"It's what I've always wanted to do, to show the laughter, the fun, the joy of dance." ~Martha Graham

Saturday, July 31, 2010

Last day of intensive :(

I'm sad to say, that yesterday, was the last day of dance intensive.

It was really good though! We started out with a 1 hour rehearsal to practice our Chinese dance, and out rep dance. That was a little crazy... Let's see how short I can make the story.

So the Chinese dance music was ONLY on the computer. So the teacher plugged her ipod into the computer, but it wouldn't read her ipod. So then she grabbed a blank CD, but it would read either. So the teacher rapidly searched and asked all of us if we had an ipod or blank CD with us. Nobody did, but one girl had some at home, so she spent 15 minutes calling her mom and trying to tell her mom where the CDs were. The girl's mom brought the disk 15 minutes before the showing. So, that was crazy.

Our rep rehearsal was pretty good! Only two of the pairs did the partnering at the end. I wanted to do the partnering but my partner didn't so we didn't.

Then we had Jazz class. We mostly just finished our Airplanes dance.

The showing was great! First we did our Chinese dance, then we did our rep dance, next we did our Jazz dance, and finally we did our ballet demonstration. Basically, what we did, was my group did a tendu combination, then we did a pirouette combination, then the other group did a pirouette combination, then we did a grand allegro combination, then the other group did a grand allegro, and finally, we all did a reverance.

I think it went really well!!!!!!

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Dance intensive was soooooo intense today! (not)

So, you read the title! Most tiring class EVER!!!

We started with ballet... pretty normal. Then we had PARTNERING!!

I already told you that we had one boy at the intensive. So my teacher (my teacher is Male) and the one boy did ALL the partnering. We mostly just did pirouettes and jumps. When they lift you up during a jump, you go twice as high as you normally do! It feels like you are going REALLY high though! It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

Then comes the most stressful part! We were SUPPOSED to have stretch class... but instead, you know what we had to do instead!?!?!?!?!? WE HAD TO WATCH A MOVIE! Yes, that's what we did for our 30 minutes of stretch class. We watched a movie called That's Dancing! It was mostly just about Musical films... We kind of just layed around on the ground.

Oh, and then, let's just say, our rep dance is CRAZY! That's all I'm gonna say....

Saturday, July 24, 2010

You know you are a dancer when......

Hey guys!
I just found this really fun list of ways you know you area dancer, I'm going to put all the ways that apply to me in bold

You know You are a Dancer When...


...Dance is life and the rest is just spare time.
... You walk with your feet turned out subconsciously
... Your vocabulary includes Band-Aids, wedgies, sweat, tape, determination, and guts!
... You sit in a straddle when you are watching TV
.... You have blisters on your feet for life.
... Your friends are covering up their zits while you try to hide your ugly feet.
... You use rosin more than soap.
... You sit in a straddle when on the floor....comfortably.
...You have more Band-Aids on your feet from dance than holes in Swiss cheese!
...People mistake you for a rubber band.
... Your body cracks loud enough to stop class but you don’t hear it.
...Pirouette and fouette are the two main words in your vocabulary.
... Your feet have more blisters than toes.
... You stand turn out in PE classes
... You pointe you toes even during sit-ups.
... You dance down the hallway instead of walk.
... You use empty hallways to practice grand jete.
... You do grande jetes in the parking lot and down the streets.

... You know most barres aren’t in jails.
...”Practice makes perfect” isn’t just a saying, but a way of life.
...All your friends are eating dinner while you are in class.
... You do plies and tendues while waiting in line.
...Watching TV is not a time to relax, it is a time to stretch
... Your parents work two jobs to pay for private lessons.
... You perform calmly before crowds yet suffer anxiety during school tests.
... You are well coordinated in class but trip over your own feet walking
...A new leotard makes you whole day
...Every hard floor is like a place for practicing.
... You know the frog isn’t an animal, but a stretch.
... You use every handrail you see for practicing your fouettes.

... Your dad bought stock in Band-Aid.
... You actually sit up straight in your chair at school.
... You hear classical music and you need to dance.
... You actually DREAM of wearing those heavy, expensive, netting-ridden tutus.
... You don’t dance for a week, and even your brother notices.

...The top shelf in your closet is stuffed with your old and dance shoes.
... Your friends ask you to over split “just for fun!”
... You have an entire drawer devoted to your dance stuff.
... You have washboard abs from those 100 sit-ups before each class.
... You own 25 pairs of shoes...but 20 of them are for dance.
... You have bigger muscles than all the boys in school. (I'm homeschooled, so I only have wimpy brothers)
...Everything you do has to do with dance.
... You promise to never stop dancing... like an energizer bunny that just keeps going.
... Your calves look like softballs because they are so big.

