Dance Ensemble 2
ARTS & CULTURE
Dance is another passion of mine that I have been engaged with since primary school. I have learned jazz and hiphop before, and have also participated in various performances. Recently, I had also been introduced to K-pop – another genre that I found a lot of fun in following the choreography. With this, in my first semester at UWC USA, I did not hesitate to join in Dance Ensemble, choosing 2 over 1 to further challenge myself.
Dance ensemble was completely different than what I expected. When I joined, I pictured the ExEd to be in structured in the same way as any of the dance classes I had had before: an instructor up in the front, and the participants merely follow with the choreography. However, this assumption was soon proven to be wrong. The second year leaders showed me how to express emotions and inner feelings through movements. I was even challenged to come up with my own choreography, or to move freely across the dance studio and focus on nothing but the music. One workshop that was particularly impactful to me was when we were told to just lie down on the floor and curl ourselves into balls, and as the music progressed, to then stand up in our own ways.
The dance style was also new to me. While the ExEd was mostly focused on expressive contemporary, other dances of different cultures were also included. The ones I can vividly remember are ballet and Brazilian zouk. Ballet is another form of dance that I had taken when I was extremely young and thought I had already forgotten most of it. However, it turned out I was still able to recall many of the movements and dance alongside with others well. Brazilian zouk proved to be more of a challenge to me for we also had to dance in pairs. Never done a partner dance before, I struggled in the beginning to coordinate my steps with my partner, especially when the choreography required me to switch partners and move around the entire studio. With practices, I eventually understood the steps and rhythms and was able to dance in synchronization with the group.
Among the new skills I received, fun and meaningful interactions with friends as we worked through choreographies together, and the end products of our performances, another thing I strongly appreciate from this ExEd was the time I was given to be myself. With the freestyle dances, I let my body take control of everything as I stood aside to look at the movements. It was truly a blessing to have a physical workout that would distract me from the stress of academics and calm me down from all the chaos outside of the studio after such tiring Wednesdays.