Wow, what can I say? This quarter has been mind blowing…literally. I have been exposed to so much new material and movement styles that I feel that it has all flown past me and I’ve been lucky to grab a small lesson from each experience. Right from auditions I have been pushing myself and trying to gain as much as I can from the amazing talent that I am surrounded by. The first thing that is really beginning to sink into my mind and body is the use of floor work and upper body work between rolling, falling, jumping I am beginning to move my body in ways I never thought I was capable of. It is challenging both to mind and body. People don’t necessarily think of dance as something that involves a lot of brain power, but along side of remembering combinations there is the task of break down and understanding the movement you are given or are creating. Dance is truly a whole mind and body experience, requiring you to be fully present in yourself and aware of where you are physically. Another thing that has been a challenge for me both within classes and rehearsals is working on truly filling all of my movement. There was one moment during our first class with Sydna Reed where she came over to me during an arabesque and simply pulled on my wrist and told me to expand. Somehow this simple gesture really hit home and has been a moment that I return to often to remind myself to allow my movement to continue rather than to just reach a max and stop. I like to think of these moments as an addition to my “tool box” as my drama teacher explained one time. As you go through life you experience new things that then get added to your tool box that you can access at any time.
Now while this quarter has been full of additions to my technical tool box, I’ve also had the ability to add a few to my emotional tool box. Being a freshman in college there’s lots of new experiences, feelings and situations to deal with; luckily I have dance in order to help me work through these instances. There are two ways in which dance allows me to explore these new places in my life, one is the ability to come to rehearsal or class and leave the outside world behind. When you begin to dance and move your body, by taking an internal focus and honing into what your body is doing it allows me to be in a completely different world and forget about the stresses and release and relax so that when I do have to re-enter the real world, I am calmer, more collected and deal with things as they come rather than just feeling overwhelming and panicking. The other thing that has been great for me this quarter has been being a part of both Crystal and Heidi’s pieces. They both involve topics and themes that are relevant to my life right now, so going to rehearsals allows me to dance through any hardship or mental stress I am going through at that moment. I am very, very grateful to the wonderful program of Orchesis, I’ve learned so much already and can’t even imagine all of the lessons to come.
Photo: Prem Ananda premphoto.com