... You suddenly can’t count past 8
... You can learn the dances to music videos like that (snaps fingers).
...You’re disgusted when you see a picture of a dancer with pointe shoe ribbons tied up to her knees.
...You say all kinds of dance terms (in French) in front of your non dancing friends and tell them it’s a secret language. (I could if I wanted to)
...all the things you get for Christmas relate to dance.
...When you spell “point” you always mess up and spell it “pointe”
...When those ballerina Barbies irritate you because they aren’t turned out and can’t bend their arms!
...When you are walking you count your steps, but only go up to 8 and start all over again.
...Before everything you do you say 5,6,7,8

...You laugh at a non-dancer when they say their feet hurt.
...You never leave home with out your hair spray and bobby pins.
...You have fewer toenails than anybody you know.
…You can talk about ballet all day long to people that don't care.
... You stand en pointe in your shoes when talking to friends.

... Your friends say they went shoe shopping and you ask them if they got a hard or medium shank.
... You pointe you toes during pull-ups for gym class.
...When you can't sit still when you hear music.
...You lecture your friends when they draw pictures of ballerinas with pointe shoe ribbons tied up to their knees.
... You bend over to pick up something and your leg shoots up to a 180* angle.
...You don't mind when people tell you your feet stink.
...You get disgusted when you see cheerleaders because they never pointe their toes.

...Glitter is imbedded in you skin for life.
...All the boys at school are afraid of you because you can kick so high. (again, homeschooled, but both the boys in my ballet class are scared of me for that reason)
...Instead of calling rooms "rooms" you call them "studios"
...When you go to get your hair cut you tell them to cut it long enough to be able to put it in a bun.
...You consider tights a fashion accessory.
...At the start of the new school year, the first pictures in your locker are the ones from dance camp
...You miss more school for dance competitions/festivals/performances than your do for being sick
...You can rattle off the name of every pointe shoe brand in the dance store
...When you refer to half time of a football game as "intermission"

...You don't have to paint your toe nails...they are already blue.
...You hair has a permanent line in it from wearing it in a ponytail.
...All your friends make fun of you because you always either stand in B+ or 5th position.

...You dye your hair just because it will look better on stage.
...You don't think it is that weird when a boy wears tights.
...You have memorized every color tights of they sell at the local dancewear store.
...Every song that comes on the radio you know a combo to.
...You noticed every mistake made on any dance movie or TV show.
...You have ever fallen asleep in the splits.
...You have ever said "200 sit-ups no prob."
...Your friends try to tie your feet together because you don't stop moving, EVER!
...You have more pairs of dance shoes than street shoes
...You start stretching whenever sitting on the floor
...You turn conversation to dance without noticing
...The first impression other people have on you is YOU DANCE
...You point your toes when walking

...You can't remember the last time when you weren't sore from dancing
...Everything you do has to do with dance
...When you talk about a friend being your first partner people think your being vulgar.
...You have become attached to your pointe shoes.
...You perform well under stress.
...Your saying is... It doesn’t hurt 'till the bone shows.
...You hear classical music and your muscles start to twitch.
...Classical music comes on and the first word that pops into your head is 'dance'.

... The bell rings at school and you start to clap and then go up and thank your teacher.
... You spot while spinning in the computer chair.

Now, count how many of your reasons are in bold, and that is what percentage of you is a dancer (because there are 100 questions all together)

I am 72% dancer

Now then, if you would like to take the time to do this whole quiz on your blog, you make take this award with you!

Friday, July 23, 2010

Where has posting gone?!?!?!?!

Whoops! It's been about a week and a half since I posted!!! Sorry :(

ANYWAY, Classes have been GREAT! Nothing exciting happened last week, so I'm just going to tell about this week.

The first thing we did this week, was traditional Chinese Dance. IT'S VERY HARD! We are learning a Chinese fan dance, so we have get to dance with pretty fans! In the dance, we are supposed to be pretty maidens going to town! It's a fun (but hard) dance!!! The cool thing about Chinese, is that it's the OPPOSITE of ballet. Walking the chinese dance way is especially hard! You have to walk heel-ball-toe VERY quickly!

This week only, we start earlier, so we eat lunch at the studio! It's fun! We have one boy in our group, and he showed how his Macaroni and Cheese was alive.....He's annoying.....

Then we had CAPPOEIRA!!!! IT WAS TONS OF FUN! We had a great teacher to! We learned a lot about the history of Cappoeira, and we learned a lot about the history, as well as kicks, how to slash with our knees and elbows, some dodges, AND A THROW!!! I can now officially flip my little brother over my hip and have him land in a little heap on the ground when I get angry at him. I also know how to do it gently though, so I can do it to him for fun. At the end of class, we got to battle each other, and the teacher!

