Initial Reflection

This year, I will participated in Kahaani for the first time. I’m in the bollywood/hardcare dance on Thursdays. I have never before in my life been in a dance performance such as Kahaani. It was a very new experience for me as I haven’t danced before or performed in from of an audience in a lot time.

Starting this new experience with Kahaani, there are some things that I need to think about in order to properly do my best in it. In order to do so, I need to become more aware of my strengths and weaknesses when it comes to something like this, which I have never done before. I have had no previous experiences like Kahaani and it is a very new so I think that some of my weaknesses will be the commitment that is required to work at something like this for a longer period of time. I am also not used to working in a group and collaborating in such a way that everything must be done together and you have to be conscious of everyone else. In order to improve this I think I just need to try my hardest to be there for rehearsal every time and to stay focused during, to not distract anyone or get distracted myself. I will also try to contribute as much as I can if needed, to give feedback to the dance leader and be part of the group as much as I can. Another big weakness I will experience during this is my dance skills, I don’t have any since I’ve never been in a proper dance like this before so I will also have to try my best to practice and memorise the dance moves. Some of my strengths for this could be that I am a really good listener, and I always try my best to pay attention and understand what is being told to me. I think I will be able to try my hardest to learn the dance even if I find it difficult, mainly because I know people will be watching it and I don’t want to let down my dance group. Over the first few weeks of Kahaani I have learnt a lot about collaborating with new people, and how to listen and follow instructions closely. I have also learnt new dancing skills that I could possibly use in the future if I choose to do a performance like this again such as Culturama next year(LO1 & LO2). new experience for me, not only Overall, I hope the new experience of Kahaani will let me explore new opportunities maybe in the future if I want to rejoin Kahaani next year, or possibly looking at other dance opportunities.

First Reflection

Minds Tampines supports movement for the intellectually disabled in Singapore. They provide movement activities such as dancing for disabled citizens around the Tampines area and we help to join in with dancing to connect with them too. Minds Tampines also provides help with daily routine and living skills for them, including bathing, dressing, writing, and home living. In our specific service activity, we dance with them to mainstream music to get them moving.

I have not had many previous experiences that are similar to this, I have mainly worked for young children or the elderly, which is why I wanted to try something new as I got accepted into a service I have already done before. As this is a more physical service including dancing, I think I will be good at keeping a positive attitude and trying to raise the spirits of the clients if ever needed to and to keep dancing with them. In the past I have been good at talking to younger children and communicating with them, but as I have never interacted with special needs clients I think I will be a bit rocky at the start as typically I’m not very good at talking to new people which is also something I would like to improve on myself but I’m sure after a while I will get a hang of it. This week we made a trip to the Minds Tampines building and we got to meet the clients and get a feel of how our communication with them would go. There are 2 groups, in the first group that I visited, a lot of the clients are mute by choice(chose not to talk) and I found that it was harder to communicate to those who chose to be mute than those who were more communicative and loud. All clients in the second group were loud and very interactive, commonly asking for our attention and to communicate with us. Interacting with both groups made me realize that I need teach myself how to communicate with the mute clients and pay attention to their body language in order to do so, and also that a need to be able to calm myself down as sometimes with the second group it can get a little overwhelming and makes me anxious as they are extremely loud and hard to control. I think learning this will help me in the future of my service and also in future activities. At first I found it quite awkward to try to dance with the clients especially when they were uncooperative, but over the duration of the session I started to be more comfortable with dancing and trying to lift their spirits even when they clearly didn’t feel like joining in.