Today was my first day wearing the hat of choreographer for this group of NYC public high school kids' spring performance. Their regular teacher is a teacher I had last semester at MMC and she asked me to come work with them.
Okay, I've taught before. My family runs a local school and I started helping teach when I was all of ten years old. And last year I was an assistant teacher at BAE with the little little kids. HOWEVER this is my first foray into being the actual main person in charge in the studio. And I like it!
Haha. If you know me you know that I'm not a very loud person. But somehow I managed to find a teacher tone today. I had to give them a short warm up class before diving into the choreography, which I was not exactly prepared for. It went fairly well though...making up combinations on the spot was interesting...it seemed to work somehow.
After they did barre I took them to the center of their quaint little studio space and we started with some choreography that I very thoughtfully tried to come up with yesterday in my bite sized apartment. I didn't get a chance to actually do any of my ideas full out, and the students aren't all actual dancers, so I was a bit concerned. It went quite well though...we got through most of what I had prepared and even though I took it down a notch level wise, they seemed to get it all and be enjoying themselves. They liked my music too, haha (it's the theme song from American Beauty...I danced the first pas de deux I ever performed to it one summer way back when and have loved the soundtrack ever since).
Anyway it was definitely a new experience but one I'd like to continue pursuing...this teaching/choreography business. I'll be working with them all this semester so it will be fun to see their progression!
Besides that today was really really busy...class all morning (good turning day for once!?) and then had a meeting at school later...I'm tired haha. Teaching for an hour and 45 minutes straight requires a huge amount of a different kind of energy that I'm not used to at all. It's different than what I use to take multiple classes every day. I have to get used to this!
2 comments:
Do you think there will be an opportunity for us to see your choreographic work when it's finished?
Sure! I'll keep you posted as to when their performances are...sometime in May I believe. Can't promise you anything too choreographically brilliant this first time around, haha. But all are welcome to come see when it happens :)
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