left of school is just fun stuff, it is kind of a bitter sweet feeling. Although, I am happy to be moving on to bigger things, a part of me misses walking in to Lot K as a little freshmen. Ipoly will always hold a place in my heart. As a last note to my fellow classmates, if any of you read this, I hope you all chase your dreams, because like Eleanor Roosevelt once said," The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."   

Blog 23: Senior Project Reflection

(1) Positive Statement

What are you most proud of in your block presentation and/or your senior project? Why?

I am most proud of all the research that I was able to find and implement in my senior project and that I was able to convey all the information that I wanted to during my presentation.

(2) Questions to Consider

a. What assessment would you give yourself on your block presentation (self-assessment)?

AE/P because not only did I make time, but I included an abundance of research throughout the presentation, and made constant references to mentorship and research. I also know my topic extremely well and that carried through to my presentation.

b. What assessment would you give yourself on your overall senior project (self-assessment)?

AE because I constantly was doing mentorship and did way more than the required hours, I also got to live my senior project and test the answers and the different techniques I found throughout research.

(3) What worked for you in your senior project?

Having a lot of research and a consistent mentor really worked for me research wise, without my mentor I would’ve had quite a difficult time constructing answers and my essential question.

(4) (What didn't work) If you had a time machine, what would you have done differently to improve your senior project if you could go back in time?

In the beginning of research I wasn’t aware of all the videos that there were, so I spent a lot of time going through articles that were unhelpful, so I would go back and tell myself to use videos more.

(5) Finding Value

How has the senior project been helpful to you in your future endeavors?   Be specific and use examples.

My senior project has shown me that I am not only able to speak for long periods of time, but also write long papers and conduct a year long project. Walking in to iPoly freshman year I didn’t think I’d be able to do even a 10 minute presentation, much less an hour long one, but this final project has proved me wrong. Leaving this project also has left me with the knowledge that if I can accomplish this, a college thesis isn’t as scary as I might think. The last thing I have took from this project is a lot of valuable information on a topic that I truly enjoy. Dance is something that will definitely be apart of me for the rest of my life and being able to have all this knowledge on the topic and different methods I can apply to my dancing will help me a lot in the future.

Blog 22: Mentorship

Literal

• Belinda Maturo and Perfect Pointe School of Dance

Interpretive

What is the most important thing you gained from this experience? Why?

The most important thing that I have gained from this experience is that dance has many aspects to it, and it can be manipulated and morphed to fit you, as a dancer. This is something that I feel a lot of dancers don’t know, they see a movement and think, “I can’t do that,” and they never give it a chance. This can potentially hurt their career if they carry on with that mindset, which is why that knowing dance can be manipulated to fit the dancer is so important.

 Applied

How has what you’ve done helped you to answer your EQ?  Please explain.

My mentorship helped my both develop and answer my essential question because I was not only answering it with books and interviews, but I was actually putting the answers to work in real life. I got to live my project rather than just read about it.

Blog 21: Exit Interview

(1) What is your essential question, and what are your answers?  What is your best answer and why?

My essential question is, what is the best way for a dancer to prepare for a Royal Academy of Dance exam?

My best  answer is, a dancer should know the syllabus that their exam will be based upon. This is the best answer because a dancer should always know their choreography, and if the dancer doesn’t know the choreography there is no dance.

(2) What process did you take to arrive at this answer?

My mentorship revealed this answer as the best one, due to how much emphasis my mentor puts on the syllabus and that most of our classes revolve around the syllabus.

(3) What problems did you face?  How did you resolve them?

The only real problem I faced was finding an answer three, however going back and looking over my interviews I found that all of my interviewees kept saying the same thing, that a strong foundation is extremely important. Finding that recurring statement I found that it would be a good answer.  

(4) What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

The two most significant sources that helped me were the Royal Academy of Dance Syllabus and my mentor helped me a lot. The syllabus helped a lot because it is the set exercises that will be viewed in the exam and it has all the information you would need for an exam and my mentor helped me a lot with interviews, any questions about dance and helping me come up with answers and my final activity.

The Process of Choreographing

Have you ever watched a dance and thought "Wow, I wonder what it took to make the dance so clean and nice to watch."... yea not many people do. In fact the only people who care about the process of making a dance so visually compelling are dancers and choreographers. I am one of those people, and through some recent experiences I have discovered a lot of work goes into creating a dance, and I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to do so this year, with the iPoly dance team. 

When choreographing a dance there are 5 steps that usually take you through the process.

1. Finding music*
2. The choreographer, choreographs the piece*
3. The choreographer then teaches the dance to the dancers
4. The dance is then cleaned up 
5. The dance is performed 

*Step 1 and 2 are interchangeable, depending on how the choreographer gets inspired.

