CultuRama has finally ended and I feel like all of our hard work from this season has really paid off, with our final performance being very successful. I, personally have learned so much this year through the experience of CultuRama. I think that by undertaking this new challenge, I have learned a lot about my own culture and Japanese traditional dancing, as well as understanding a new dance form. There were challenges when learning the choreography as some individuals didn’t show up to our rehearsals and light plots, however, in the end, I think we were all able to come together and refine our dance, really working together as a team to make our dance successful. I think I’ve developed many new skills, not just on how to do Japanese traditional dance, but also about time management, organisation and collaboration. Rehearsals for the show and the show itself forced me to better time manage to ensure I was still keeping up with all of my assignments, homework and tests, even throughout the busy weeks. Additionally, I learned the importance of effective collaboration within the group to achieve our goals. Initially, we were lacking some of this collaboration and group energy, however, as we got to know each other through our rehearsals, we were able to better communicate with one another and help each other throughout the process.
It was a challenge at times to collaborate effectively with the group, especially because of the language barrier in which our two dance leaders both did not have their first language as English. However, I did realise that beyond these barriers, what is most important is the drive and commitment of the dancers to make the show successful. I think, in the end, we all had this commitment and this is why our dance went very smoothly. I think I can use many of the skills I learned while dancing in other dance activities and performances I choose to commit to, like potentially Kahaani, and the skills I learned on how to be more principled, collaborative and organised will help me in all subjects and hopefully in better managing all of my commitments in IB.