Finding the Passion: The Dance of a Flower

The passion within dance can be hard to find if you don’t have the spirit. The spirit is the motivation to continue and move forward. This spirit within you plants the seed for your inner passion for dance. This is what happened for me.

My seed was planted a while back. It was something that stayed with me for a long time. When I was a little girl, I would jump around my house and blast music so no matter what inch of the house you were in, you could hear it. This music would pour it’s melody in my arms and legs. The melody moved me. I couldn’t stop making a harmony for my music. This harmony came from my body. This new instrument became a way for me to express what I feel inside whether it be excitement or happiness-at the time. When I was angry, I would dance to get my anger out. I never knew what it meant to truly dance until only a year ago. That is when my flower bloomed.

Last year, I discovered the true meaning behind my harmony. I felt the aches and pains that I had to convey. I felt the expression, the emotion, and the melody. Once I found myself in the music, I was able to do things I didn’t know I could. I remember when I first bloomed with the melody, I couldn’t express a greater passion than I did when my spirit first bloomed. It came to life. I can’t explain how because it happens on its own.

For me, finding the passion took some tears. Some fear. Some sadness. Once I experienced sadness, I was able to understand the words and not just the melody. I was able to connect movements to the words. I was able to connect the feelings to my movement. My body felt what I felt on the inside and that’s how I became a dancer.

Dancing and being a dancer is two very different things. To dance, you have to be able to kick your leg and leap. To dance, you have to be able to count to eight. To dance, you have to be able to listen to music. But this doesn’t matter. To be a dancer, you have to be able to connect with the music. To be a dancer, you have to be able to understand what each number means. To be a dancer, you have to be able to make your body move with the melody. To be a dancer, you have to be able to feel what you are trying to make the audience feel. To be a dancer, you have to be an artist. To dance, you just need to hold a paint brush. You can’t paint with it until you become a dancer.

My journey connected to my core. I understood what it meant to dance. That took some tears, some loss, some heartbreaks, and some soul-searching. But now that I’ve found the meaning, I can get rid of all of that with one dance. The dance of my flower.

Week 1:Tapping the First Step

This week I took time to invest in the basics of tap. I went to my dance studio Wednesday after school and Saturday morning to take time to learn some tap steps. I made sure to save time out of my schedule and plan exactly what I wanted to learn. I developed a week plan:

Plan:

Monday: Learn shuffle and flap and master these on both sides (left and right)

Tuesday: Watch the videos to familiarize myself with the concepts of the moves I want to learn

Wednesday: Meet with a dance peer after school to learn the steps I watched from the videos

Thursday-Friday: Practice these steps

Saturday: Get feedback from dance peers on how to improve, and get tips

I started with the real basics: shuffle and flap. Shuffle is a simple move that is just a brush of the toe front then back. A flap is a brush that stays out and doesn’t come back to meet the other foot. I felt learning the basics of tap was very important even though I already knew the idea of them. To master anything, you have to start from the beginning. If you don’t you may get ahead of yourself which can end up hurting your progress later.

Once I mastered these, I could move on to the more difficult steps: front irish, buffalo, and shirley temple. To fulfill my goal, I knew I needed more than a simple shuffle. I needed some body to my essay. This way I could reach my ultimate goal of making a purpose to my movement and conveying a message to my audience.

To continue the experience. I moved to toe stands and turns. This took more effort and more time to learn as a whole. I spent the most time mastering this because it was more difficult and turns are something I enjoy doing when it comes to dance. Turning is a breeze of free spirit and new air- or so it seems. Turning in tap shoes is much different than in half-shoes or ballet shoes. It is more slippery so you can turn more and turn faster. This is not only more freeing and fun but needs more control so it becomes a very difficult step in tap.

This is the process I made this week:

Tap Dance Dictionary:

Brush: swing foot forward (front or diagonally side) hitting only the ball tap

Spank: swing the foot back (coming from the front or diagonally side) hitting only the ball tap

Shuffle: brush spank

Flap: brush step

Front Irish: shuffle hop step

Buffalo: (cross foot in front) step shuffle step

Shirley Temple: flap heel heel spank heel toe heel

Toe Stand: "jump" up to the tip of your toes and balance on them

Next week, I plan on learning more intricate steps. I want to move on from the basics because I feel like I have learned them quickly and I can fasten my learning pace. To do this I am going to stick with the same plan I did before but this time on that Tuesday I am going to try to learn them from the video tutorials before I get help on Wednesday.  

These links helped me learn steps at home. I was able to get a piece of wood from my father so I could practice even when there is carpet in a room. Learning these steps was rather easy for me, but you may find getting the rhythm a bit of a challenge. I advise to try the basics on your own until you get the hang of them and if needed, get help from a teacher or friend.

How To:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxCz-LtGMhs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe3dZmkaq0Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow6JGBdYO_4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5kQprtc2y0

Terminology:

http://www.tapdancedictionary.com/tapdancedictionarytop100.html#S

Comments:
Toni(red)
Christy(red)
Lizzy(red)

Week 0: Planning To Tap My Way To The Top

Before this project was assigned I knew exactly what it was. In 8th grade, I watched all of my freshman friends doing their project and one in particular was sign language. I have a passion when it comes to language and it is something that I want to pursue when I am able to choose my own career. I felt that learning sign language would be a new experience from the other ways I have learned languages (English and German), through speaking. Unfortunately for me, I found that many people were doing sign language and I wanted my project to be unique so I moved on to plan B.

     

My plan B is expanding my kinetic skills in the form of dance. I have taken every style of dance including more unique one’s such as african and salsa. I have taken all kinds except tap, which is the style I am pursuing for this project. Dance is something that I have been passionate about for a while now. I feel that tap will increase my passion and make me love dance even more than I already do. Although it is not something I want to make a career out of, it is something that has made me who I am today so why not try a new groove and a new style to “step” into.

To learn this new style, I plan on watching youtube videos to learn some basic steps along with more intermediate steps such as a toe stand turn. I will embed these moves in my brain and then later practice them on the dance floor at my studio on Saturday mornings. I will measure my progress by making a checklist of all the steps I want to learn and when I am able to do the step, I will check it off. After I master these steps, I plan on choreographing a dance to convey some kind of message. This way, I am able to find myself in a new style and embrace this new form of expression. I am very motivated to complete my goal because I want to have experience in every style and be able to find more enjoyment by tapping. Tap will allow me to improve my kinetic and dance skills so I am more advanced and it will increase my level in my dance career.