Step number 2 is probably the most intricate and intense step. Not only do you have to think of the movements you are going to put in, but there is also formations, ripples, cannons, having groups of people perform one part while another group does another part of the dance, etc. to think about. Seems hectic right? But that is what makes it fun, all the options that are available to choose from. It allows you to create whatever you please.

Although, putting the process of choreographing into those 5 steps makes it look easy, it is an a very complex and sometimes frustrating process. You may have a vision in your head of how you want this piece to look, but it doesn't turn out that way because the tempo is too fast or the dancers aren't getting the movements, etc. It is from this that I learned why it is so important to keep in mind the ability of your dancers, and the tempo of your music and so on, so you don't have to go back and reconfigure the movements. 

Once you get through that whole process, though, and get to see your vision come to life, there is nothing more satisfying, and I am glad to have the opportunity to experience it this year. :)

Blog 19: Independent Component 2

LITERAL

a) I, Cheyenne Jarman, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 33 hours and 30 minutes of work.”

b) Cite your source regarding who or what article or book helped you complete the independent component:

Royal Opera House. "Dance Styles in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - The Royal Ballet." YouTube. YouTube, 4 Apr. 2013. Web. 23 Jan. 2015.

BBC. "BBC Documentary Good Swan, Bad Swan: Dancing Swan Lake." YouTube. YouTube, 30 May 2014. Web. 27 Feb. 2015.

First Position. Dir. Bess Kargman. Perf. Aran Bell, Miko Fogarty, Jules Fogarty, Michaela Deprince, Joan Sebastian Zamora. 2011. DVD.      

c) Update your Independent Component 2 Log (which should be under your Senior Project Hours link)

d) Throughout this independent component I learned two main things. The first is that I learned how to teach choreography better to help the dancers remember the movements. The second is that I learned different ways of how and when a dancer adds their personal style and how impactful it can be on a dance.   

INTERPRETIVE

Defend your work and explain the component's significance and how it demonstrates 30 hours of work.   Provide evidence (photos, transcript, art work, videos, etc) of the 30 hours of work.  

This component helped me provide more support for my answer 2, that a dancer should add their own personal style. It also helped me learn more as to how dancers add the style.

Another lesson I got from this component is that I was able to improve my teaching skills and learn different ways on how to teach that will help the dancer memorize the dance the best.

In these pictures Alyanna and I are working on choreographing a dance for the pep-rally.

APPLIED

How did the component help you answer your EQ? Please include specific examples to illustrate how it helped.

This component helped me really establish my answer 2, that a dancer should add their own personal style to a dance, and support the answer. While working on this component I was able to watch 30+ girls learn the exact same choreography and then see how they perform it with their own style. The dance team is currently working on two different pieces for the upcoming pep-rally and I have seen how the dancers interpret the choreography and make it into their own.

Injuries in Dance

In the world of dance, injuries are a very common thing. Anything from bruises to pulled muscles to sprained ankles and everything in between. Injuries are definitely something that dancers try to avoid like the plague because it could mean the difference of being able to perform or having to watch from the wings. However, every once in a while an injury will spring itself upon a dancer.

A lot of injuries that tend to occur are related to knees, ankles, and feet. What a shocker, dancers get injuries that involve their legs. Some common injuries that appear are bruised toe nails, blisters, pulled muscles, and sprained ankle/ foot. In fact, I recently experienced an injury that couldn't have come at a worse time.

About a week and a half before my big RAD exams were coming up. During a class of mine we were doing our across the floor exercises and long story short I ended up landing a leap wrong and hurt my foot pretty severally. At first I didn't think anything of it because I had landed wrong before, but I was fine after a couple of minutes. However, this time the pain didn't really go away. So when I got home I iced it and did everything you were suppose to. I continued that for the next five days, but my foot was showing to progress. I was getting really scared especially as my exam date was approaching. I continued to ice it and elevate it up until the hour before my exam. My foot still showed no progress. So long story short, I had to take my hour and a half exam where we had to jump, balance and perform a few pointe exercises, with a foot that was in pain. It was definitely not a pleasant feeling, but I needed to do it.

That is another thing about injuries in dance. Often dancers will perform with injuries. I was watching a short documentary about a dancer with the Bolshoi, that severely hurt her foot right before a huge performance that would ultimately determine her career. As time went on her foot wasn't getting better, so she ended up performing with her injury.

Although no dancer ever wants to have an injury, it is something that we face sooner or later. The best thing a dancer can do is to be safe in the first place to avoid injury and if you still happen to get injured, just give it the proper care right away.