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. 

Blog 18: Interview 4 Prep

1. What is the best way for a dancer to prepare for the RAD exams?
2. What are the two most important factors a dancer should have when going into an exam and why?
3. How would you define personal style in dance?
4. What kind of style would you say you have?
5. Do you think it is important for students to study multiple genres of dance? Why?
6. Aside from ballet, what are three of the most important dance styles to study? And why should students study them?
7. Aside from knowing the syllabus what is the most important thing a dancer should know when entering an exam?
8. What do you think is the most important style of dance and why?
9. What made you start dancing?
10. What was it like dancing in a company and what was the most memorable moment?
11. How is modern dance different from ballet and why does modern vary so much from person to person?
12. Why is it important for a dancer to learn modern?
13. What are different ways a dancer can convey emotion through their dance?
14. Which method of conveying emotion would most help in an RAD exam?
15. What is something you always do while performing and why?
16. Which style of dance would you say is the most expressive and why?
17. What is something you always make sure you do when dancing and why do you always make sure you do it?
18. What are college dance programs like?
19. What is some advice for a student going into a dance program in college?
20. Why did you become a dance teacher?

Blog 17: Answer 3

EQ

• What is the best way for a dancer to prepare for the RAD Exams?

Answer #3 (Write in a complete sentence like a thesis statement)*

• The best way that a dancer can prepare for the RAD Exams is to have have proper technique and training and a strong foundation in ballet.

3 details to support the answer (a detail is a fact and an example)

• My mentor requires all the dancers at her studio to take at least one ballet class a week before taking any other genre.
• In all three of my interviews, when asked what is the most important dance style, all three interviewees responded with ballet.
• In the book, Basic Principles of Classical Ballet: Russian Ballet Technique , the author also states several times throughout the book that ballet is the foundation for a lot of other genres of dance.

The research source (s) to support your details and answer

• Vaganova, Agrippina Ja. Basic Principles of Classical Ballet: Russian Ballet Technique. Transl. from the Russian by Anatole Chujoy. Incorp. All the Material from the 4th Russian Ed. Inchiding Vaganova's "Sample Lesson with Musical Accompaniment" Transl. by John Barker. New York: Dover Publ., 1969. Print. 25 Sept. 2014.
• Interviews 1,2, and 3
• Copeland, Misty, and Charisse Jones. Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina. New York: Touchstone Book, Published by Simon & Schuster, 2014: 23-28. Print. 14 Nov. 2014.

Concluding Sentence

• Having a strong ballet foundation can not only help a dancer with their exam work, but also help them become stronger dancers in other genres.

Misty Copeland

Due to the fact that Misty Copeland is coming to the area soon with the American Ballet Theater, in a performance of The Sleeping Beauty, I thought I would dedicate a blog post to her. 

Misty Copeland is actually one of my favorite dancers and a real inspiration to me. She started dancing very late in the world of dance at the age of 13. In her book "Life in Motion" you will see that the journey to earning her position as soloist with the American Ballet Theater was not an easy one, but she had the drive to push through and achieve her dream. 

She is an inspiration to me for that reason. Much like her I too started dancing very late, but I have not let that hold me back. She just proves that if you have a passion and a dream for something you can achieve it. This ideal doesn't just apply to dance either. If you have a passion, go after it.

On a side note, Copeland has not only had feats in the ballet world. Like I mentioned early she has written a book, which I highly recommend, appeared in commercials like Dr. Pepper and did a campaign with Under Armour.



Below I have placed a few of her performances.
Enjoy. :) 

Misty Copeland in The Nutcracker

Misty Copeland at age 15 performing 

a variation from Don Quixote.

Her ad campaign with Under Armour.