dance up a storm. / Tuesday, 20 September 2011 @ 09:22
A new week in Theater after a long weekend as Friday was a public holiday. Ms Chan announced that we would be doing a lot of dance this week and I couldn't be more excited. I am usually quite open to dancing as it has always been my favourite form of expression.

First we spread across the room and Ms Chan told us to practice some techniques with bending our knees. Our back had to be straight and knees slightly bent. This keeps us very grounded and when she pushed us, we would be able to hold still. Then we moved on to stomping our feet. It wasn't really stomping, more like slapping the floor with our feet with quick movement. At first I couldn't seem to get it right. It felt wrong in all the places and the soles of my feet began to hurt. I later learnt that this only meant that my nerves were all activated which is why they hurt a bit.

Later we went in diagonal lines across the room, stomping our feet and pretending to be holding bamboo sticks. It was okay at first, but when Ms Chan told us to go in a circle, that was when the hard work showed. We had to do it for a full song of Kat De Luna's Run The Show. My thighs began to ache like crazy, and Ms Chan commented that I was hopping for a moment. I worked on getting it right and used the 10 count breathing techniques that Ms Chan taught us. It was a really good exercise and I was sweating a lot.

Then was a another exercise which I can't remember the name. We were told to stand in two lines across each other. Then Ms Chan demonstrated a style of walking. We had to put our two feet in front of one another and take really slow steps. It was as if we were slowing peeling our feet of the ground and moving forward. It was hard to master for me at first, but I felt that I got the hang of it. Again, I used the breathing methods that Ms Chan taught us and although I was wobbly in the beginning, after a few rounds I became very grounded and I think I did pretty well.

Ms Chan added another element, which was using hand gestures as we turned when walking across the room. It was supposed to be slow and we could do any gesture we wanted. I felt as if we were in a martial arts era especially with the really nice music. As I turned I felt the hand postures came naturally to me and it was actually quite comfortable. Another thing Ms Chan stressed on was teamwork. We had to make sure that the whole group was in line, and no one was to be too fast or too slow. Hence we also had to look in the corner of our eyes at our partners in crime. It was very meditative and I enjoyed it very much. We also recited a few lines of Life's Brief Candle.

In the end, it was really about keeping ourselves grounded and breathing properly. Excited to see what else is in store :)

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