Bennett 1 Margaret Ann Bennett ENGL 1102 Essay III, Draft III March 11, 2011 Dance Tiny Dancer What makes a good hobby? Hobbies should be fun, upbeat, and affordable for most everyone. My hobby started only three years after I was born. My hobby is the fun but challenging life of dance. Right after I learned to walk, I began to dance around the house all the time. Of course, being this little, I made up my own ways to dance. My mother put me in dance classes, because she knew this hobby was for me. She signed me up for tap, ballet, and jazz classes. The first dance studio that my mom put me in, when I was three, was Dance Arts. I was lucky enough to perform in a classic play, The Nutcracker. The Nutcracker was presented by people of the studio Dance Arts. Dancing was and is a hobby that I always will love. Dance is defined, by William Morris in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, as to move rhythmically usually to music using prescribed or improvised steps(morris 334). This is only one of the ways to define dance. It is way more than this simple description and is almost hard even to put into words the definition of dance. Dance is my passionate hobby.it is a hobby, because it is not competitive, even though it can be in other ways but not the dance I was taking. This hobby is active and available for anyone to try,
Bennett 2 perform, and enjoy. Dance is a category of art that can be old or modernized. From my knowledge, dance is worldwide, streaming through every country in some form or another. Pointing My Toes Everyone can dance in some way so it is easy to get started with this hobby. My mother simply picked the dance studio in our community that she thought was right for me. Dance Arts studio was the beginning I needed in order to start my own relationship with dance. I was the first and only girl my parents had, so of course, my mother took the responsibility of my dancing over my father. My mother talked to the owner of the studio and soon began paying the monthly payments. That was all it took to start. The owner put me in a dance class that next week. Each dance class is comprised of people in the same age group. This way, most everyone is on the same level of dance, but being just a toddler, levels did not matter much. None of us three year olds actually danced in unison anyway. We ended up playing dance games during the entire class. From my experience, every class started out by stretching so we would not pull any muscles. From my own experience, not stretching could be dangerous and it is also part of gradually getting flexible that will lead to becoming better at dancing. Our class then would go to the bars along the classroom walls, which were full of mirrors, to do our usual routine of dance positions. We would then do Pliés [plee-ays], which is to bend the knees in order to better a dancer s balance. There are Grand Pliés and Demi-Pliés, each done at the bar in five different positions. These five positions are based on the positions of the dancer s feet. Grand Plié is to bend the knees until the thighs are completely horizontal, whiledemi-pliés are only bending the knees halfway but keeping the heels of the feet on the ground. Each one of these
Bennett 3 exercises helpsimprove complicated dance movements.in Dance Teacher magazine, Jenny Dalzell states that doing these exercises properly is not only beneficial for the dancer, but also correct application of these techniques is important for the dancer s safety (Dalzell 30-32). Another safe way to start a warm-up is the hamstring stretch, according to the author of the article Mindful Moderation. Hannah Marie Hayes goes on to say that this exercise does not need to be quick. It should take three or four counts to go down and back up to the original stance. She recommends three sets of ten before class begins (Hayes 48). I did these warm-ups regularly for the positive benefits towards my safety and performance. These warm-ups are more important than people think. Ancient Dancer The point at which people started dancing cannot be identified in history. Dance is an art from that has been around for as long as people can remember; it is hard to define the actual start of dance. According to Gayle Kassing, author of The History of Dance: An Interactive Arts Approach, dance came about before the ability of people to speak. People of ancient times would use physical movements to communicate, even in a couple of ways that we do today. For example, when people go out for a good time, they usually migrate to the dance floor where they show affection by dancing with the opposite sex. When we look back at the history of dance, not many people can say definitively where dance originated from or when it actually became a part of the human culture. Ancient history does tell us, however, that dance was an important part of ceremonies, rituals, celebrations, and entertainment since before the birth of the earliest human civilizations (Kassing 11). Tribal dances were popular long before dances to music were even thought of, according to The
Bennett 4 International Encyclopedia of Dance. Indians and Africans performed tribal dances often as part of their cultural rituals and gatherings of their tribes (International Encyclopedia of Dance 84). Archeology delivers traces of dance from prehistoric times such as Egyptian tomb paintings depicting dancing figures from around 3300 BC according to Gerald Jonas, author of Dancing: The Pleasure, Power, and Art of Movement. One of the earliest dance forms, Jonas continues, may have been in the performance and in the telling of myths. Dance was also sometimes used to show feelings for the opposite sex. There are even some who would venture to believe that the actual "art" of lovemaking is a form of dance. Prior to the production of written languages, dance often was used as the primary method for passing stories on from generation to generation.(jonas 87-90) High Maintenance Dancer?Not at all. Dance, just like any other hobby, does cost money, but it is affordable. Dance Arts was a little more expensive than my second dance studio, Gerlock. I transferred over to Gerlock in fourth grade. Dance was about one hundredtwenty dollars per month altogether, not including costumes. This included a tap, jazz, and ballet class. When I was in middle school, I also started a hip hop class along with the other three which added about forty more dollars, but I loved this class too.not only were there monthly payments, but also we had to pay costume payments. We had a different costume and different props for each dance. Costumes were where most of the expense was, because no costume was cheap. Dance classes start at the beginning of August. Classes always seemed to start one week before school every year. My jazz, tap, and ballet class was one day a week for two hours. Our actual performance was always the third week in April. This gave us plenty of time to learn
