Time Fly's When Your Having Fun

The day that I was looking forward to most was finally here. My first practice solo was right after school I really couldn’t wait. That whole day in school all I could think about was me running to my dance studio and learning my solo. That day of school felt like forever, when it was finally time to be dismissed I ran home quickly to put my dance clothes on and ran to my dance studio. I made sure I got there exactly on time. My teacher Michelle was happy to see me. She then played the song that she picked. I never heard of it before but I fell in love with it and couldn’t wait to learn the dance.

We then started to stretch and we spoke about what custom she was picturing me in for this dance. After she finished stretching me she taught me some of the dance, I absolutely loved it. Michelle new that I was good in gymnastics so she taught me a back handspring so that she could put it into the dance. I had such a good time and I loved every minute of it. Learning one on one with her was the best experience I ever had. I loved having the teacher’s undivided attention because you learn so much more that way. The practice was an hour I couldn’t believe how fast the time flew. Before I new it practices was over, I did not want to leave. Before I left she told me what a great job I did. Michelle also told me to go home and practice it so that I didn’t forget it. I told her how much fun I had and how I loved it already. I really couldn’t wait until my next solo practice.

Passionate Dancer

In dance there are not only group dances there is also the possibility that you can do a solo, a duo or even a trio. In my dance studio if the teacher feels that you are ready and have enough experience he or she will ask you privately if you would be interested. Four years ago I was asked by one of my teachers if I was interested in doing a hip-hop/gymnastics solo. I was so excited the teacher told me to ask my parents if it will be O.K. She explained to me that it will be a little more expensive since I was doing a solo plus my other group dances. I would have to buy an extra custom and also a solo fee as well as the group fees before every competition.

I rushed home and spoke to my parents about it. At first they told me that they will think about it. That was not a good enough answer for me, so I begged them until they say yes. I told them that not everyone was chosen and what a great opportunity this would be for me. I tried telling them how much this meant and how I will do what ever it takes for them to allow me to do it. They new the passion I had for dance and saw how excited I was that I was asked to do a solo. My parents agreed but made me promise one thing. They told me that I will have to keep my grades up and put my school work first. I quickly called my teacher up to tell her the good news. She was very happy and asked me if I had a specific song in mind or if she should just pick it on her own. I told her I trust her to pick a good song for me. We then agreed on a day that we could meet at the dance studio to practice, I really couldn’t wait to get started. I then told my parents how much I loved them and how I appreciated it.

Practice Makes Perfect

Aside from teaching dance classes, I myself take many lessons since I enjoy it so much. The class which I am in is a company class, as of right now we are practicing for a competition which we will be participating in on April 15. I dance twice a week on Tuesday and Thursday nights for an hour. If my teacher’s feel as if we need extra practice they will call an extra practice on the weekend. Besides taking my company classes I also try taking as many other dance classes just to work on my technique which every competitive dancer needs.
On Tuesday nights I take a jazz class, the teacher just finished teaching us the entire dance. Now it is up to us to keep practicing it and go over the parts of the dance that we are having difficulties with. For instance when we do the dance, there is a jazz turning sequence which is supposed to be all together but it looks very sloppy. The teacher told us that next week we will be doing the turn sequence 100 times until we get it together. Basically all that is left now is just cleaning it up and try making it perfect. Our main goal now is to have fun and do well at competition which is in a couple of weeks.
The class on Thursday night is a hip hop and lyrical. Hip Hop is one of my favorite styles of dancing; it is a more up beat type of dancing. Lyrical is very closely related to Ballet, it is a slower and more graceful type of dance. In that class, we have two dances which we are bringing to competition. Our hip hop dance is great we are almost finished learning the whole thing. Our lyrical dance is very touching, we are finished learning that one so now we just have to keep practicing it and clean it up. I can not wait to take all these dances to competition in a couple of weeks. I know that we will do great as long as we just keep up our hard work and dedication.

Listen to your heart

I couldn’t believe that there is Dance Techniques for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Dancers. That is incredible it put a smile on my face when I researched it. At the Gallaudet University they started a dance group for those who are interested, its “The Gallaudet Dance Company”. Last heard, this dance company had approximately 15 dancers involved. All members of the company are undergraduate or graduate students at the Gallaudet University. They are known as “the world's only accredited liberal arts university for deaf and hard of hearing students”. All the dancer's came from different backgrounds but they are both in terms of hearing loss.

