On Sunday 22nd April I travelled up to essex to Performers college as they where holding a day of dance. I have been every time for 5 years, and I think it is great way to live a dancers day to day life.
The first dance class started at 10 o'clock. This day allows any age, but each age group and level of dancers are split into different groups and put into different dance studios. My first class was Jazz I didn't really know what to expect as we established whilst researching Jazz dance that there are a lot of different ways to interpretate Jazz. But we where going to be doing commercial jazz, I was really looking forward to this as it isn't a style I do all the time, and when I'm older I hope to become a dancer and I am aware that this is one of the main styles when dancing in a music video etc. The girl that taught the class was an amazing dancer, she started off with a warm up which was still intense and got me really prepared for the dance. We then did some corner work like leaps and turns so she could see our ability but at the same time warm us up for the routine she was about to teach.
Once the warm up had finished it was time to learn the routine. The dance was to Niki Minaj, I was so excited to learn this! At first I was a bit shocked and got a little nervous as the routine was quite complicated, but as I started to grasp the style and practise the routine it all got a lot easier and I started to have fun with it at the same time. Once she had taught it to us she danced it all through with us but then we did it without her so she could watch us. This was great all of us were performing as this is key as well as having the right techniqual ability.
We then had our musical theatre class, a man came in who had been in We Will Rock You to teach us once of the dances that the gaga girls do, he said it was the hardest dance in the musical, so already I was worried I wouldn't be able to do it. We didn't do a big warm up as we where all already sweating from the class before. He played the music and danced it through so we could see what we would be doing. We were all shocked at how hard it was, the choreography wasn't to complex but just remembering it all in the right order etc was going to be a challenge. He started to teach us the dance and he began with the characterisation as this is key in musical theatre. We all got the style and started to learn the routine. It was very difficult but as we went over it I finally started to get it. He split us into groups so we could use all the space provided. We danced it through with him a few times and once he had taught us the whole dance he split us into small groups to perform it. The funest part of this dance was playing the air guitar. We weren't as tired after this class but we were still exhaugsted.
We had a break after this dance class to get energy for the next two classes.
We started with ballet, I was dreading this class as I dont like ballet but it is the core of all dances so it was vital we did it. It surprisingly wasn't to hard just tiring and we had to work very hard as we were being watched throughout the whole thing. We started with bar work then came into the centre. We then did some corner work and finished off with a short dance in the centre of the room. Everyone was very sweaty and exaughsted and we had Lindy hop last which requires so much excitment and energy.
Lindy hop began we where all looking forward to this but knew it was going to be extremely hard work. It was so fun everyone had a smile on there face. We started with learning basic lindy hop steps and then want on to piecing it all together to make a routine we had to go into pairs for this as it is all mainly partner work! Everyone was dripping with sweat and by the end of this class we couldn't even stand!
The day was finished and on the way home all I could do was sleep I had no energy to do anything, I was exaughsted, and the next day my muscles where aching so much!
Besides all this it was great fun, and excellent experience, I cant wait till next year!!!!
