Expressing Emotions Through Dance!

For this blog post, I picked a current event about dance. From "The Atlantic" I found an article called, "Learning Empathy Through Dance". This article is basically about teaching kids social-emotional skills through dance. Dance is one of those things that you can do to let out your emotions, to forget about everything in life and escape in your on world, and dance. In this article, fifth-grade students from West Athens Elementary School live in Los Angeles's most violent neighborhood, were the school is also located. Baja Poindexter teaches these fifth-graders every Wednesdays, ball room dance. Poindexter is a teaching artist for Dancing Classrooms, which is a nonprofit based in New York City. This base brings ballroom dancing to schools primarily in undeserved communities. Baja Poindexter wants these kids to feel luck the class is a safe place where they can be and learn how to have respect for themselves and each other, forgetting about the negativity back at home. In the article Poiondexter says, " They're at a disadvantage, and at some point, they realize they're at a disadvantage", she says . "Will dance keep them away from some of these negative thing? I do believe that, and thats why I teach." ( Yap 2). I picked this article because it interests me. Its about dance, but theres so much to dance that can make a change in the world. It makes me happy to read this article and learn about Baja and that she's teaching kids about something that she loves, but also doing it to help them, she believes in them. Its a shame that these kids are unfortunate and have to live in in such a negative environment. Not only dance can be something for these students to stay away from the negativity at home, but also different clubs, sports, or anything that they enjoy and that keeps them busy. This is a great tool to educate the kids and leads them to the path of success, and also hopefully help them be the ones to change their community to a safe loving place to live.

Article: 

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/01/learning-empathy-through-dance/426498/

Dance Discourse Community

A discourse community has 6 characteristics according to Swales. Common public goals, intercommunication, feedback, expectations, specific lexis, old and new members are what makes a discourse community. Dance has a variety of discourse communities whether its a dance team, dance studio, dance club, etc. Those are examples of discourse communities that relate to dance. With that being said, for the blog post Im going to be using the discourse community of dancer problems! So what I did what went on Instagram, and put in "#dancerproblems". A bunch of post came up of dancers and the problem they have that only a dancer could understand. Since Im a dancer, I understood most of the problems some of the dancers had because Ive had those problems myself. This hashtag is a discourse community because....

• This community's public goal is to solve there problems. For example, if I worn out my point shoes, I need to get news ones and break those in.  Or another problem would be, auditioning and getting rejected. The goal is to keep auditioning and staying confident in till you finally get a call back! These are just 2 goals a dancer has to overcome.
• In this discourse community, dancers communicate to each other. #dancerproblems talks about their dance problems, and everyone in that community relates to each other, and comments on each others post. 
• Dancers in this community not only communicate, but also exchange feedback. For example, a dancer might have a problem like  their knees are all banged up and bruised. Another dancer might suggest to wear knee pads and ice the knees. This is a common problem for dancers.
• In a discourse community like #dancerproblems, there are expectations. One of my problems are picking about fast choreography, and a lot of dancers have this problem. But your dance teacher expects you to have the choreography down by the next class. Trying to pick of very fast and detailed choreography is one of my biggest weaknesses as being a dancer.  
• #dancerproblems has specific terms that are used in the community. For example, if I said, "today in ballet class I slipped and fell doing a tour jete", nobody is gonna know what a "tour jete: is unless you dance! Dance has a lot of specific terms, most of them are in  French if your in a Ballet or Lyrical class. 
• This community has a variety of members. Young dancers post in this hashtag. Older dancers who might not even dance anymore also post in this hashtag!  

Dance Problems mentioned in the community:

Discourse Community:

