A workshop with IRIE Dance Theatre - Dance Saturday
Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post,
A couple of weeks ago on Tuesday, I took an urban dance class at my school from a few of the members of the IRIE Dance Theatre and it was a lot of fun. If you've been following my dance blog posts recently, you would know that I haven't really been doing a lot of practical dance sessions at school. This was because my teachers decided to prioritise the IB Dance Investigation, our coursework, instead of our practical sessions which was quite inconvenient. As a result, I've been itching to get moving again and when I heard about this workshop, I jumped at the chance of going. IRIE Dance Theatre is a dance school based in London that offers courses at degree level in African, Caribbean, contemporary, and urban dance styles. It's incredibly diverse and looks really interesting but for me personally, I just went to the workshop for a bit of fun and I really enjoyed myself overall. There were quite a few people there as there were students from the sixth form and members of the local youth dance company, Cambridge Youth Dance Company, there as well. We began the class with some technique, trying to get our bodies moving rhythmically to the music. Then we tried transferring this technique into some choreography which I found challenging to do at first but once my body got in the flow of the music, I began to feel a little bit more at ease as the class went by. I did have to dance with the teacher and one of the students as I didn't have a partner, and I found this quite intimidating at first but they were really lovely to work with and I enjoyed performing alongside them. At one point in the choreography, we had to do this complicated arm sequence that kind of felt like patting your head and rubbing your tummy. You had to be really synchronised and co-ordinated whilst performing it and everyone struggled but it was great to see everyone giving it their best shot. For the last part of the class, we had a big jam where we went into the middle of the studio to perform the routine in front of everyone. The arm sequence was the part that threw most people off, including me, but it was nice to see people stepping out of their comfort zone and performing the routine with confidence. It had been a while since I had taken a proper hip-hop dance class but it was refreshing to be able to dance again, especially after not taking a proper class for so long. Thank you to those at IRIE Dance Theatre for being so amazing to work with. It was a pleasure to learn from your experience!
Comments
Post a Comment
Thanks for leaving your comments! I really enjoy reading your positive and constructive messages. They really make my day! 💜