Tag: #lo4

This year I decided to do culturama again because I did it last year, in 2018, and I learned a lot from it such as collaboration and commitment skills. I felt that this year I wanted to do a dance but of another genre. Last year, I did France which was of burlesque style. This year, the dance I am in is more upbeat and requires a slightly different skillset.  We have rehearsals once a week but nearer to the performance day, we have to commit extra time to practice. Since we only have 7 weeks to prepare for the show, our dance leaders have sent us videos on what to learn and practice in our own time in order to have it prepared by the next rehearsal. Our dance leaders have been very organised by putting all the videos in a folder (shown in the pictures). Being in grade 12, there is not a lot of free time to devote to this which was challenging for me. However, I learned how to manage my time better in order to have the best culturama experience. Extra rehearsals and extra time into learning dances required commitment. My dance group is a combination of grade 12 and 11. I am able to collaborate with people that I have not worked with before which built my communication skills. I can honestly say that I was able to explore my passion for dancing through Culturama because it gives me the opportunity to embrace and display my skills.

In the event, Kahaani, I was able to participate in a series of performances in which we practised over a span of around 2 months. I was very excited about meeting new people and building relationships with my fellow performers which I feel I have accomplished. I personally bonded with a range of people from different grades and classes which I would not usually have the opportunity to collaborate with. This activity really allowed me to spend more time doing what I love which is dancing and the fact that I could do it with my friends and perform it in front of my family was very exciting. However, during the span of practising, there was a break for 2 weeks in which many of us forgot some of the dance due to the lack of practice and our showcase was the week that we got back. This really worried me because I felt that I was not ready to perform in front of a crowd. My dance leader, however, recognised this and was able to squeeze in some extra rehearsals so that we could feel more confident.

While preparing for culturama,  I understand that it is a very big commitment. Therefore, I have to put a lot of time aside for it but also make time for studying. This is personally quite challenging because grade 11 has just started and I am still settling into IB. Furthermore, I was in FIB last year, with the same few people the whole year round, so having so many people to interact with in school was a very good way to get me more comfortable with my environment. My leaders are in the grade above and they are very understanding, making me come out of my comfort zone. By understanding the balance between studies and activities earlier in the year, I was able to adjust much better to the rest of the year with activities alongside my studying. I felt like I understood how to prioritise my actions as I could not let culturama distract me but I also had to commit to it. By talking to my leaders and friends about how to manage my time, I was able to build relationships alongside developing my time management skills.

Kahaani is an event run by a Global Concern (GC) group, and the money generating is donated to the people in India. Therefore, these performances were of global significance since us participating and inviting our family to watch us was able to help multiple people in India which I personally felt was the spirit of the event.

I was able to distinguish between my strengths and weaknesses as I knew that dancing was a passion. Through the process of learning the dance, I felt very comfortable with performing and I realised that it was a strength. However, I realised that I would show up to rehearsals late sometimes which made me less organised. I was also very willing to help others when they didn’t understand how to do a certain step which really helped my develope on my communication skills since we were working with people that we did not necessarily know. The rehearsals were during school time and in between the months of a lot of work. I felt that I showed commitment and perseverance by coming to rehearsals and not prioritising other things since it was a commitment I chose to make.

I also worked collaboratively with many people I have not met before and I got the opportunity to get to know them and perform with them. Building those relationships through the process allowed me to look forward to rehearsals and have people to rely on when I need help with learning the dance. Furthermore, since Kahaani is an Indian based performance, we had to understand the ethics and respect the Indian costumes that we were wearing.