https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/dancerproblems/?hl=en

The World Of Hip Hop

There are so many different genres of dance. There are the basics like ballet and tap, and then there are international ones like river dance or bachata. Dance has a big variety of genres all around the world. But I’m going to be talking about one genre of dance that is very popular, and that is also one of my favorites! For this blog post, I’m going to be talking about Hip Hop! Hip Hop also has many versions to it. There is old school hip-hop. Hip-hop from this generation includes twerking, whiping, dabing. Well there not really considered "hip hop", but many hip-hop dancers use it so it kind of just fell into hip-hop. Hip-hop also includes krumping and tutting, which is very popular. But I’m just going to focus on one version of hip-hop, and that is breakdancing. Me personally, I don't breakdance but I do know some of the basics of breakdancing. Breakdancing has always been fascinating to be, and someday I hope to be good at it. To breakdance, you have to have a lot of strength especially in your core, but this goes for basically every dance genre. Breakdancing is a type of hip-hop that’s called "street dance". When you see a break-dancer, you would usually see them breakdancing outside especially if your walking around in a city like New York. If you see a boy breakdancing, the name for them is "B-boy", and a girl that break-dances is called a "B-girl".  If are competing in breakdance, you wouldn't call it a "breakdance competition, you would call it a "breakdance battle".  For a battle, there are a lot of expectations. For example in the article, "With Crews and Zoos, a B-Boy World", it mentions, "Battle of the year is largely responsible for the trend toward longer, more artful works featuring characters and plot."(Bloom, 1). This means that they have to tell a story through their breakdance. Breakdancing has a lot of famous moves that you may notices every time you see someone breakdance. Like it mentions in the article, "The dance in the night-time." it says," One dancer swivels on his head. Another pops and locks. These small explosions of wrist palm and foot are the universal body play of breakdance."(Kampala, 1). I’m not going to lie; I always see a breakdance spin on their head at least once in their routine. Breakdance is known all around the world, many different countries are influenced by breakdance. In the early 1980's, breakdancing was very popular in Britain. "When the breakdancing craze swept Britain", it says," Each week, hundreds of "b-boys" attended Nottingham's biggest nightclub, Rock City, to show off their moves."(Wade, 1). Breakdancing has started years ago, and is still popular today! 

http://questcrew.com/take-dance-to-the-next-level-with-dominic-d-trix-sandoval/

(One of my favorite B-boys, Dtrix)

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/488570259548709546/

(B-girl)

Articles:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-34244395

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/arts/dance/12bloo.html

http://www.economist.com/node/18226575

My Critique on Dance Workshops

For this blog post, I’m going to critique dance. I wasn’t really sure how to do this at first, but I will try my best! I’m going to critique dance by applying one of the dance workshops I took. So about 3 years ago, I took a dance workshop at my dance studio. My dance teacher was able to get Victor Smalley and Angel Armas from “Dance Moms Miami”, to teach a master class. Victor and Angel are seriously top-notch choreographers in my opinion from watching the show. I even remember watching Victor On “So You Think You Can Dance”. He was absolutely amazing! So I was a little nervous to take the class because, they don’t mess around! They are strict and will push you to the limit.  When class began, they we did an intense warm up, and when I say “intense”, I mean like I could not move the next day! After the warm up, They taught us a combination, which wasn’t easy. But once I got the combination down I really liked it! I love their choreography, its contemporary so its very different but elegant at the same time.  But after were down the choreography part, they wanted us to improve. For me, I am seriously bad at improve! Most of us taking the class were kind of lost at first doing improve. So they stopped the music and had us sit in a circle. They asked us if we loved dance, and if we dance in our rooms. We all said yes, and their point was, we need to apply that to our improve. They said to forget about everything else in life and just feel the music.  It doesn’t matter if you look silly, no one is judging, just move the way the music tells you to move. After their motivation speech, they had us do the combo again. When it was time to improve, I did what they said! I totally forgot about everything and I just dance, I felt like I was in my own world.  Improve can be stressful, but if dance is your passion and you have to show in you improve that its your passion! Improve gives you the chance to show people your way of dance and how you interpret it through different movements based on the music. With that said, Victor’s and Angel’s master class was inspiring. They are truly great people and phenomenal teachers. They really get you to understand on how to be the best dancer you can be. Even though they may seem scary, their really just trying to help you, and its amazing how they train their dancers. After taking their master class, I would defiantly take another one because I had the best experience with them. If you are a passionate dancer, I recommend taking their dance workshop, or any dance workshop for that matter! Dance workshops are a great tool to help you grow as a dancer and you get to work with different types of choreographers. They give good advice and help guide you! And lastly, dance workshops are absolutely inspiring! The choreographers I’ve met, take the time to get to know you personally and help you out a lot. I just love dance workshops!!!! 

http://movement-agency.com/news/stars-dance-moms-miami-victor-smalley-and-angel-armas-sign-mta

(Angel on the right, Victor on the left)

(Me with Angel and Victor)