Yesterday was a miraculous day. While I was teaching my jazz class (they are 3 levels from the advanced class & mostly 8th graders), three of my students from the advanced class came in early to practice their own dances.
When it's really close to recital time, I like to have anyone that's watching give the dance a grade. It works like this: they start with 100 points. Every time the dancers make a mistake, they lose one point. I like this because it makes the dancers work harder the next time to improve their grade and it keeps the onlookers involved and observant. They are also welcome to give corrections if they'd like.
During the jazz class, I had them take turns showing their dance with the few advanced girls. The advanced girls were full of corrections. Everything that popped out of their mouth were things that they are VERY guilty of all the time. Advanced Girl #1- 'Make sure when you land out of a leap, you don't sound like an elephant.' Advanced Girl #2 (correcting her younger sister)- 'Don't let your hands turn into claws.' Advanced Girl #3- 'No floppy feet!'
What???? Are there parrots in here? I've been giving these same corrections to the advanced girls for the past five years. It's nice to know they listen. It would be even better if they applied their own corrections. Lets see what happens tonight.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
The Longest Rehearsal Ever
This past Saturday, the studio held a 3 part rehearsal. Part 1- Rama Lama from 12:30-1:30pm. This involves the Thursday advanced jazz class and the Wednesday jazz class (who are 1 level below the advanced class). Part 2- Opener from 1:30-3pm. This involves the top 3 levels of tap. It's the same dance every year with minor changes. Part 3- Finale from 3-5:30pm. This involves the top 4 tap classes as well as some jazz dancers.
Rama Lama- This is the first and last time I will combine these classes together to try and make a huge cool dance. The lack of effort is disgusting. Besides that, I accomplished what I needed to during that hour.
Opener- This was fine.
Finale- Coming into this rehearsal, this was the plan: my choreography partner was supposed to meet with the rest of the faculty to teach them the teacher section of the dance, while I gave all the students arm movements and transitions to do in the background. Then we'd clean, clean, clean & everything would be great. That's not what happened.
We ran the entire finale once. The director walked in at the very end, where it's the messiest and flipped out. 'Why aren't their spots written down?' Really? These are mostly high school students and you want me to waste time during the one rehearsal a month to write down where they stand at every point of this eight minute dance. You've got to be kidding me! Especially, when at every rehearsal one of the 50+ dancers drop out. Why do I sign up for this? This lady has lost her mind. She ended up wasting the rest of the rehearsal writing down spots and moving them based on height. Then she'd move them back because the color of their costume is different than the person next to them. Ughhh! Leave me alone and let me do my job! I've thought of this already & it just doesn't work. I hate you!
Rama Lama- This is the first and last time I will combine these classes together to try and make a huge cool dance. The lack of effort is disgusting. Besides that, I accomplished what I needed to during that hour.
Opener- This was fine.
Finale- Coming into this rehearsal, this was the plan: my choreography partner was supposed to meet with the rest of the faculty to teach them the teacher section of the dance, while I gave all the students arm movements and transitions to do in the background. Then we'd clean, clean, clean & everything would be great. That's not what happened.
We ran the entire finale once. The director walked in at the very end, where it's the messiest and flipped out. 'Why aren't their spots written down?' Really? These are mostly high school students and you want me to waste time during the one rehearsal a month to write down where they stand at every point of this eight minute dance. You've got to be kidding me! Especially, when at every rehearsal one of the 50+ dancers drop out. Why do I sign up for this? This lady has lost her mind. She ended up wasting the rest of the rehearsal writing down spots and moving them based on height. Then she'd move them back because the color of their costume is different than the person next to them. Ughhh! Leave me alone and let me do my job! I've thought of this already & it just doesn't work. I hate you!
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