This year I chose to participate in the High School Dance Company piece. This experience is new to me, and as what Ms Hickson said, the audition of the dance company piece demonstrated how actually dancing in a dance company would be like. For the audition, she taught us a short section of the dance, and then asked us to improvise according to the music she randomly played. https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1LvQo23tHV2fhJr3y4Jq4AIQEqCeL85Vc here is a link to the audition piece that we learned. I really enjoyed learning the piece, as I got to try out a lot of things and techniques that I have never tried before, which is a brand new experiences for me. Although I have struggle a bit when learning new choreography, I managed to do it in the end. Even though this field is something I’m familiar to, I still faced some difficulties. Through this experiences, I really got to improve my skills further more.
Culturama 2020 final
During this process, we faced several difficulties. For example, we have to change the position due to the safety distance policy, which makes it hard to change formations. Moreover, since we used a prop which is the fan, it is difficult to make the dance look nice overall. The time allowed for practice was also quite short, therefore we have to plan and arrange each session well. Here are some screenshots of our rehearsals and light plots. The positions have to be maintained due to the covid policy. Because of this policy, we had to collaborate and work together in order to incorporate the appropriate formation into the dance. During light plot, some of our formations do not follow the social distance policy, therefore we had to change some formations last minute. Also, since our dance is divided into three sections, we had to change into two sections. Originally we wanted to exchanged the prop and costume through blackout and transition, however, transitions are limited, therefore we have to find alternative ways. Luckily, the performance is recorded. This has given us the opportunity to change and swap props outside of the camera. It is a brand new experience when doing a performance under such a pandemic. Despite the challenges, we were still able to perform the whole piece under a stressful situation.
Culturama 2020
Since this year is the last year of Culturama for me, I decided to become a leader. I wanted to lead China, as I have always been dancing Chinese dance since I was young.
This year’s theme is “our stories”, therefore me and my friend decided to choreography a piece which consists of three different sections that represents different time period in the Chinese history. The three time periods that we chose are representative of the Chinese history. Our dance takes on a narrative of traveling throughout the history of China. Inspired by a poem written by Du Fu in the most prosperous time of China – the Tang Dynasty. Our dance explores the elegance and beauty that he describes of women at the time, celebrating the richful culture and timelessness of beauty. As our dance progresses, the time frame depicts the classic Shanghai life that people lived in the 20th century. In a time of unrest and war, the dance portrays the lavish lifestyle as western influences are introduced. The qipao worn for the dance is symbolic of beauty at the time, through which we explore the stories of women collectively. Lastly, the audience is presented with a contemporary fusion piece whereby the modern times of China is represented. The piece is titled “饕餮” which is a mythical monster dated back to 200 BC. The fusion between its historical origin and the stylistic choreography allows us to integrate the past and the present, through which we present to you the timelessness of history.
project week
This is the planning document for our project week planning, although we did not get to go on the trip, but we still did a lot of prior research and planning. We decided to do a combination of activities and service, and we wanted to go to Thailand for this trip. We decided to do service due to the fact that all of us enjoyed working with services, and we believe that we can use this opportunity to provide as much help as possible. The service we decided to do is Children’s shelter foundation, where we can teach and play with the kids.
For our activity, we contacted 8adventures, the activity plan they provided was very interest, which includes a variety of outdoor exercises such as trekking, rafting etc. We wanted to do this programme because since this is an unique opportunity which we can explore lots of different sports, and rafting is new to me so I was really excited about it. Below are the email and the information of our planned schedule.
Although we did not get to go to project week due to the covid pandemic, we still learnt a lot from planning our own trip. This is the first time that I actually get to plan the whole trip by myself without any parents’ or teachers’ supervision. Throughout the process, we did not only learned how hard it is to be able to plan a whole trip, including booking flights and accommodations with a limited budget, but also learned about some of the global issues that occurs worldwide. Project week allows us to reflect on the issues and think about what we can do to the world regarding to these issues.
CAS reflection – lighthouse
After getting more familiar with the disabled community, our service decided to design some in campus activities that works as a mini purple parade where students get to experience the life of people with disabilities.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/11mShnKEdaVoVbOtIZn_A35nxRw9tS8T8wnHkjvI0VxY/edit
This is the planning document for our initial plannings.
We also got to experience the culture of this community as we learned some of the sign language in service.
