Culturama India

For my final Culturama I got placed into India, thus continuing my journey into Indian dance, in this case, we were doing a South Indian dance traditionally done by men but the dance leader had opened it up to both genders. It was very different from kahaani because of this, the dance style was a lot more violent and a lot of the moves were very awkward and felt strange doing them as a girl and I couldn’t stop laughing at first. However, in the end, it all came together and I got over my initial I’m making a fool of myself phase, I’m really glad I did this as I am North Indian and it was really fun to experience other Indian cultures and the dance itself was tremendous fun because it was meant for men and the majority of the dancers were female which led to a lot of chaos during rehearsals.

Project Week Reflection – Dance

As I’ve said a lot in my reflections I’m no dancer but in the CAS spirit of pushing myself for project week we set up classes with THE Tanushree Shankar at her dance academy. I was absolutely terrified of this as it was for Indian classical dance which I have no background in and she is one of the country’s leading choreographers and dancers, I was certain I’d make a complete fool of myself. However, it was a lot of fun and by the end of the 5 classes she had taught us a whole dance that we brought back and incorporated into Kahaani and it was a really nice way of experiencing another aspect of South Indian culture from a place I have no experience with. Stepping out of my comfort zone definitely paid off here and being in a group where only one of us had any dance background really helped as the majority of us had similar fears and we all encouraged and motivated each other.

Project Week Reflection – VOW

VOW was a really incredible experience for me I had some experience working with disabled people through RDA however I had mainly worked with children with physical disabilities and at VOW I interacted more with children with physical disabilities. We were taken on tours to see where the children live and where the money the school was sending was going and it was incredible to see the work we had heard about and have been supporting through our beloved Kahaani, at each of these locations we talked with the children and learnt more about their pasts etc which was very difficult at first due tot he language barrier but we soon discovered that I could speak to them in Hindi and they would understand the general gist of the sentence and reply in a broken Hindi and English combination. We visited the school where the children were taught and sat in their classes alongside them learning how to read and write in braille or how to make the small crafts (jewellery, bags) they sell at their stalls. It was really interesting as even with my eyes open looking at a key I struggled to make the holes the correct depth for braille yet a 5 yr old girl who too was a beginner and fully blind easily could, the same scenario happened when weaving or braiding for the arts and crafts. I had heard a lot about how capable the children were but it was another thing entirely to see it in action.

Project Week CAS Reflection – Planning

For my project week trip we organised 5 days of volunteering with Voice of World an NGO partnered with our school, they function as an orphanage and home for disabled children, providing them with a safe home and the medical care they need. VOW also organises various trips for them like mountain climbing expeditions for the more able kids and various other outings around India. As our school raises money for them through Kahaani a dance showcase I was involved in planning we decided for our activity we would undertake dance classes and we were fortunate enough to learn from one of India’s best classical dancers Tanusree Shankar which was an amazing experience as although Kahaani had sparked a love of dance in me I had never had the opportunity to attend a dance class. We also attended some painting classes at an art school as our creativity aspect which was a nice experience however not as impactful as the activity and service elements of the week.

Planning Project Week was a really interesting experience for me as I had never organised any trip before myself, and had never communicated with an NGO as although I was part of a GC in school I was never chair and therefore didn’t communicate directly with the NGO. This was a really vital experience as it not only taught me how to communicate professionally with organisations but how to utilise connections and build relationships with organisations abroad. We were also travelling to a part of India I had never been to and don’t speak the language for so general communication with some of the organisations was very difficult due to the language barrier which is something I learnt to overcome through this

 

Final Dance Show!! Kahaani (LO4)

It is the week before my final dance show here at school… We have just finished our light plot and had our first glimpse at what our dance is going to look like on the final day and I am beyond thrilled! This has been such an amazing journey from being terrified of dancing in rehearsals forget on stage in G9 to signing up for every single dance show in the school after my first taste. My only regret is that I never tried for dance showcase as I always felt like that was more for the ‘good dancers’ if I could repeat this year I would definitely audition.

I just can’t believe that this is my last Kahaani as this dance is the one that jumpstarted my dance show career and because of it I have found various societies in my university that have dance shows too that I am definitely joining such as Bhangra the traditional dance from the region of India I am from. Currently, I am drowning in academic work with 2 tests a Spanish oral and final Math IA submissions this week, and I have to be at school everyday till 9 pm for rehearsals and this has really forced me to become more efficient in my work as now I have hardly any time to complete it. Surprisingly enough not once though has the thought of sitting out this dance show crossed my mind as one incredibly busy week is definitely worth the whole dance show atmosphere. Let us just hope my grades dont suffer!

