Story time: And still no dancing! 🤦♀️ - Dance Saturday
Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post,
Recently, in my dance lessons at school, we've been focusing a lot on theory so we've spent about a month now in classrooms and in computer rooms, trying to complete our IB Dance Investigation. At the beginning of 2021, when I was still in year 12, my teachers had decided to dedicate the period of online learning to researching, planning, and writing the first couple of paragraphs for the IB Dance Investigation. With me being the completely work-obsessed individual that I am, I thought that I needed to complete the first half of the work straight away, and so I immediately got down to doing it. Just before the summer holidays we had more lessons dedicated for our coursework and during the summer holidays, we were expected to have completed a large portion of our coursework so that we didn't have so much to do from September onwards. Again, with me being the unhealthily work-obsessed individual that I am, I got on with that work and I completed what we were expected to do. When I returned to IB dance classes after the summer holidays, I wasn't expecting to do any formal class work on the IB Dance Investigation because I thought that it would be something that we would all be responsible enough to work on by ourselves at home. However, it's now October and I have completed the month of coursework and I have just been told that there will not be any practical dance lessons until after October half-term. Yes, I am generally a work-obsessed individual who likes to be organised and get things done on time because it just gives me the space to get on and do other equally important things. However, there comes a time when a month of work and no practical at all, becomes a little bit excessive. Truth be told, in an average sixth form environment, you would just be expected to do work, especially when you've had months to prepare for it.
I don't wish to sound rude, but it kind of annoys me that practical sessions for IB dance are being sidelined for the sake of paperwork. I genuinely enjoy theory lessons in dance as I am able to fully understand the mechanics of dance and how each style was created. However, when it comes to completing set tasks in theory, I generally prefer to get my head down and work until its done. During the May mock examinations, I was forced to stop after school dance classes because there was simply not enough time in my day to complete everything that I had to do. I thought that my dance teachers would be gracious enough to continue with practical sessions as I found that they really did help me to improve but now they've not been happening at all, which means that I haven't been getting any dancing in. I'm thankful that I'm now teaching dance classes online as part of my fundraising for Tanzania and I'm doing dance at Project 21, but the shear lack of dance at school I think is going to generally hinder my performance for the practical examination.
When I discovered in September that practical dance sessions at school would be cancelled for a month to give time for coursework, I thought that there might just be a chance for me to dance in the masterclasses. The dance masterclasses that were held by my school's performing arts department, were supposed to be a chance for some of the hardworking students to learn some of the tricks of the trade from students at London Contemporary Dance School. We had a meeting about the masterclasses before they began, in which the teachers explicitly said that they will choose students based on work ethic over ability, to join the dance masterclasses. I thought that since I tried to remain organised with my IB Dance Investigation throughout the year and I havs always tried my best in classes, the teachers would acknowledge this and consider me for the list. However, I was very disappointed to discover that my name was not on the piece of paper the following day.
I understand that dance is competitive and a hard to get into industry but to me, my teacher's decisions didn't make sense. I know that I am not the best dancer at my school and I could quite easily name 10 other dancers who are better than me. Nevertheless, the selection for the masterclasses was not based on ability, it was based on work ethic and I know that I try to put in the effort for every lesson. And that's not me being arrogant, that's just me understanding my worth and knowing what I've put into my craft. I hate to make accusations of favouritism but when a selection seems this biased, its hard to turn to another possible explanation. To me, the masterclasses should have been made available to everyone at the school because everyone deserves a chance to succeed, especially at my school where they are preachers of acceptance and inclusivity.
To say I'm annoyed would be an understatement. I understand that not dancing for a month and not being selected for a masterclass is not the worst thing that could happen to a person. Truly I understand that. However, what I'm more frustrated about is my teachers ignorance and hypocrisy. Ignorance because they have not acknowledged people's efforts, mine and some of my other classmates and hypocrisy because this ignorance is not what my school stands for.
What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments below and I'll be sure to reply to them. I ♡ hearing from you!
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See you next time,
Bye,
XOX, Juliette
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