Reflection on Dancing:

I had taken a three month course of learning and improving my different types of dance skills. By the end of the course I had learned a couple of dance forms such as Contemporary, Jazz, Salsa, Bollywood, hip-hop, Lyrical. When we were learning hip-hop and lyrical, that was the time that I enjoyed the most, also I use to find myself giving so much effort, while learning, that my cloths used to get drenched in sweat. I use to go 5-6 days/week right after my school use to get over. Due to this there were times when I was too tired to do dancing, although by the time the class was about to end, I would have gained so much energy and would have rejuvenate so much that I would want to do more.

At the end of three months course coincidently we had a dance carnival (something they did every year at this time of year), where we were going to perform. For that, we had been preparing from about a month before final recital. We were doing contemporary and had to perform in front of an audience due to which we had to bring our dancing to a whole new level and had to practise hard. Me being one of the non-dancers in our batch, there were step that were too difficult for me to do; and even though, my body use to ache due to unusual movement of body and tight schedule, I overcame the problem and was able to do the steps correctly; although it took me about a week or two to do so.

As the days passed, I started to realize the efforts everyone was putting in, just to make this carnival the perfect one, and for the same we (as students and performers) had to begin being on time. It was difficult, as I had to make it really quick with eating my food and getting ready (which is a challenge for all women existing on this planet), but I use to try my best. The most challenging thing was my exams and the show. The show was in between the days of my examinations and because of it I had to really be punctual and not waste any on my precious time. There were times when we had to meet up with all the batches and practise on the stage, on those days I really had to take my books with me just so that I don’t miss any of it.

On the day of the carnival, I could see all the people so excited to do their best and enjoy, off course. As the performances were getting over and ours was getting near I could really feel my heart beating a second faster. Our performance was one of the most praised ones (after all we all disserved it, come on! We had worked hard for days).

Because of this activity, I had started to make new friends and I also use to enjoy my time spent in the evening after so much of work out; another way for me to sweat while enjoying and keeping my not so fit body, fit. All though, I had joined the dance classes for completing my CAS requirements, I enjoyed my classes so much that I continued for more. Over all, after so much sweat and work out and fun and dancing and making new friends, I enjoyed being part of this amazing experience.

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Reflection on volunteering in Kalakriti:

It was an inter-school Arts competition, which included drama, dance, music and visual arts as different areas where people could participate. Our school was the host of the event and hence had asked me to do anchoring. I had volunteered to help as an anchor, but also ended up in helping with registrations. I had an option to do anchoring at many different places, but as I loved to see different dances and always use to end up being there, I decided to anchor at the place where dancing competition was held. I had to work with one of my friends, and so that I get equal opportunity to do anchoring, we decided to split our work.

When we had reached the venue, I got to know that we were having troubles with registrations because of which we had to wait before we get the dancing competition started. So instead of just waiting around, I decided to end the process of waiting by providing my help. Due to my help one of our teachers got free and was able to do the rest to start the competition. I had missed a few dances because of this and also parts of my anchoring work (which I feel sad about) but it was one of the interesting jobs and later I felt happy that I came to good use, which fulfilled my intentions, to come and help here, properly.

The worst about this event was that I had to wake up at 6 in the morning to be on time and had to speak and help continuously for about 8 hours without stop, due to which I ended up having a sore throat and drinking warm water for the next few days. It was kind of a tiresome work, but I learned about registration processes a bit.

I had an experience of anchoring in the public once before and hence I thought it would be similar, adding fillers, entertaining audience and so on; but to my satisfaction I got to know that my part of job included just speaking out the names to audience about who is coming next and see to it the judges know that too. After knowing this piece of information, I felt good that I had gone up to helping in with registrations. I enjoyed my time being there, I got to see many dance, and be with people. Overall it was a good experience.Picture1

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