Culturama China (LO4)(LO5)

We have just completed our first show for Culturama 2019!!! Last year I was terrified of performing in Kahaani and now I’m in Culturama which is a far more high profile show and this whole experience has been amazing I am definitely auditioning for next year’s Culturama too! Kahaani is a purely Indian dance show showcasing various styles of dance from around India (my home country) but this year I was accepted into the Culturama China dance so it has been a real challenge learning the steps as the way of moving is entirely new to me and the music styles is very traditional so it is difficult to remember the music cues as the entire dance is very unfamiliar to me. However I pushed through and learn the dance and if I can say so myself I think I did pretty well in the final show 🙂 It has just been so much fun experiencing a whole new culture through dance, music and costumes. I am so thankful to my dance leader and other dancers as without them being the only non-Chinese person in my dance I would have struggled far more than I did in the end as I had to relearn so much of what I thought I knew about dancing that just applied to Indian dances. We all kept helping each other up and of course, without the team, I would never have been able to experience Chinese culture in this way!

 

RDA – Looking Back (LO6) (LO2)

I have juts complicated my time at RDA so I thought it would be the perfect moment to reflect on the entire experience. There is a lot of stigma around disability here in Singapore and globally so this was a really novel experience for me as I interacted with people with severe mental disabilities whereas in the past I’ve only known people who are physically disabled. This forced me to entirely reevaluate the way I interact with them and relearn cues that mean the person was enjoying/afraid/ wanted to stop or start, as they often couldn’t tell me. A lot of the diseases these people are suffering from I had never encountered before such as cerebral palsy which stunts growth so someone in their late 20s can look like an early teen so at first, there was quite a shock, However, after the initial sessions I quickly learnt how to communicate non-verbally and understand non-verbal cues more efficiently and some of the parents taught me the odd sign language sign.

A lot of the service opportunities in our school involving people who are mentally challenged in some way involve social inclusion through playing games or sports with the students. I really enjoyed my service because I could see a tangible difference in the riders flexibility and movement after spending the term with them which was very rewarding as we are not only providing them with an incredibly unique experience but we are in some small way improving their abilities.

Looking back on IFP (LO4) (LO5) (LO2)

I’m currently on the flight back from Timor Leste after completing the conference so I thought this would be the perfect time to reflect on the entire process from initial delegate selection to when we said goodbye. This process has been incredibly challenging emotionally, we have been sharing our experiences almost continuously and some stories have been incredibly shocking and humbling. However, we have all bonded tremendously because of this we have all exchanged phone numbers and there were a lot of tears as we left. I think this experience has taught me how to be a lot more empathetic than I was before and how to deal with these situations as I had never found myself in a similar situation before and at first I was lost as to how to respond.

The planning itself was an incredibly challenging process as I had never planned an event before, forget a conference! I have never been more grateful to my team than I have throughout this process as I am certain the entire thing would have fallen apart without everyone’s incredible work ethic and contributions both throughout the planning stage to the final conference where we continuously helped out others on their theme days rather than leaving them to fend for themselves. This whole process has been incredibly beneficial and eyeopening for me and I am excited to carry these skills and experiences into the future.

IFP : Mid-Planning Reflection (LO7)(LO6)

We have officially hit the halfway mark for planning our IFP conference!!! It has been a crazy journey so far but I think now the implications of all we learnt about conflict resolution pre-conference selection is becoming apparent now that we can apply it to the specific context of Timor Leste.

Back in the theory days of IFP we focused a lot on conflict resolution through communication and understanding the norms and cultures of the various people/communities involved. We have tried to apply these same concepts to the context of Timor Leste by decreasing the scale of things and creating scenarios such as an argument between friends or a child and their parent and asking the delegates to roleplay how they would resolve these scenarios.

However, as an entire team, I think we have started to focus more on the sensitive nature of some of these issues such as gender imbalance or racial issues withing Timor Leste due to the sensitive nature of them because we don’t want to offend anyone’s religious beliefs or social values but rather open their minds in a non-aggressive manner. One of the key issues in Timor Leste is gang violence, and we have had to be very careful when we address this issue as the wrong word can be taken as offensive to someone or their family members or seem dismissive of their experiences. We also have to constantly be aware of what we talk with delegates about outside of the facilitator delegate dynamic because we don’t want to end up unknowingly encouraging someone towards any harmful behaviours.

IFP – Conference Selection and Early Stages (LO3)(LO5)

I was selected to partake in the IFP Timor Leste conference which I am thrilled about. We have just begun to start planning and allocate ourselves into groups each will look after a day in the conference which will be themed with one of our key topics (e.g. Conflict Resolution Day) as well as separate groups that will help organise the logistical elements like rooming, toiletries and schedules for our delegates.

Currently, we are laying the framework we are going to build the conference off, soon we are going to begin fleshing this out and allocating specific parts to people based off of their skills such as the artistic members will be making posters and the best public speakers will create mini lectures. I am super excited to see this through and I am so glad that I am not solely responsible for this huge workload, I don’t think I have ever appreciated my team more than now. There is absolutely no way I could have completed this entire conference alone the workload is incredible and every member of the team has added something unique to our conference schedule. For example, I would be hopeless at creating amazing posters or planning activities but I excel at the mini-lectures element