Task 3D: Critical Questions and issues that emerge

On 26^th August 2012 I was given an amazing opportunity to teach at a dance intensive summer camp named HDI. This camp employed the 5 of the best choreographers from the UK and 4 of the best choreographers from America who have worked alongside artists such as Nikki Minaj, Britney spears been on TV programmes such X-Factor USA, Americas Best Dance crew the list goes on. I felt for my name and picture to be on the same poster as these artists, and for it to be promoted all around the UK was amazing publicity for me. As well as this over 140 dancers from all over the world would take my class and amazing choreographers, as stated above would also be able to acknowledge my work. This was a big dream/goal of mine and has been something I have been working towards. It was very important to me that I made a good impression by teaching choreography that I felt was creative and would be respected by the people at this event and also the atmosphere within the class was full of high energy. I also really wanted people walking away from class feeling that they have learned something, which they are able to take into other classes. I believe I was given this opportunity due to efficient networking, lots of development within my practice and due to a lot of positive energy I was receiving from friends and people who’ve been taking my class and watching my videos online. When looking back at my journal, I noticed these were point I had been working on for a long time and as a result of this persistent hard work I have been able to create myself an amazing opportunity.

A good friend of mine, named several times within my blog and journal, Josh Ricketts organised this event, therefore I believe us sharing ideas, networking and just generally working together played a huge part in reaching this goal. As well as teaching at an event like this was my goal, putting this is an amazing event on was his goal. So it was an amazing accomplishment for us both.

Prior to this event I was very worried about what I was going to teach as I explained above, I wanted people to respect and enjoy my choreography. I didn’t actually realise until this experience but a weakness of mine is self-belief. Even though people around me was telling me that my choreography was already at a level where I could teach it at this high level event, I just didn’t believe it. My anxiety got worse I realised how little time I had to choreograph for this event. I was very busy during this month, with University work, Choreographing for a Lottery Campaign, several performances, lots of paper work to do with contracts, flights invoices etc.  I did try to make other pieces of choreography; however I kept getting interrupted by work and never really got the chance to finish anything. I remember the night before I travelled down to HDI I stayed up until 02:30am to try and complete a piece of choreography that I felt was respectable. I decided what I was going to teach minutes before I had to announce it in class. When I announced I was teaching, choreography that was very popular on my YouTube channel and its name “Practice by Drake, a lot of people cheered, which straight away gave me a lot of confidence. The support and high level of energy I received in class gave me a confidence boost I felt was needed not just to get me through the day but also to further my career. I felt if people enjoyed that piece then they would appreciate my more recent pieces of art. As the day went on, Josh approached me asking if I wanted to teach another workshop at the end of the day as my other workshop went so well. Straight away, I began to doubt myself again thinking I have taught one workshop that went extremely well and I didn’t want to teach another one in-case it didn’t go down well and I would have to leave the camp knowing the last people got to see of my work was not impressive enough.  However Josh asked me “Why do you doubt yourself?” Here instantly thought for me to get further into my career, the one thing that will stop me is if I doubt myself. I replied saying “Your right, I’ll do it”. I went into the studio whilst everyone was having tea I went into the studio and put on the track “You Remind Me” so that I could go through it as this was still an older piece of choreography but was one I was more confident with and thought people would respect the most. I went through the choreography and changed and adapted a few parts, so that I felt more confident with it when teaching.  When everyone came in from tea to take my workshop I explained how grateful I was to have another opportunity to showcase my work to the amazing dancers. Everyone was very supportive and cheered for me. Again this was another boost of confidence for me. The workshop went great! Even better than my previous one and I was given a lot of good feedback, which again boosted my confidence and inspired me to push myself even more.  When critically reflecting the day I learned a lot including, I must be more positive about my ability as a dancer and choreographer. I also noticed that quite a lot of questions were asked whilst I was teaching, which may have meant that I was rushing when teaching, therefore in the future I will make sure that I describe each move carefully. Also looking at what pieces the students enjoyed and respected, It helped me as a choreographer to know what it is about my practice that people like. This is very important to me and is something I have been trying to figure out for along.

Just writing what I have written as part of Task 3D has enabled me to go back and critically reflect the whole experience, which keeps my corrections fresh in my mind and also is inspiring me to create more pieces and to work on my practice so that I am able to grab opportunities like this again in the future.

 

 

