DNCE 1000 Dance Performance Review Paper PDF

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Alexa Thompson Intro to Dance: Dance Concert Review – Jessica’s Dance Academy Spring Recital 9/26/16 On May 21st, 2016, I attended a dance recital for Jessica’s Dance Academy at Croatan High School in Newport, North Carolina. The dance recital started at eleven in the morning and finished around one-thirty in the afternoon. I attended this event because I am a gymnastics coach and two of my former students asked me to attend their dance recital. The two girls are sisters, Emily (eleven) and Julia (seven). The dance recital involved many different dance styles and acts by people of all ages. The youngest dancers were about four, and the oldest dancers were adults ranging to about thirty or so. The dance styles performed at this recital were ballet, jazz, hip-hop, contemporary, and modern. Emily and Julia performed in many different numbers, but my favorites were Emily’s contemporary solo performance and Julia’s jazz solo performance. For Emily’s contemporary solo performance, she danced to a song called “Dust Me Off” by Tilly and The Wall. For this performance, she wore a pink leotard with a skirt and no shoes. From viewing this performance, contemporary dance involves acrobatic skills, dance motions/moves from many other genres, and emotion. Before the dance recital, I would do one-on-one lessons with Emily at my work and help her with the acrobatic skills in her routine and critique other things that I saw that were not perfect. Her acrobatic skills included side Ariels, a Tinsica, a Valdez, one-handed front walkovers, and back walkovers. We worked on perfecting these skills for weeks before her performance. Once it was time for her big moment, she nailed her acro skills! She made use of the whole stage, and she was very interesting to watch. While watching her performance, I could feel the emotion that she was conveying from

the number and I could also feel her emotions of happiness when she nailed her skills. As one of her coaches, I could not help but tear up at her performance. Knowing how much time and hard work that goes into a two-and-a-half-minute performance makes you appreciate it in a whole different form. Without a doubt, this was one of the most memorable dance performances that I have seen. Julia’s jazz solo performance is another memorable moment from this dance recital. She danced to “Uptown Funk” by Bruno Mars. She wore a big multi-colored tutu, with sneakers, leg warmers, and rainbow colored everything. It was like she was re-creating a scene from the 80’s. During her performance, she was very energetic and smiling throughout the entire thing. She also did a couple acrobatic skills in her jazz number. Some of these skills include a back walkover and a cartwheel. For this performance, she mostly stayed towards the front of the stage. She would also do leaps and turns during her performance. When I was watching this routine, I could see elements that reminded of the 80’s, as well as dance moves that were modern. In other words, old jazz meets modern jazz. It was very interesting and entertaining to watch. She moved about the front of the stage beautifully and gracefully. As her gymnastics coach, I was very proud of her. She worked very hard with me in order to put that back walkover in her dance performance. When her performance was over, I was very emotional. Like I said before, when you know the meaning and value of the dance that is being performed, it means so much more to you as the viewer. Without a doubt, Jessica’s Dance Academy Spring Recital is definitely my most memorable dance performance experience. Sitting in the audience is so much different when you know a few of the performers and the hard work and time that they have put in to the

performance. I value this experience very much and I know that Emily and Julia do, too. I was very satisfied knowing that I helped them execute their acrobatic skills in their performances and I know that they were very happy with how they did. To conclude, by attending this recital, I now value and see dance in a variety of different ways. I am always evaluating and critiquing my work as a gymnastics coach to incorporate as many dance elements as I can into my lessons, while keeping the gymnastics aspects at the same time....