CAS reflection – dance showcase performance final refection
The overall experience was so memorable. It was definitely not easy to do four dances in total. The time needed to change and get ready was limited, and it was very stressful for me. However, I really appreciate this experience as it really brings me the memory of dancing in primary school. I used to do a lot of dancing in primary school and participated in various shows and performances. The time offered for us to change in between our dances was short as well, but this busy feeling makes me feel a sense of accomplishment. After so long I’m finally able to stand on stage again, it feels so nice to be back. There are definitely some struggles during the process, such as could not make it for some of the rehearsals due to the LoA, and trying to catch up with a new type of dance etc. I overcame this obstacles, and felt so proud and welcomed in each dance. The team work and vibe we had in our dances are so good, everyone is supportive and helpful. I remembered that during one light plot rehearsal I forgot to bring my costume so I asked if anyone have extra ones, people offered my help generously and it was absolutely amazing. I am very pleased by the final dance we showed to the audience. I tried my best to attend to every session and showed commitment as much as possible, and I also found my value and identified my weaknesses through the process. I learned so many things from people and realised that everyone is talented.
CAS reflection – lighthouse motor skills season 3
Sometimes due to various reasons our service partner cannot come to our school. During these times, we try to focus on how we could raise awareness of the disabled community. We did many research on the disabled community in Singapore. Through our research, we got more familiar with the disabled community in Singapore and got to know some of the campaigns of it as well. Here are the links to some presentations and research we did on the Purple Parade, which is a festival for the disabled community and the Campaign see the true me.
See the true me Campaign Presentation
‘See the True Me’ is a public education campaign that encourages the public to see persons with disabilities for who they are instead of the disability they have. Organised by the National Council of Social Service, and made by the Tote Board-Enabling Lives Initiative. Learning about this campaign really helped us to understand more about what Singapore is doing to help the social stigma of people with disabilities and it helped to enlighten us on ways to approach the kids from the lighthouse school.Both of the campaigns aims to embrace people with disabilities by encouraging them with what they are capable of, and reinforcing the idea that although they might be having trouble in some ways but they are strong and independent individuals that do not need help in unnecessary ways. Sometimes trying to help them without asking might be against their wills and can be very disrespectful. Something that truly fascinated my is that during the purple parade, there will be purple lights lit up in marina bay and gardens by the bay, and the size of this campaign is very huge. However, if we did not research on this, we might not even realise. This made me think about this global issue more as sometimes it is our responsibility to promote the campaigns and raise the awareness more as we are now equipped with related knowledge and should be spreading this knowledge to other people.
CAS reflection – dance showcase development
When I first came up with the idea of choreographing a solo, I thought that using a sword might be a good idea as it fits well with the theme of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. However, although in Chinese dance sword is a commonly used element, but I have never learned about it before and I taught myself the techniques of using the sword. By learning something that I have never experienced before I explored my potentials and limit. Choreographing process was also hard because many incidents can happen during this process. For example, sometimes my photobooth wouldn’t work and I lost some of my footage when choreographing. I also had some hard time of did not catch the footage when I had a very nice inspiration. However, from this experienced, I got to know what is like to actually choreograph a piece and what are some of the potential problems that could occur.
During the winter holiday I went back to China, and unfortunately due to the covid 19 situation I couldn’t find a place to choreograph and was later on the LoA when I came back to Singapore, meaning I couldn’t choreograph for a while. This also developed my time managing skills as I have to make the best use of time to finish my whole piece within a couple of months.
Here are some videos of my choreographing process.
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1CCVipc4E24MCf5EXCK-A-P1tjrHgqIwb
CAS reflection – dance showcase
I auditioned for two dances, which are footloose and Chicago, and got in for both of them. Apart from theses two, I also decided to do a duet on a film that I really enjoyed called Five Feet Apart since this year’s theme is “A Night At The Movies”. Therefore I did not only get to experience choreographing a dance, but also joining a team ad dance with other people.
Both of “Footloose and “Chicago” are dances that I never tried before, so the experienced was remarkable for me. Footloose is a country side dance whereas Chicago is more jazzy.
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1CCVipc4E24MCf5EXCK-A-P1tjrHgqIwb
In the drive there are some videos of the practice of the dance. From recording it, I can spot where I need to improve on. Something thats also really challenging for me is that during this period, at one moment I on the LoA and missed out a few of the practices, however, I did learn from the videos the leaders has recorded and sent them my videos so they know I am catching up with their progress.
CAS reflection – dance showcase 2020