Got My Service Learning

Even though the second interview for your service learning person was due forever ago, I barely got it done today.

I went to Dellos Dance & Performing Arts Studio in Chino and I was very much welcomed; reminded me of the happy atmosphere my old dance studio had.

I went in there and I just kind of asked the lady at the front which teachers taught older girls (14-18) or taught intermediate level dancers, and she told me that Ms. Lindsy taught hip hop (which was perfect for me), so I was sold on her.

When I met her, she was really, really nice. As she was filling out her information on the verification form, she asked me why I chose to do dance choreography as my senior topic and I gave her a little, brief story of my dance background, which was ultimately why I chose the topic in the first place. But anyways, I sincerely feel that I'm going to have a great time doing service learning with her.
She seems really nice and welcoming, and I hope she won't get sick of me :P

But if anyone that actually stalks through my blog or everyone's blog for that matter, here's the link to Dellos' website if you're curious :) http://www.dellosdance.com/

What I've Learned So Far

1. For the most part, I already knew everything in my research so far, but I was reminded about how you have to keep going over things in choreography depending on the dancers. Teaching the dance team "Thriller" was a bit of a reminder for me of how there will always be people at different dance levels, ranging from memory to actually being able to do the moves to the according counts. I hadn't taught anything to anyone since the end of the last school year and I got used to my old dance girls getting the choreography and counts a lot faster and a lot easier. Getting new girls this year/ semester was a reminder of how a choreographer has to keep reviewing things and executing things in different ways, due to the fact that things click differently in people's heads in different ways.

3. The source that helped me with this was my first interview with my old dance teacher, Rae-Ann Stinson. She said that one of the hardest parts of being a choreographer is having to go back and remind the dancers of things in the routine so that they get it right, in a way that they'll understand. For example, this video documented the very last rehearsal before the actual performance and there were still things that needed to be fixed. I actually danced out the correct ways of the parts that needed to be done so that the dancers understood. Dance is a very visual form of art, and you can't always verbalize what you're talking about when it comes to choreography.