We also had Brazilian music. That was fun to! We learned how to play the Berimbau! You can see a video of a guy playing it HERE. You can't see it in the video, but what he's hitting the stick against, is a steel wire. The way he makes different sounds is he holds the rock on and off the wire. He also holds something sort of like a Maraca to add to the music! (OH, and I got to play one of those drums that I said I wanted to play.)

I did end up taking the break dance class! We spent most of class trying to stand on our heads, which I couldn't do... I was really bad at the whole class, but it was fun!

We had ballet class, and another stretching class, which was pretty normal.

HOWEVER, yesterday, we had a class called Jazz choreography. We were divided into two groups, and each group got a different style of Jazz. My group got Lyrical Jazz, and the other group got Musical Theater Jazz. We had to pick music for our dance. And one of the girls in my group had her ipod with her. After we were told our assignment, two girls in my group looked at eachother and said, "WE SHOULD DO A NEED TO BREATHE SONG!!!!!" I was REALLY excited about that!!! I was afraid we would have to do a Justin Bieber song! We ended up doing Lay Em' Down, by Need to Breathe. The other group did Supercalifragileisticexbealidoscious from Mary Poppins! We had about an hour to work together and choreograph a dance. It was hard, but fun! Both my group, and the other group's dances were great!

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

DANCE INTENSIVE- DAY 3

So, today I had Ballet, Deep Stretch, and Repertory.

Ballet was like any other class (but good), and Deep Stretch was also pretty basic but good.

Rep however, was cool, challenging, and fun. Repertory is where you learn REAL choreography. This year, we are learning a piece from a modern ballet called Graph. We watched three pieces from it, and I cannot even BEGIN to tell you about how amazing Graph is!

So we are learning a piece from graph, and there are girl parts and boy parts in it... I'm a BOY! I like the boy part better anyway.... Nobody really knows that you are supposed to be a boy...

What's cool though, is that we are learning the dance the way companies learn choreography... going back and forth referring to a video tape... IT'S HARD!

I can't wait for Rep again on Friday! I have Ballet, Imagery For Dance (NO CLUE what that is), and Joint Care tomorrow...

DANCE INTENSIVE- DAY 2

Dance intensive was AWESOME (again) yesterday! Sorry I didn't do this post yesterday! When I got home from intensive, my mom said "OK, you have an hour and a half to change clothes, brush your hair, and finish your chores, then we need to leave for your brother's swim banquet." So I essentially had no time to post yesterday.

ANYWAY! Modern was good! We did this really fun attitude jump! It feels like you are flying once you get it right!

Comp\Improv was AWESOME! We learned Cradle Lullaby, which is an Isadora Duncan piece. The steps are very easy, but when you do it in different directions, it will fry your brain!

We also got to finish that really cool piece we were working on! I'm gonna borrow some of Monday's post, and add a bit to explain the piece:

The way we put them together, was we started in a huge circle, and we all walked into a clump saying "Who, What, Where, When, Why, How." Then we all said our first word at the same time and did our movement. Next we said our second word while doing the movement. For our third word, we each were given a number, and when she called our number, we said our third word and did our last movement. Then one girl would yell "It's Complicated!" and we would run to little trios, and one after another we would do our first two movements. Next, the intermediate group stood up, and we did part of a combination we learned in Modern class. Then we had to fall on the ground and lay on our side while the advanced group got up and did a combination they learned AROUND US! Finally they got in a clump, we stood up in a clump and joined them, and we all yelled "IT'S COMPLICATED!"

IT WAS SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO COOL! But when we were laying on the ground, and girls were spinning and jumping around us, IT WAS SCARY! The rule was, if they stepped on us, we got to step on them! Thankfully, that didn't happen!

Monday, July 12, 2010

DANCE INTENSIVE- DAY 1

DANCE INTENSIVE WAS SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO AWESOME TODAY!

We had 5 girls in my level, sadly most my friends were in the higher level (hey they are all MULTIPLE years older than me.) Anyway, we had Modern, Composition,  and Improvisation today. Modern was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to easy. None of the other kids in my level have taken modern, and I have had three years. Comp\Improv was A-W-S-O-M-E!!!!!!!!!!

What we did today, was we each had to write about something or an event that made us happy, sad, or angry. Mine was about meeting Jesus. Then we had to circle the three most powerful words in our story (mine were believe, revived, and loved), and come up with a movement for each of them. After that, our teacher helped us put our movements together to make an amazing piece (which we'll finish tomorrow.)

