Tag: LO4

Kahaani this year was arranged slightly differently than last year, as the theme was related to “A day in the life of a student at Voice for World”. This meant that the various dances were all more closely tied to the service itself. While I enjoyed having a storyline to follow last year, I think that performing pieces that the students at Voice for World can directly relate to is a more fulfilling experience.

My dance this year was called Durga Puja, after the goddess Durga who is worshipped at the destroyer of evil in the fight of goodness and evil. The dance is heavily prayer oriented, and is a key festival in Kolkata, where Voice for World is located. Before our dance, there was a short clip with two young children performing their own dance back at the NGO.

I find myself participating in Indian cultural experiences more and more. In the one and a half years in this school, I have done at least four different Indian cultural events. I find it interesting to immerse myself in part of the local culture, as I already have a stronger Chinese background. Therefore, I welcome the experience to learn new types of dancing, new types of music, and interact with others to support NGOs like Voice for World. It is well in my capacity to dedicate some of my time each week to preparing for a performance that can earn enough money and raise enough awareness to support the students at Voice for World, and that means far more to them I am sure, than anyone here can realize.

Participating in Kahaani for two years in a row has been such an enjoyable experience. I have met new people, created memories, learned how to dance differently, and supported something I feel passionate about. I am thankful UWC has given me the ability to combine my passions of dancing and helping others into one successful event.

 

As I have done since 6th grade, I joined choir for my last year of high school. For me, choir has always been about exploring my voice along with a groups of others who all shared the same passion and curiosity for singing. The learning always came implicitly. Over the course of six years, I’ve greatly developed both my vocal range and my ability to read sheet music. I can sing much more complex songs than I could when I started, and I enjoy the challenge rather than fear it.

Wavelengths may be my last high school choir performance, and there only remains three seniors in the choir: me, Georgia, and Tony. For Wavelengths, as it is very close to the holidays, we performed “Carol of the Bells”, a traditional holiday song that I have performed a few years ago for another holiday performance. We also performed “Glow”. by Eric Whitacre, who I have previously sung some songs from. Both pieces are very beautful, albeit rather short. We also sang both pieces with a mix of Bersama and the accompanying orchestra. The final performance was very amazing, filled with many talented performances from the different music groups across middle school and high school. I found it to be a successful show, perhaps a last one as well, and I think it was a complete ending. From grade 6 all the way to grade 12, I hope to continue choir in the future, if this is the way that it will always be for me.

I decided to continue with ballet at the same dance school, Dance Arts, that I began at during grade 11. While the class I was in is both in a different classical style and a much lower level than my original skills, I still find it to be an enjoyable class, as well as a good source of light exercise. It is also much more flexible than many other dance studios, allowing me to miss classes if school demands come first.

For the past few months, the girls in my ballet class and I have been working towards a small dance showcase for our family and friends.

I actually restarted ballet rather late, only beginning at the start of the school year instead of continuing throughout summer like many of the other girls in my class. I was actually a bit behind on learning the choreography because of this. Ultimately, this ended up being a large personal setback, because the time I had to learn the whole dance was significantly shorter than I would have hoped. The choreography was very interesting: a mix between classical ballet and more contemporary lyrical movements, and was heavily focused on small sets of complex footwork and arm movement rather than jumps or turns. I particularly enjoyed the music, but I found the steps very unfamiliar at times to pick up.

I wouldn’t say that the performance was the best possible that we could have all done, despite the work we put into the final product. I know that many of the other girls would also agree with me on this point, but I didn’t find us discouraged. It could be due to the fact that we are quite tight-knit as a class, but also because we understand that we are all at different levels, and that the performance had lower stakes, and as a result was more for our own confidence and our own fun than anything else. Was it challenging? A fair bit. But did I enjoy it? Naturally.

 

 

On June 24, I completed the CTSD exam for grade 4 with my ballet class at Dance Arts in Singapore. The CTSD exam is part of The Commonwealth Society of Teachers of Dancing international dance society, which holds exams worldwide for various forms of dance, including classical ballet. The exams are a form of achievement, with each level progressing to more difficult skills and techniques required in order to dance en pointe and at a competitive level. Singapore offers both the CTSD exam and the RAD (Royal Academy of Dance) exam depending on the dance school, but both are similar in concept and are considered equal in their level of preparation of the dancers.

