Culturama, which is the dance event being held once a school year, happened on Oct 4th for this year.
First, we need to practice for an audition section and get selected by the leader from each country through the video being recorded. The Culturama committee will do a conforming judgment on it. After all, we may receive the email informing us of the involvement. I got involved in Japan Culturama this year.
In order to present the best status possible we got into practice immediately. The schedule was every Friday for the first few weeks. Beginning with teaching everyone the J-pop dance together, the group then divided into two and progressed at the same time. We were separated into two groups: half doing traditional and a half doing J hip-hop. Everything was going on efficiently. However, this year’s schedule was crowded and in a rush that the rehearsal comes up really quick, so does the lighting set up. Therefore, our leader started to book the dance studio over the weekends for us to do more practice according to the music. Although we may have homework and other things to do, most of us managed to come and practice together collaboratively. Using these extra time we also did some complicated poses over and over again to make them as perfect as capable.
From then, our practice becomes every Friday lunch with the weekends from 8 am to 5 pm, though we can leave if there is other stuff to do necessarily. We were dancing the whole performance repeatedly following the rotating order while practicing and were supporting each other when they got confused about some parts of the dance. Plus, I took some time with my friend to get more familiar with the dance as well at an earlier time. I personally think those were the biggest part that helped me to improve my dance.
We experienced through the rehearsals, dressed rehearsal, and the two final shows. The first time upon the stage made me nervous, but when I got more familiar with the light and atmosphere I started to enjoy and be more confident.
On an actual day, I changed into the custom first, then others helped me put the makeups on. Our dressing room was conference room 1 on the fifth floor. We showed up in the backstage earl since we were the second show, cheering silently and warming up our body. When the first show was halfway through their performance, our team came up behind the curtains waiting for our stage. Same as the rehearsals before, I was reviewing the dance pose by pose like recalling a movie frame by frame in my mind as the last-minute warm-up before showing up in front of the audience. All of us on the left side of the stage were watching the previous performance at the same time, being ready to show up at the right time.
That time finally comes to us. I quickly moved to the right spot when the light is still dark and squad there properly. Then, stand up during the right beat, jumping, moving and dancing while listening to the music and looking toward the audience. Additionally, possibly keep an eye on people around me without directly looking at them. Since the rehearsals made me knew well about the space and the practices gave me enough confidence in the movements, I totally enjoyed the performance.
Jumping under those lights focusing on me and my group, dancing with my friends and enjoying the cheers came from the audience as feedback was such an amazing experience that I can still recall detailly until now. The time we spent together in the dressing room with music and the ending up that brings the whole event back to a climax was brilliant as well. Culturama was an unforgettable experience that I will never regret to take part in.
LO 1 Identifying own strengths and develop areas for personal growth
LO 5 Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively
LO 7 Recognise and consider the ethics of choices and actions
Culturama has me dancing together with the group in order to achieve a complete stage for the audience and make the impact. As a person who does not dance often, this experience helps me to recognize my strength at processing dance postures while also requires me for an amount of practicing. In this sense, I also developed and challenged myself in the field to be a dancer where I take time into practicing, memorizing the dance and getting myself to be ready in the best position. In order to have time for particular practicing on the dance, I need to make choices on spending time in order to have time provided for rapid practices. Also, since the group is then divided into two kinds of dance I make the choice between traditional and Jpop dancing. All these required my judgments and then my choices made.