 The way we put them together, was we started in a huge circle, and we all walked into a clump saying "Who, What, Where, When, Why, How." Then we all said our first word at the same time and did our movement. Next we said our second word while doing the movement. For our third word, we each were given a number, and when she called our number, we said our third word and did our last movement.

IT WAS SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO COOL! I can't wait to work on it again tomorrow!

Sunday, July 11, 2010

YAY! Keepin' up the good "work"

WOOHOO! I'm so happy!!!! "Why?" You ask. Because yesterday I got the class confirmation from my dance studio. It also said that I will get to help out with the Monday morning Creative movement class!!!!!

To celebrate, here are three of my favorite (curtain call) creative movement costumes!




















Cute huh? I love looking at Curtain Call Costumes' Website!


P.S. DANCE INTENSIVE STARTS TOMORROW! WOOHOO!!!!

Friday, July 2, 2010

Everything you didn't really want to know about me!

I thought that since I don't usually do tags (which I might start) I would do an old tag, so that you could learn some new stuff about me.

BIOLOGY
Are you right-handed or left-handed? Right

Have you ever had anything removed from your body? Thankfully, No!

What is the last heavy item you lifted? A plastic bin full of blankets

FOOD-OLOGY
What is your salad dressing of choice? Poppy Seed

What is your favorite sit-down restaurant? O Charley's

What food could you eat for 2 weeks straight and not get sick of it? Bread, no body ever said I could ONLY eat that one food.

What are your pizza toppings of choice? Cheese, pepperoni, sausage, and bacon. I LOVE my three meat pizza!

What do you like to put on your toast? Butter and a little bit of cinnamon sugar

RANDOM-OLOGY

If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die? Nothing, I'd find it all out in heaven.

If you could change your name, what would you change it to? If I HAD to, I'd change it to Jasmin.... But I'm perfectly happy to keep the E on the end.

Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1000? TOTALLY! 1 teaspoon every couple hours for a few days isn't that bad.. now is it?

DUMB-OLOGY

How many pairs of flip-flops do you own? Uh... I think 5, but I don't wear flip flops to much cause they are so bad for your knees and ankles.

Last time you had a run-in with the cops? Just the other day in fact! (NOT REALLY!)

Last person you talked to in person? My older brother

Favorite month? October (I LOVE Fall weather)

CURRENT-OLOGY

Mood? Annoyed

What are you listening to? My brother and his friend talking about making a game based on rock paper scissors, only with strategy...LOL!

Watching? Nothing

Worrying about? Nothing in particular right now....

RANDOM-OLOGY
What's the last movie you watched? Ballet Shoes (Surprise Surprise)

Do you smile often? Yes!

Do you always answer your phone? Well, I would say yes, but the phone is ringing right now, and I didn't pick it up.

If you could change your eye color, what would it be? Maybe blue...

What flavor do you add to your drink at Sonic? Cherry Limeade!

Do you own a digital camera? I share one with my little brother...

Have you ever had a pet fish? Yes, LOTS. We have 5 fish in our mini goldfish pond. Mine is a little tiny silver fish named Shikibop (A shikibop is a tap move!)

Favorite Christmas song? Little Drummer Boy (Jars of Clay version to be exact!)

What's on your wish list for your birthday? Uh... Nothing in particular... But I want a webcam for Christmas.

Can you do push-ups? Easily! We do a bunch in modern!

Can you do a chin-up? I don't know... I haven't done those in a really long time.

Do you have any saved texts? Nope, I don't have a cell phone.

Ever been in a car wreck? Nope

Do you have an accent? Nope

What is the last song to make you cry? I don't think a song has ever made me cry.

Plans tonight? Eat dinner, and go to bed. THAT'S THE EXCITING LIFE OF JASMINE!

Have you ever felt like you hit rock bottom? No, not really. I generally have a pretty happy life :o)

Name 2 things you bought yesterday: Um, I didn't go anywhere yesterday...

You ever been given roses? Yah, sometimes I get roses for dance recitals.

Current hate right now? Brothers and there friends

Met someone who changed your life? Yes! Jesus!!!

What were you doing at 12 AM last night? Sleeping...

What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up? I hope I neither of my brothers are on the computer!

TECHNOLOGY
How many televisions are in your house? One, my family doesn't like to watch TV that much.

What color cell phone do you have? I don't have one.

What does the first text message in your inbox say and who sent it? Well, I just told you I don't have a cell phone...

What do you think?

So! How do you like our new design?

HUGE thank you to Gianna for our great blog description!

I'M GOING TO CHANGE THE URL TOMORROW WHEN I WAKE UP! PLEASE REMEMBER THIS!