Surprisingly, all these hard of hearing dancers are excellent communicators. These dancer’s vision is what helps them with their communication. Sign Language comes in handy, that is one of the ways that they communicate. Foundamental dance signs presents basic dance signs for ballroom dance, ballet, tap, and creative movement. Gallaudet University is a bilingual community where students, faculty, and staff communicate with each other in American Sign Language and English. The Gallaudet Dance Company has just celebrated its 50th Anniversary, in the Spring of 2005. These dancer’s new that their primary responsibility is their liberal arts studies, there instructor constantly reminded them that. This dance company is asked for financial support for all of their entertaining performances. This dance company traveled to perform in many great places. They performed at the White House, and on a stage in Egypt, Israel, Canada, Costa Rica, Denmark, Peru, Barbados, St. Lucia, Brazil, Guatemala, South Korea, the Bahamas, and France. These dancers really enjoy it and are very dedicated.

Almost Over

Last week on America’s Best Dance Crew, the stakes the highest yet. All three remaining crews dance to the same remix featuring the evolution of street dancing and the final two compete in an encore "do or die" round. The three remaining were Kaba Modern, Status Quo and the JabbaWockeeZ. Up first was Status Quo. Status Quo wowed the judges with their stunts but failing to impress with the choreography. They always have incredible stunts that no one else has ever seen let alone done. I think they focus too much on stunts and not enough on anything else. The JabbaWockeeZ were next. They pulled out all the stops, rushing the crowd and defying gravity with a three minute head spin. That is unbelievable! Could you imagine standing on your head for three minutes! The JabbaWockeeZ are a great crew. The first time I saw them I thought they were weird because they wear masks for the entire show. But finally I saw them without the masks in a behind the scene part of an episode. Not willing to go down without a fight, Kaba Modern nailed the evolution challenge and even incorporated costume changes into their routine. That is defiantly impressive. It is hard enough to dance with one costume on. They brought a new level to the show by adding that into the routine. Kaba Modern was eliminated leaving Status Quo and JabbaWockeeZ to fight for the title of America’s Best Dance Crew. Status Quo started the encore "do or die" round, in which the final two crews create their ultimate performance to prove why they are America's Best Dance Crew. The judges took one last opportunity to share their thoughts on the two remaining crews before America makes its choice. J.C Chazes said “I have been a judge of tough love but that is because I saw potential in every crew here.” He went on to add “I am super proud of these two crews here.” Tomorrow night is the finale so we will see who is crowned America’s Best Dance Crew.

The Meaningful one line sentence.

“Failure is not about falling down, it teaches success; as long as you pick yourself up and work to your potential.” This one sentence that I put together means a lot to me. It basically sums up the main goal that I have on life. When I fail in a situation I try not to get to upset and let it bring me down. I just try looking at the brightside and I tell myself that it will just make me stronger, and work harder. I firmly believe that failure really does guide me towards success. As we all know, success does not come easy in life. Like the saying “practice makes perfect” I totally agree with that. It teaches me to keep trying my hardest in everything I set my mind to, so one day I could be successful in everything I do.

Living the Life of A Competitive Dancer

In dancing school, company classes are a huge commitment. If you are asked to be in a company class you have to know exactly what you are getting yourself into. It is not as easy as most people think it is. The dancer must attend several competitions which means that there will be more rehearsals which everyone must attend along with all the expenses. Being in company classes is all about dedication. I have been in company for about seven years now so I know how important and committed you have to be.

Dance competitions are very exciting, especially when they are out of state and we need to book a hotel room. I always have the best time hanging out in the hotel room with all of my close friends we always go swimming at night and in the day when we are not competing we love going shopping together. We learned from experience that we need to get to bed early and have a good night sleep because we usually have to wake up very early. Before we compete we have to make sure that every single one of us has the same hair and make-up done. I’m usually in charge of doing everyone’s make-up and my friend Laurie usually does everyone’s hair. Then once we get our costumes on and our make-up and hair is finished, we stretch a little and practice our dances. Then we wait patiently until we are called on stage to perform. While we are waiting back stage we all get so nervous but excited at the same time. Then after we perform we wait for the awards to be announced that’s always the best part because we find out how good we did. We then usually all go out to eat and celebrate our hard word and dedication.

Dancing with the Stars

Dancing with the stars is a Primetime Emmy Award nominated and People's Choice Award winning reality show airing on American Broadcasting Company in the United States. The first season began on June 1st, 2005 and it is now the 6th season, it began on March 17, 2008. The show chooses a celebrity and pairs them up with a professional ballroom dancer. The professional dancer is in charge to teach the celebrity how to perform specific dances. After the professional dancer teaches the dance to the celebrity, then they must perform it live on the show each week. The dancers are scored by three professional dance judges. Those who watch the show could also vote by phone, text message, or online.

