This year will be my 3rd and final Culturama. Culturama is a show that aims to be inclusive allowing students to take part in dances that are representations of their own culture and one’s representative of other cultures. The idea behind Culturama stems from the mission of uniting people but, in this case through dance.
I will be taking part in India (Garba) as the culture that I represent. Culturama has always been an event I love taking part in every year, and I am very glad that I am able to return to it this year. Being my final year I would really like to go on stage with absolutely no stress and stage fright and enjoy myself as a way to assess the growth I have had through my years doing Culturama. Stage fright has always been a weakness for me and I hope that with the experience I have had for the past 3 years I will be able to just purely enjoy myself without the worry of forgetting steps and missing counts. We will go through countless hours of practice and try and perfect our dance. This will be a big commitment on my part which means I have to stay on top of my work and other activities in order to be present for all practices. Therefore, I will have to play to my strengths of being organised and try my best to not be bombarded with too much work in our final Culturama week.
I am really looking forward to my final year of Culturama as it has been almost a tradition for me for the past 3 years. I would really like to remember my final year of doing this dance show as being the best one.
After going to Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts for almost 5 years I finally successfully finished the Junior and Secondary arts programme. Completing this programme has shown me the different skills I have in relation to art. I have always deemed myself quite good at art. However, upon doing this programme I have come to realise that there are certain mediums and certain concepts that I am able to draw well. When it comes to drawing humans and faces I am really not that skilled, but, when it comes to drawing flowers and landscapes I believe I am quite skilled and I am able to draw such things quite well.
In terms of mediums that I am good at working with, I believe I am good at working with watercolour as well as acrylic and oil. What I have realised is nobody is good at doing art with every medium, everybody is more skilled at one medium than another. This has made me more likely to do watercolours and acrylic painting rather than making sculptures or doing print work. From time to time I enjoy doing paper-mache but, if I am bored and feel like doing art I would preferably do watercolour painting or acrylic and oil painting.
This does not mean that I will not work with any other medium than the ones I am relatively better at working with, at any chance I get I will try to further develop my skills in sculpting and print making. I only wish to explore more mediums and different artistic concepts to allow myself to further my knowledge of art as an expression.
CultuRama is an event held every year in honor of the many cultures and nationalities present in our school. It’s purpose it to show a panorama of cultures, hence the name CultuRama. It launched the year I entered UWC and I have aspired to take part in it ever since. I think CultuRama is a great opportunity for people to form new friendships whilst enjoying themselves and expressing themselves through dance.
This year, I am lucky enough to be taking part in not one but two CultuRama dances. I feel as though dancing is something that is not only enjoyable for the people watching but also, incredibly enjoyable for the people actually doing it. For this edition of CultuRama, I am representing India and USA. So far, my CultuRama experience has been very fruitful, every rehearsal has furthered my knowledge of the dances and made me more excited for the final day. However, I am quite nervous for the real day because, as committed as I am during the preparation stage I fear that on the real day my stage fright may come in the way. A huge disadvantage for me would be forgetting the steps on the actual day which could hinder my experience and also those in my dance.
I hope that through the countless practices we have, even if I do forget muscle memory will help me and prevent any onstage embarrassment. It helps a lot to be organised and committed during the preparation stages, which is conveniently one of my strengths. I am definitely looking forward to the actual performance.
