narrative assignment
The Topic of Dance
“Nov. ’75. Mishy now dances when music plays.” My father has a little black notebook with brief scribbles recording various family events such as when my grandfather died and my older sister had her tonsils out. According to my dad’s book, I was 11 months old when I had my first dance. That was the beginning of my love of dance and since then, dance has continued to be in my life in some fashion or another. So when my English 102 assignment was to choose a topic that I care deeply about I chose dance, not only because I always been dancing, but also because it has been an important element of my life.
Of course my formal dance training started with my parents occasionally enrolling me into the standard jazz, tap, and ballet classes that practically every little girl gets enrolled into at some point in their childhood. I didn’t spend too much time in those classes. I was too shy to fit in well socially with the other promising ballerinas who could already do the splits and were already getting into toe shoes. But I didn’t stop dancing. I was always making up routines in our large hallway at home, which sometimes included my little sister and an audience of my parents and their friends.
As I grew older the routines were still being choreographed, just more secretly in my room alone. When I reached high school, I decided to try dancing in a classroom again. I found myself in a class that had girls from every group and clique in the school. Once I realized we all had the love of dance in common, the nervous feeling of not fitting in evaporated. We taught each other a lot about making friends with different with types of people and we learned to appreciate our differences through our dancing. High school dance class gave me an outlet to creatively express myself and constructively deal with my emotions. Sometimes the emotions I needed to deal with had to do with my suicide attempts and anger at the world around me. Dancing also gave me something to get involved in besides the drugs I was doing and the people who I did them with. When I think back on that time, I believe dancing saved my life. I was apart of Saguaro High School’s dance company and as I got more involved in dance I received a scholarship to Scottsdale Community College for dance and continued on for two years in the SCC performance group and participated in learning workshops, with other colleges and professional dance companies, which took place in and outside of the state.
From age 19 to 29 I was a professional ballroom dance competitor and instructor of social and competition level dance at Fred Astaire Dance Studios of North America. My student’s ages ranged from 5 to 90years old. They came from different income levels; the spectrum included everything from a homeless man to a vice president from Motorola that oversaw the building of The Voyager space craft. I also taught different combinations of people, such as group classes, one on one instruction with a single man or woman, and gay and straight couples. My coaches were not only from all parts of the country, but also all over the world, like Lithuania, England, Australia, Bulgaria, and Russia. During all these encounters, dance was our common ground to share as fellow teachers, dancers and people experiencing life.
The career and lifestyle of a ballroom dancer has been a great life education for me and has given me tools for life. The unique environment that dance has put me in has give me a wide range of lessons. Through teaching, learning and performing dance, I have learned to overcome my shyness. I learned how to be a leader by choreographing and instructing. Teaching couples to dance taught me about communication between men and women. Getting up at six am to get to practice with my professional partner and then go to work until 11:30 pm taught me about time management and what it means to be dedicated. Competing professionally taught me about politics and patience. I also learned about patience from my dance students. I can thank my coaches and my students for teaching me that there is more than one way to get the lesson across. I learned about the power of touch and how a hug or pat on the pack can make an older person come to life and a stressed out corporate executive calm down. Even learning various dances from around the world and the music that accompanies them gave me small lessons in other cultures. Being involved in the business end of dance also gave me an opportunity to learn a bit about finances and running a business.
I hope to use my dance experiences to help me in my English 102 multi genre portfolio to explain and argue how dance is a form of communication on social, cultural, and spiritual levels. To research the social communication part of my essay I plan on interviewing some of my former coaches who were U.S. and world champions who are now on adjudication panels for competitions and other people who are experts in the ballroom business. Also for social and cultural communication I will research the connection with body language and dance. The cultural communication through dance will require research into some modern dance companies that communicate themes of cultures and social issues like Alvin Ailey, for instance, who have used dance to communicate the trials and unique history African-American culture. For the spiritual communication through dance part of my argument, I will do research into mythology and religion. Through these and other resources I hope to learn more in the academic sense about the deeper connection of dance with all people of the world, and go beyond the glitz and physical aspects of dance that are more obvious.
The film I chose to watch for analysis is “Footloose.” It’s about a man moving to another part of the country where he doesn’t fit in, but also there is a religious issue of dance being banned in the county because it’s considered sinful. The way the characters deal with their religious beliefs about dance and how dance brings different types of people together through dance will be useful to my topic.
I might need to defend that dance isn’t just something that is a means of entertainment, that is more than just a way to have fun and exercise, and that it is in someway apart of everyone’s communication- not just “artsy” people. One way to defend this and make it more interesting is to tie dance communication into ways things like courtship and showing dance in ways most people don’t realize.
The most challenging of the smaller assignments will probably be posting the blog and drawing cartoons. Both of those assignments are areas that I have little or know experience. The sole fear of mismanaging my time and failing me is the largest challenge I foresee having to overcome.
I am excited to learning more about dance. I’m also excited to share the great things about dance with others. I am nervous about the assignments and the short amount of time overwhelming me. I’m going to need to take it one step at a time, and keep it simple.During the course of the semester, I hope to successfully complete my multi genre portfolio, and learn something about my self and what I am capable of under pressure. But most of all, I hope to use this project as a way to pay homage to something that has not only saved my life more than once, but also gave me an education and a life full of unique and meaningful experiences.