Bennett 5 impressive moves, perfecting every movement to the fullest. Closer to recital time, our teacher would schedule more class gatherings to perfect the unison of the class altogether. When I added hip hop to my classes, I had to go one extra day every week just for that class. This was a class all on its own. Hip hop usually went on for about an hour once a week. This class also added a little more cost to the money that Mom and Dad were already paying, and another costume had to be purchased in order to perform in the recital. Passionate Dancer When I was about eight years old, my mother told methat I had to choose between gymnastics and dance. This choice was easy for me. I always was scared as a child to flip over a bar.i was not the gymnastic type of little girl. I did not like walking across the beams or walking on my hands. Even though I had great balance and control, I only loved dance. Gymnastics was one thing that I knew was not for me but Mom wanted me to try it anyway. Mom did influence me, however, withher and Dad s love for music. Music is what started and stirred up my passion to dance. Since both my mother and father were interested in music, I had no choice but to love it, too. They played music for me as a baby to fall asleep. I had a CD player in my room ever since I was that young age. I loved books that sang or any television show with some kind of music or singing. I was always in the mood to dance to any type of music even Dad s humming or whistling. Music is where the rhythm is, and that was where it all began. Passionate Dancer I have been practicing dance for as long as I can remember. It probably has been around fifteen years, or ever since I was about three years old. I have learned a lot through my years of
Bennett 6 dancing. I dance for myself and not for anyone else. It is something that I look forward to doing. It is something that keeps my mind off of anything else. Dance puts me in a different world, a world that has no worries and turns everything bad away only to bring me joy and passion. Dance has provided me with wonderful friends who also share my love for dance in ways that other people do not understand. At the end of each school year, in April, I perform for my family and friends on stage. I do not win anything; I do it for me. I do it to share what I love so much with the people who I love. Performing on stage is unlike anything else I have done. My adrenaline starts roaring, and I get the feeling of butterflies in my stomach before setting foot on the stage and almost feeling fear. When I do finally get on stage, the feeling of fear goes away, and my confidence in dance shines. One of my favorite performances was my ballet dance at the end of my senior year of high school. I remember this dance vividly. I wore a glittering baby blue leotard with a flowing, sheer, sparkling skirt. The music complimented this costume so well, clearing showing every movement that I made across the stage. This dance was my favorite not only because of the beautiful costume but because it was my solo dance. I had never danced alone on stage before. The feeling was so thrilling and stirred my adrenaline more than it ever had before. Before I set foot on stage my heart was racing and my hands were sweating. I was nervous but more than that, I was excited. The auditorium was completely dark as I enter to take position in the middle of the stage. The stage lights began to fade on slowly, as did the music. The lights stayed dim to set the peaceful mood of this elegant dance I was performing. I was dancing to the Twilight theme song, which had no words but still was so perfect and beautiful. I had been learning this dance for a while and knew it well but as I was on stage the song took me over. I started making
Bennett 7 my dance even more personal by changing the original moves I had learned, to the moves I was feeling at that very moment. I ended my performance strong with a leap and a spin in the air. I landed it perfect and bowed with a proud smile. The feeling of this accomplishment and sound of the applause was more than words can explain. This was my magical performance! Happily Ever After Dancer I always will love to dance. It is something that will follow me through life. The concepts of dance and ways to dance indeed will change, but a dance is a dance. My wedding and other celebrations will involve the joy of dancing. Dancing has allowed me to get more out of music than most people ever will experience. Dancing is my lifetime hobby; it takes a great deal of hard work and dedication in order to be successful. Nothing ever will replace the way that dancing made me feel after many weeks of hard work in the dance studio, and then to conclude with a dance recital in front of all of my friends and loved ones made all the many hours and sweat I put into the recital worth it! Dance does not have to stop once high school is over; one can then become an instructor of dance. This will allow someone who danced all of their life to be able to share their knowledge on the subjectand help influence young kids about the many different beneficial parts of dance.
Bennett 8 Works Cited Dalzell, Jenny. How I Teach Jazz. Dance Teacher. January 2010: 30-32. Print. Dance Perspectives Foundation, Inc. International Encyclopedia of Dance.1st ed. 1995. Print. Hayes, Hannah Marie. Mindful Moderation. Dance Teacher. February 2011: 48. Print. Jonas, Gerald. Dancing: The Pleasure, Power, and Art of Movement.Belleville: Windblown Media, 1997. Print. Kassing, Gayle. The History of Dance: An Interactive Art Approach. Chicago:W. W. Norton andcompany, 1988. Print. Morris, William. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. Maynard: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1976. Print.