What I Remember Most..

What I remember most is how each of the dancers used breathe in her movements just as Michael had done in his.

This past Friday I went to see the residency performance I posted about on Friday. It was a combination of improvisations by members of DTG and some excerpts from pieces that Michael is working on.  The dancers began with a "hustle-like" phrase, which involved breathe and even some spoken word.

Michael then moved onto some of his own work, again including the spoken-word.  After he performed, the DTG dancers took to the stage to do improv followed by a section where they went to the audience to ask for different tasks they'd like to see performed.  My friends and I told the girl who came over to us we wanted to see her make pancakes, chocolate chip to be specific.  When they started dancing again, we saw our pancakes made! I was very impressed that we could give her a task and within minutes she thought of a way to make a dance out of it.  During their different dance phrases, each dancer walked over to the microphones and told us what they remembered most about Michael's performance. Again, this was completely improved since they were watching his performance for the first time, just as we were.

The residency was such a great performance.  I wish I could have participated, but with night class I wasn't able to attend all of the rehearsals. Bummer. I hope some of you were able to see the performance as well! What do you remember most?

Just breathe...

Breathe in and out...and in and out...

We did a lot of breathing last night in class with our guest teacher, Michael Jahoda. And let me just say...it was wonderful! Michael was a former mentor for DTG and has since moved to Amsterdam. He's back at BU for the week, though, doing a residency for us dancers.

Now, I'm sure I've got everyone confused. I have yet to explain how our classes work or what the heck a residency is. Every Thursday (minus the Thursdays when we have showings) we hold a class in a different dance style.  In the past we've had Irish, Bhangra, Salsa, jazz, break-dance...you name it, we've had it. So this week Michael joined to teach a wonderful modern class. Still with me?

O.K. on to the residency.  Each fall we host a professional dancer and choreographer and he/she works with the dancers for one week of intense rehearsals.  At the end of the week, there is a performance of the work created that week that is free and open to everyone!

I'm glad we've gotten all of that boring information stuff out of the way. So since you're all DTG experts by now, I expect to see all of you tonight at the residency performance! I mean, c'mon it is free after all.  See you at the Dance Theatre (entrance on Buick St) from 8-9 p.m.!

And the verdict is...

My dance made it through to the third showing!! **applause, cheers, sigh of relief**

BUT I, unfortunately and fortunately, was one of the dances they thought about cutting.  Now I'm sure you all can figure out why that is unfortunate, but fortunate? You must think I'm crazy.  It was fortunate because my dance wasn't great and I needed a push in the right direction.  Luckily the mentors gave me that push by almost cutting me.  I re-structured the ENTIRE dance, showed it to one of the mentors and thankfully got much better feedback.

Now all I have to do is finish said piece in two more rehearsals. Yikes! The pressure is on! But that's O.K. because I tend to work better under pressure (or at least that's what I'm telling myself).

Thankfully, no showing tomorrow night. Phew! Instead, we are having an amazing modern class with our former mentor Michael Jahoda who is at BU doing a residency. Now what is a residency you may or may not be thinking? Well, too bad you'll have to wait to find out!

Keep dancing!!

First post?

So here it goes, my first ever blog post! I can tell you are as excited as I am. Of course I'm kidding. I'm actually very excited to be writing all about my experiences in Dance Theatre Group (aka DTG) at Boston University. Considering I spend about 10-14 hours choreographing and dancing each week, dance is what my week revolves around.  I'm constantly thinking about what time I have rehearsal, where, how long and what choreography I have to remember for what piece. It can get stressful at times, what with class being the reason I go to BU and all, but I love it, so it's worth the stress.

So, instead of just laying out everything about DTG in the very first post, I figured I'd give it to you piece-by-piece. Since this week is our second showing, I think I'll explain those first.  Every semester we perform a concert; it's called Origins in the fall and Visions in the spring. Throughout the semester choreographers have to show their pieces to our wonderful faculty-mentors between three and four times.  Basically the dancers and choreographers show up to the Dance Theatre, perform the piece and get feedback from the mentors.  They learn what works and what doesn't.  Sounds simple, right? Wrong. Since we only have time for a 2-hour concert, some pieces need to be cut from the show simply because of our time restrictions.  That leads me to this Thursday, the second showing, aka the first time they cut pieces. I'm not too worried for my piece, I mean I don't want to sound cocky, but I think I've built a solid foundation. But I am in four other pieces and no one is immune. Again, not to sound cocky, but I think all of the pieces I'm in are developing nicely and will hopefully make it through the second showing. Nothing will be decided until this Thursday so I guess I'll have to keep you in suspense until then.

Don't worry though! I'm sure I'll think of something thrilling to talk about before then. So keep checking back for more posts and if you have any ideas for anything dance-related you'd like to see on here let me know!  Like I said, it's my first time blogging and I'm always up for suggestions.