I actually have previous studied the Vaganova style of ballet, which is Russian in origin, and has different stylistic techniques than both the RAD and CTSD programs. However, ballet remains mostly similar regardless of style, so I joined a CTSD class here instead. As my class is actually a fairly flexible one that allows many different ages and levels to join, the exam was a goal that my teacher thought would help direct everyones focus and motivation. She also thought the exam would be a good opportunity to see how we react in a more stressful situation and while being assessed.

The exam follows a general sequence regardless of level, including barre work and center work, with questions about specific techniques, free style movement, and requests from the examiner to show various techniques on the spot. We prepare the barre and center exercises before hand, but the other questions and free movements are on the spot in class. Additionally, all barre and center exercises are done with only the name as reference, meaning the examiner will say the name of the exercise without first showing what the exercise is.

I wouldn’t say it’s fun in the traditional sense of fun. The exam  itself is stressful and you spend several months

preparing for something that lasts around an hour, but you also spend a lot of time with the girls in your exam preparing, and the rest of your class too since the class is often divided into smaller groups. We all arrived at least two hours in advanced to stretch, get ready, and go through the entire routine several times, and that part was probably the best part. However, it is a good learning experience to receive all the comments from the examiner, because it really can only help you prepare more in the future.

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I didn’t know that “Kahaani” meant “story” for the longest of times, but it truly lived up to its namesake.

From what I’ve come to learn about UWC, performances are intense and the amount of time that goes into preparing for the shows is far longer than anything I’ve done before. The week of Kahaani was very busy, with rehearsals until 8 or 9 pm for a few days. But, there was a large highlight to the preparations: people from Voice of World School For the Blind who are partnered with Kolkata GC came to UWC. We had an assembly and they presented to us how exactly the money and awareness that Kahaani brings is used, and they shared a humbling video of the goals that the school works towards. To actually see a physical manifestation of something that we dedicate our time and energy, there are very few words to describe that. I love the idea of actually seeing our efforts, because I think it became very easy to just think of Kahaani as another performance and event that the school has and forget exactly why we all dedicated ourselves to helping Kolkata GC. That was the most meaningful moment of the whole Kahaani experience to me, and made all the long rehearsals and other annoyances worth it. The people from Voice of World School also stayed the whole week to watch the performances, and I hope it brought them much pride and joy to see the amount of people that turned up.

Only since coming to UWC have I had such an immersion in a different culture, mostly due to the amount of different people from different ethnicities. Kahaani is only my second time doing Indian dancing, and it was so different from the first time. There is such a diversity in the styles of the dancings, costumes, and music that it is a constantly changing experience. Kahaani was still incredibly fun, there were so many people I knew in all the dances, and the show week was filled with so many fun memories. I hope to do Kahaani again next year, because it was only something to gain.

Dance showcase was definitely challenging, perhaps not so much in the actual style of dancing itself, but in my own personal feelings about how everything was organized and how the week itself went. It was a busy week, with rehearsals and then the show itself all right on top of one another. I also had two tests that were supposed to occur that week, but that I ended up having to move to the next week. I’m not sure how I felt about that, because I personally feel that my academics are more important than my extracurricular, and that having to reschedule assignments because I wasn’t released to go home until 9 at night is a bit unfair. That is perhaps one of my main negative experiences about the show week, in that I felt there was a lack of clarify and order in what needed to be done, and that I had to be on the stage very last minute for the entire show.

However, Show Week was a true test of commitment and collaboration between everyone. My dance had to meet during some of the lunches to fine tune some aspects of our dance that we continued to struggle with, and we all put in time on the weekend before to meet and put together all the different components of the dance. There were some things that we had to change of the week of the show, but everyone relearnt the choreography and integrated it back into the dance. Everyone worked together and shared different resources for hair and makeup and costume, and there was overall a good relationship between all the dancers and the dance leaders. I know that it was difficult for some people in my dance who were in multiple other dances, as I myself was part of the transitions in the show and it was an added aspect, but I didn’t feel there was anyone who wasn’t committed to the dance.

Especially to my dance leaders, one of who had never choreographed or taught before, it turned out wonderfully. We kept to the theme, through our music and our dancing, and the end result was everything that we had spent the months working towards. And while this week was exhausting, there is exhilaration in dancing in a group, when you’re on the stage and the music and lighting is as it is supposed to be, mistakes don’t change that feeling of pride.