College & Dance

When I saw the prompt for this blog post, I knew I had two moments that I could write about easily. One of those moments is about college which is basically the schools that I was accepted to and what college I chose to start my future at in the fall. The other moment is about dancing and my capstone project where I talk about shadowing my teachers and learning about choreography. Both these moments are times where I became so passionate about what I was doing that the spark inside me had turn into that fire of wanting to know more.

Most people know what they want to do after high school, whether it be going to college, entering the workforce, etc. My plan is going college to earn my Bachelors(maybe Masters) degree in Interior Design/Architecture. When I was looking for colleges that had that major two colleges jumped out at me: New England Institute of Technology and The Art Institute of Tampa. I got accepted to both colleges, one during the summer and one on Christmas Eve. Even though The Art Institute of Tampa accepted me first, I was still hoping that New England Tech would accept me too. When they did I ended up picking New England Tech because their program was structured more for life after college and what more in depth about their program for each year and after having 2 tours of the school, it feels right. New England Tech is having an accepted student’s day in March, which I’m obviously gonna be going to and hopefully meet some other Interior Design majors now rather than in the fall.

As most of you know, for my capstone project I job shadowed my dance teachers, Mrs. Cel and Mrs. Cindy for 2 weeks. This meant I was watching them and learning what they do and one of those things was choreographing the dances and another one was teaching the class. I have never choreographed an actual dance before, just random combinations but with doing the shadow and having to learn how to choreograph a dance. You basically have to listen to the music and see what steps would fit and if you want to match the lyrics or music/beats and then just fill it in with steps/movements that fit or feel right and is the best level of difficulty for the age group. Since the age group I was helping teach was from 9-11 & 13+ and some of them haven’t been dancing for very long, the steps we put into the dance had to be easy enough for them, but still challenging enough at the same time that they’re still have fun. On the Thursday Of my 2 weeks, Mrs. Cel and Mrs. Cindy let me teach the class on my own, which meant that I would lead them through the warm-up, the across-floor and floor exercises, and then lead them through the dance and I would even tell them when it was time to switch to the next thing we were going to do that day. This also meant that Mrs. Cel had more time to get other things ready, like the snacks, fall dance paperwork or just housework while Mrs. Cindy was downstairs making sure I knew what I was doing and to help if need be. After shadowing my teachers and learning about how they choreograph dances, I now find myself choreographing dances just for fun or for stress relief and Mrs. Cel even is letting help my solo/senior dance this year, which is amazing because I never thought that could actually do something like this.

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