Blog 3

Today was spent preparing for the recital and learning from the teachers. Nina, an instructor at the studio, took me into her jazz class for kids ages 10 to 12. She told me that today would be a learning day for how she runs the class, but that I would have to teach the class the following week and the week after that. Nina demonstrated how they begin class by stretching and doing across-the-floor combos. She also emphasized that they need to run their recital dance a few times and begin cleaning so that it is in good shape. 

This age group of dancers is particularly challenging since they often talk with each other. They don't seem to pay attention to the teacher, but Nina has a lot of patience with them, and I want to learn from her.  I believe that teaching this class for two weeks will be difficult since I am a quiet person who may find it difficult to get the kids to listen to me. Also, unlike Nina, my patience can be tested at times, so I need to use the tactics I've learned with kids to keep the class on track.

For the rest of the day, I worked on recital preparation. I needed to use the poster boards I got yesterday to create show order posters for the recital in June. I started making posters for the first of the two shows. Because show one only has one act, Nina asked me to create two show one posters.  The main reason we create show order posters is so that the dancers know what number they are in the show, how many fast changes they have, and to get on stage on time. Show one has 22 dances, so I needed to make sure there was enough space on the poster for all of the dances, and that they were large enough for the dancers to read backstage. This had to be done twice, and it took much longer than I imagined. Then I had to take a break because I had a ballet class to attend.

Following ballet, I began the posters for show two. Nina informed me I needed to make two posters for show two act 1 and two posters for show two act 2 because show two has two acts. Yes, that is confusing!  Show two act one includes 19 dances, whereas show two act two features 20. Like earlier, I had to make sure there was enough space on the posters, and that the names of the dances were large enough to read backstage. 

We had to clean up at the end of the day, so I swept the hallway floors and the floors of each room.

 

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