Another experience I would like to talk about is when I choreographed for Camelot’s Lottery Campaign.  I have always wanted the opportunity to choreograph for a well-paid commercial event, where I am able to select my own dancers. I had written this down as a goal of mine within my journal. The reason why this was a goal for me as a lot of the time I am given jobs that are similar to what I already do and I felt being given a task where I have to provide a customer with their vision would be a good challenge for me, which I believe I am very capable of doing however I know that I would learn a lot from a task like this. The lottery set up a campaign at The Trafford Centre, in Manchester where random people would pay just £1 for a scratch and had a 1 in 4 chance of winning anything from £1 - £1000. Every time someone won, we had to appear on set and perform a dance around the winner. This was filmed and pictures were taken so that the lottery could use this for advertisement, which also meant it was good advertisement for me and for the dancers I selected. I selected the dancer from my group Soar INK. I chose 4 boys and one girl. I felt the members in my team were more than capable of stepping up to this challenge and would be good experience and also good for their CV’s. We had 2 days of rehearsal, one with the organiser of the event who stated what exactly she wanted and also brought along a film crew to film choreographing the routines, which were going to be displayed at the event for the winners and they also filmed us teaching a short routine as part of further advertisement. The second day we got into the studio ourselves just to clean and make sure everybody was confident with the challenge ahead. As I have done some commercial work before I am aware that on the day anything can happen! As soon as we approached the venue and saw were told what area of the stage we could and could not use, myself and the organiser knew that this was going to be a problem. The routines we choreographed and placed did not fit around the area we were allowed to use; the performance space was too small. Here, my team had to be professional and had to absorb information fast! We had to restructure the routines so that they would not only fit to the stage but also so that the camera crew could get some good footage. My team acted very professional throughout both the 2 days we were performing and the film crew and organisers of the event seemed to really like us stating they may have more work in the future for us. I was very happy with the outcome of the job however they were definitely areas of improvement, which I have identified in my journal. As I am already aware the style of dancing we train in as a team is very different to the commercial side of dance. I feel the team need to work on this commercial side of dance more, not because it wasn’t good but we are all much stronger when dancing our own style, so if we can be strong in both it will consequently enable us all to be much more versatile. I noticed my choreography/practice was tested here also as they style I usually choreograph is intricate and has a lot of meaning behind it, whereas when I have to choreograph for a commercial piece, like this one, it is more about creating a vibe for the audience and what looks good for the advertisement purposes. I have released that choreographing and dancing commercially is something that I do want to do even more as I think this can help develop me as a performer and I believe I still have a lot to learn here. My Best friend and colleague, Jon Broni did help me assist when choreographing, giving me other options and good idea’s to enable the performance to look at its best.

The next experience I wish to write about is one I am currently still pursuing, for the next 9 days. A few months back I confirmed a job that meant me living in Stavanger, Norway for a month and teaching 24 classes/workshops, holding an audition, choreographing and performing at a carnival and taking part in a Q and A (Questions and Answers) session.  So far this experience has been amazing not just teaching but meeting new people and taking part within a new life style, has really opened my mind. The classes have gone very well so far and Carnival is later on tonight, therefore I will evaluate more later on in my blog. Communication has been massively important in many different aspects. First of all, I was lucky enough to meet this organiser named Kristian in Manchester at an event my team was performing at. I introduced myself to him and he told me that he has saw my Youtube clips and is interested on bringing me down to Norway to teach, we exchanged contact details and arranged this whole experience. On my list of Goals, within my diary and journal it states that I wanted to reach 3 or 4 International workshops this year, therefore this is what I have been working towards. Once I saw my flight details and Skyped Krisitan I was very excited as I knew that this looked very professional and was definitely going to work out. As a result of this, we can see that the first initial point of communication here was me networking and putting myself forward at an event where we first began to talk. Secondly after we exchange contact information we was able to discuss what we wanted to accomplish in more detail, even when he was in a different country to me. So I believe already communication was a major aspect of me obtaining this job. Whilst over here I have been critically reflecting how I teach, and how it can be improved. I believe that teaching is a major part of my practice as well as dancing and choreographing as in when teaching at workshops I want my students to leave knowing they have learned something that they can use in another class and also pass on to their students. I was quick to learn that teaching over-seas in a country where English isn’t the first language, I must speak more slowly and explain this clearer so that they are able to understand exactly what I am asking of them. When choreographing, sometimes I like to take a song that I believe I can a hundred per cent relate to and explain a situation or issue I am going through within my life, which can be quite personal. I only ever teach these pieces when I am at a studio that I feel very comfortable in as I am expressing my thoughts and feelings, within a situation or issue I have been through, with people I don’t really know, which can be quite scary. Therefore Before teaching a piece like this I can get quite worried and nervous, hence why I only teach these kind of routines when I have taught there a bit and feel more comfortable with the people I am teaching to. I taught one piece named “Fall For Your Type” which went very well in class and  was given lots of good feedback from, which meant so much to me, that people accepted me feelings and what I had been through. When teaching a piece like this I find it very interesting and special when I can see a dancer who is dancing my choreography but also relating to it in their own way. I find this very re assuring as it lets me know that I am not alone and that that in life we all go through similar situations and I hope my friends who take my class learn and understand this concept too.  This can be classes as another form of communication, the fact that we all go through similar situations that we are expression/communicating to each other with through dance.  

I believe looking inward on my experience and having to critically reflect, analyse and evaluate my performance I am able to notify more easily my strengths and weaknesses and proven above. Being aware of my weaknesses and discovering a solution to enable me to improve on them also enables me to improve my practice. Looking outwardly I am able to see things from someone else’s perspective, which enables me to gain knowledge from other people as well as enabling me to become more of an open minded person. This Module has also enabled me to feel more confident about my practice what I do, as above I have made many references to me feeling “nervous” “scared”

And feelings of “Doubt” however, after each experience I can now see that everything was fine, they was areas of improvement but that will always be there for me to improve further. I feel it also helps me to explain the experiences and answer the questions mention in the Reader as it gives me a more detailed summary of my experiences and I believe I learn the most about myself and my practice this way. I may begin to do this for more experiences I am involved with, in the future.