Dance Showcase 2019

It has been five months, give or take, of extensive planning and organising. The committee had their first meeting on the 31st of  October 2018, and continued to do so every Wednesday. This year’s Dance Showcase our title was ‘Uncaged’ and our theme focused on political, social, and personal conflicts. The dances submitted this year ranged from various topics such as the Iranian Revolution to the struggles faced with a mental illness.

I heard about the Dance Showcase when I applied for UWC and I got the idea that the showcase was ‘more exclusive and intimidating’ compared to Culturama and Kahanni. Many students had this idea of the Dance Showcase and avoided signing-up. I gave it a try because I was curious about the work that happens behind the scenes rather than taking my usual role as a dancer in outside school performances.

Initially, my main role was looking at set and props ideas. We were interested in having an outside company source us but we had too many time and money constraints for this to happen. Eventually, the committee was able to use existing props from past school production, and handmake other props. Although, my biggest role was creating the program and taking part in smaller transition dances during the show (this was quite spontaneous). In addition, I wanted the program to tie in nicely with our poster and tickets design but still have different visual components; below I have inserted the program and of the DS poster.

 

As for the transitions dances, some dancers that were part of several dances had trouble changing in time for each of their dances that were back to back and the transitions help to provide a flow in between the dances and gave time for the dancers to prepare themselves. This was a decision made in the end of January thus our movements were improvised. Even though I did not plan to dance in the showcase it was nice to be able to experience performing in a UWC show for the first time.

Overall, this experience has been incredible and it was amazing to see our work come together at the end. My first dabble in planning a CAS experience was very successful (LO3) and since it was a very long term project and as a committee member I learned to be dedicated and show perseverance in the five months of organising 2019’s Dance Showcase (LO4). After this year, I look forward for next year’s production and if I will be taking my last chance be part of the committee again.

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