Investigation:
LO1-Identify their own strengths and develop areas for growth
This was an activity that I did for 1 season. It is a school dance production, where there is a dance for multiple countries and I chose to do Japan. I decided to do Japan as I have always been interested in dance and this was something that I really wanted to do since last year. I also did Culturama last year, but last year I did for Mongolia. I had initially wanted to do Japan as well but because of the limit of a number of dancers and the audition, I was not able to do Japan. I had also done another dance production which was focused on Indian dances and I had also found this very fun and intriguing. As the dances are selective, I had learned and practiced the audition dance beforehand so that I can be part of the Japan dance team. I was very nervous for the audition, although I practiced and during the audition, I missed one of the steps and I was very nervous for the results but I was relieved and excited to hear that I was accepted.
The strengths that I feel that would be useful to this activity is taking the initiative to practice at home and be resilient. Even with the dances last year, when there were parts that I was not sure of, I would look at the video and try to improve from that. However, a skill that I want to try and improve on would be to be verbal and collaborate. As this is a dance experience, I want to ask questions about the dance to the leaders when I don’t understand a certain step and to talk with my group so the dance is synchronized and refined well. I would know if I have improved in these areas from the dance that I perform because if I am able to talk with the leaders and my group I would most likely get better at dancing. I have struggled in this area of communication as I am not very confident in front of the people that I am not so close to. However, there are a couple of close friends in this activity so I think this would be a good start to try and improve my communication.
Preparation:
LO4-Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences.
LO5-Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively
As the actual dance show is in 4 weeks, we practice every Friday lunchtime to remember the dance and refine it for the actual show. On our first practice session, we had worked on the dance from the audition but longer. As all of us need to remember at least 3-4 minutes of the dance, the dance leaders had to teach the dance quite fast-paced or we would not be finished in time. However, because of this, they taught a lot in the first session and I was not able to cope with everything they taught. So during the practice, in between, I would work with the person who was next to me to recap the dance and made sure we both remembered the dance. There were parts where my friend remembered, and helped me to understand the steps and also vice versa. Moreover, after the session, I and 2 of my friends met in one of the free blocks we had to work on the dance. I worked with Rene and Haryn and as Rene is a more experienced dancer than I was, she helped me with the steps that I was completely lost in. It was very easy to work with her as she and I have been friends for long and she was very honest with what I needed to work on so that helped me to get better at the dances. We showed commitment to this activity by practicing during the Friday session but also practicing the extra hours to improve the dances. Collaboration was very important in this dance as we worked together to improve each other’s dances that helped us make each other better. However there were some challenges when neither of us knew the part and when we came to this problem, we would look at the clips that we took during the practice and observe the people who actually knew the dance and try to solve it by ourselves. Collaboration played a big role in my goal for this activity as this would improve my communication and I think by working together with my teams, it could eventually improve my communication with bigger groups.
This is a video of us practicing one of our dances.