“Nov. ’75. Mishy now dances when music plays.” My father has a little black notebook with brief scribbles recording various family events such as when my grandfather died and my older sister had her tonsils out. According to my dad’s book, I was 11 months old when I had my first dance. That was the beginning of my love of dance and since then, dance has continued to be in my life in some fashion or another. So when my English 102 assignment was to choose a topic that I care deeply about I chose dance, not only because I always been dancing, but also because it has been an important element of my life.
Of course my formal dance training started with my parents occasionally enrolling me into the standard jazz, tap, and ballet classes that practically every little girl gets enrolled into at some point in their childhood. I didn’t spend too much time in those classes. I was too shy to fit in well socially with the other promising ballerinas who could already do the splits and were already getting into toe shoes. But I didn’t stop dancing. I was always making up routines in our large hallway at home, which sometimes included my little sister and an audience of my parents and their friends.
As I grew older the routines were still being choreographed, just more secretly in my room alone. When I reached high school, I decided to try dancing in a classroom again. I found myself in a class that had girls from every group and clique in the school. Once I realized we all had the love of dance in common, the nervous feeling of not fitting in evaporated. We taught each other a lot about making friends with different with types of people and we learned to appreciate our differences through our dancing. High school dance class gave me an outlet to creatively express myself and constructively deal with my emotions. Sometimes the emotions I needed to deal with had to do with my suicide attempts and anger at the world around me. Dancing also gave me something to get involved in besides the drugs I was doing and the people who I did them with. When I think back on that time, I believe dancing saved my life. I was apart of Saguaro High School’s dance company and as I got more involved in dance I received a scholarship to Scottsdale Community College for dance and continued on for two years in the SCC performance group and participated in learning workshops, with other colleges and professional dance companies, which took place in and outside of the state.
From age 19 to 29 I was a professional ballroom dance competitor and instructor of social and competition level dance at Fred Astaire Dance Studios of North America. My student’s ages ranged from 5 to 90years old. They came from different income levels; the spectrum included everything from a homeless man to a vice president from Motorola that oversaw the building of The Voyager space craft. I also taught different combinations of people, such as group classes, one on one instruction with a single man or woman, and gay and straight couples. My coaches were not only from all parts of the country, but also all over the world, like Lithuania, England, Australia, Bulgaria, and Russia. During all these encounters, dance was our common ground to share as fellow teachers, dancers and people experiencing life.
The career and lifestyle of a ballroom dancer has been a great life education for me and has given me tools for life. The unique environment that dance has put me in has give me a wide range of lessons. Through teaching, learning and performing dance, I have learned to overcome my shyness. I learned how to be a leader by choreographing and instructing. Teaching couples to dance taught me about communication between men and women. Getting up at six am to get to practice with my professional partner and then go to work until 11:30 pm taught me about time management and what it means to be dedicated. Competing professionally taught me about politics and patience. I also learned about patience from my dance students. I can thank my coaches and my students for teaching me that there is more than one way to get the lesson across. I learned about the power of touch and how a hug or pat on the pack can make an older person come to life and a stressed out corporate executive calm down. Even learning various dances from around the world and the music that accompanies them gave me small lessons in other cultures. Being involved in the business end of dance also gave me an opportunity to learn a bit about finances and running a business.
I hope to use my dance experiences to help me in my English 102 multi genre portfolio to explain and argue how dance is a form of communication on social, cultural, and spiritual levels. To research the social communication part of my essay I plan on interviewing some of my former coaches who were U.S. and world champions who are now on adjudication panels for competitions and other people who are experts in the ballroom business. Also for social and cultural communication I will research the connection with body language and dance. The cultural communication through dance will require research into some modern dance companies that communicate themes of cultures and social issues like Alvin Ailey, for instance, who have used dance to communicate the trials and unique history African-American culture. For the spiritual communication through dance part of my argument, I will do research into mythology and religion. Through these and other resources I hope to learn more in the academic sense about the deeper connection of dance with all people of the world, and go beyond the glitz and physical aspects of dance that are more obvious.
The film I chose to watch for analysis is “Footloose.” It’s about a man moving to another part of the country where he doesn’t fit in, but also there is a religious issue of dance being banned in the county because it’s considered sinful. The way the characters deal with their religious beliefs about dance and how dance brings different types of people together through dance will be useful to my topic.
I might need to defend that dance isn’t just something that is a means of entertainment, that is more than just a way to have fun and exercise, and that it is in someway apart of everyone’s communication- not just “artsy” people. One way to defend this and make it more interesting is to tie dance communication into ways things like courtship and showing dance in ways most people don’t realize.
The most challenging of the smaller assignments will probably be posting the blog and drawing cartoons. Both of those assignments are areas that I have little or know experience. The sole fear of mismanaging my time and failing me is the largest challenge I foresee having to overcome.
I am excited to learning more about dance. I’m also excited to share the great things about dance with others. I am nervous about the assignments and the short amount of time overwhelming me. I’m going to need to take it one step at a time, and keep it simple.During the course of the semester, I hope to successfully complete my multi genre portfolio, and learn something about my self and what I am capable of under pressure. But most of all, I hope to use this project as a way to pay homage to something that has not only saved my life more than once, but also gave me an education and a life full of unique and meaningful experiences.
posted by michelle @ 9:56 AM
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