Then after reviewing all the votes from the judges and the viewers, the team which receives the lowest total score each week is eliminated from the competition. The judges play a big part on this show, the head judge is Len Goodman and the other two judges are Carrie Ann Inaba and Bruno Tonioli. Harold Wheeler also is important to this show he is the musical director. The announcements for the show's titles "Live from Hollywood, This is "Dancing With the Stars" and introductions for the dances and judges' scores were recorded in the United Kingdom. Dancing with the Stars is hosted by Emmy Award winning game show host and television personality, Tom Bergeron. This show is doing great and has been well received.

The True Meaning of Creative Nonfiction

For those of you who do not know, literature is divided up into many different genres. Two popular genres which most of you are familiar with are fiction and nonfiction. Fiction is invented by the imagination which basically means that the narrator can make up fake characters along with a fake story. Novels and short stories are two great examples of fiction. Nonfiction is the narrative’s opinions or facts and reality. The events or characters do exist in nonfiction it is based on a true story. Some examples of nonfiction are newspaper articles, technical writing or journalism. To make non fiction a little more exciting and interesting another genre came into play that being creative nonfiction. It is a known fact that creative nonfiction was and still is the first largest literary magazine to publish high quality nonfiction memoir, literary journalism, and personal essays exclusively. Creative nonfiction had become very popular and still is as the days go on.

Creative nonfiction is also known as “literary journalism” or “new journalism”; it was not official until 1983. This genre really shows the whole picture of the subject which is great because it catches the reader’s full attention. In creative nonfiction the facts seem so real they come alive through the setting or well developed scenes. That is exactly what every author should focus most on; it keeps the reader on their toes and makes them want to keep reading on. Creative nonfiction also presents details which is very helpful to the reader. It makes it a lot easier for the reader to understand the main point which the narrator is trying to convey. It “shows rather than tells” real world facts and issues.

Now that I have a better understanding of what creative nonfiction really is I can relate this genre to previous books that I read. In All Around the Town by Herbert Asbury I realized that it conveyed creative non fiction, especially in “A Lady of Fashion”. The reader learns a lot about the attire in the 1900’s. Not only is the reader grasping all this information but they could even picture themselves sporting these fashions. The author explained in such great detail how the woman did there make up and it focused a lot on the styles of the dresses. It also discusses how expensive all of it was. Creative nonfiction is great because the reader is so interested but at the same time they are taking in so much information. It is as if the author is taking you back in time.

For the most part, even though many people have different ways of defining creative nonfiction it all comes down to the same meaning. It basically is a technique used to catch the reader’s attention but at the same time understand the information provided by having “the author in the work”. It gives the author’s personal opinion as well as giving facts of the outside world. For instance In Bruce Dobler’s Creative Nonfiction Compendium he describes it as “a branch of writing which employs literary techniques and artistic vision usually associated with fiction or poetry to report on actual persons and events.” According to Lee Gutkind, it is “writing which strives to communicate real-life stories dramatically.” As you can tell they both ended up with the same overall meaning just put in different words.

Dancing Their Way to Fame

Every television show is a reality show. Well, at least that is how I feel. America’s Best Dance Crew is a new show on MTV that Randy Jackson produced. There are three judges which are J.C. Chasez (one of the members from the best music group ever, *NSYNC), Lil Mama (a rapper) and Shane (a choreographer). The host is better known as A.C. Slater, his character on Saved by the Bell, Mario Lopez. This show is sort of similar to So You Think You Can Dance only this show focuses on crews or dance group. Dance crews from around the country will rehearse and compete each week in front of the show's panel of professional experts and be judged by viewers voting by text messaging, online, and by phone. One crew will be eliminated each week. This will ultimately reveal the nation's best dance crew. The crews are faced with new challenges each week. Sometimes the challenge is new stunts, one week was a Broadway challenge and one week was a tribute to Michael Jackson’s 25 year old hit Thriller. This show is very good and it shows every crew’s individual talents.

A Dancing ICON

Last week I went to TRL. Those of you who don’t know TRL is an MTV show which views the top 10 songs of the week. At TRL there are sometimes surprise visitors. They usually have a singer whose video is premiering. As usual, TRL played videos and music was a big part. During the commercials they asked the audience to get up and start dancing. Of course I did! Also, I was on television and I looked like an idiot because i was staring into space. Last week when I went our surprise visitor was a dance group on America’s Best Dance Crew by the name of Iconic. The group Iconic consists of seven people. Their captain is named George aka Geo. They got kicked off the show last week. They were great dancers but they could not compare to the other group’s dance moves and acrobatic stunts. They were on TRL because they were eliminated and they were asked to appear on it. They said how they were not very upset because they tried their best. Iconic was kicked off the show on the second episode. Even though it was the beginning of the long journey of the dancers, Iconic was one of the eight crews who were able to be on the show. Crews from all over the country fought to compete on this show so just to be on the show is an honor. I am sure we will see more from these great dancers.