This week’s In-Depth meeting started out the same as all our other meetings, with a brief warm-up and workout to get our muscles ready to dance. Afterwards, Kailey checked our ‘homework’ by having us show her what songs and dance moves we came up with for our final dance. I presented a song that I found called ‘Finale’ by AJR, and both Gyu Min and Kailey thought it would be a good choice for our final routine. I wanted to include body rolls and chest pops into the dance, and Gyu Min wanted to include footwork. After listening to the song over a few times, Kailey got an idea for what she wanted to do in terms of choreography, and we began forming the first few bars of dance for our final routine. The song sounds a little like old-fashioned theatre at the beginning, so the theme we are going for is 20s or 30s style, with a modern hip-hop twist. The process took a while, and we only got a small portion of the song done, but we perfected what we learned and promised to practice over the break.

So far,  the most difficult problems we have come across have been communicating outside of our In-Depth meetings, since we all have our own schedules and it can be hard to meet up more than once a week. Dancing is also a very physical learning process, and it can be hard to teach a two-person routine through words or not in person. However, the process is moving along smoothly in terms of making decisions and following instructions. Our dance routine is starting out well and we are practicing independently to make sure we can move forward at a good pace. Kailey is doing a good job checking in and making sure we are ok with how the process is going. Something we could do better is put out more suggestions for Kailey and take control of the routine ourselves, and even coming up with some choreography ourselves instead of having her teach us a whole routine. In our next meeting, I will make a list of suggestions we could add to our dance.

 

Here is a video of our routine so far:

Dance Routine

This week’s In-Depth meeting with Kailey and Gyu min was very successful. We began the meeting with Kailey leading us through a quick 5-minute warm-up which included cardio, repetitive dance moves, stretches, and other movements to a quick music beat. Once we were all warmed up, we reviewed the basic dance moves we had learned in our last two sessions. We practiced the kick-step-back, the step-together, and the newest move we learned, the step-together-arm movement. We worked on that move a little longer, perfecting the arm movements and chest pops which we were having trouble with. She constantly reminded us to extend our arms to the fullest and to focus on every part of our body, so no movement was limp or half-way. She also told us to connect our movements so that on each beat we hit, the rest of our body naturally moves the way we want it to. I learned that hip-hop is a lot about hitting the beats in the music, and the movements often come naturally if you let yourself feel the beat. Something that went really well during our session was that there was a lot of improvement in our dancing after only two practices, and we could easily take Kailey’s advice and apply it to ourselves. The three of us communicate very well with each other, and we ask a lot of questions to clear up any confusion. Dance and movement can be hard to explain, and not being able to exactly describe a technique is a big obstacle in learning dance. However, Kailey does a very good job using analogies and examples to help us improve, and we always clarify with her when we are confused. After practicing, we were running out of time, so Kailey told us for homework that we had to collect a few songs we would be interested in dancing to and come up with a few dance moves of our own to add to our final dance. Originally, I had planned to learn an already existing dance. However, Kailey seems confident that we are able to choreograph our own dance with the skills we have already learned from her so far. I am skeptical on how that will turn out, and I’ve expressed my concerns to her, but we’ve come to a compromise that we will try making our own dance to a song of our choice, borrowing moves from already existing dances and of course with the assistance of our mentor. Next week we are bringing our songs and moves to the table and will be beginning to discuss and assemble a rough version of our final dance.

Video of our third meeting: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NybQboxfC4eVntO8-QKqur22UQVtyBzW/view?usp=sharing

Our second meeting with our mentor, Kailey, was very productive and went smoothly. Kailey frequently attends hip-hop dance classes outside of school. She describes her classes there as physically straining, but also a lot of fun. I have a feeling this is what our sessions will be like as we meet with her more. We started out talking to her a little more about the history and background of hip-hop, and she made it clear that there are many sub-genres of hip-hop and it is a very umbrella-like term. The genre she would be teaching us is House because it is the most basic hip-hop dance and the closest to what we described to her as our ideal style. She gave us a few pointers to keep in mind, such as how hip-hop is about hitting the beat and staying controlled while keeping loose and flowing movement throughout the body. After that, she showed us a few warm-ups that she does in her dance class, and really made us sweat by having us repeat her. These warm-ups were everything from sit-to-stand ups, pushing legs up, and yoga. Once we were all warmed up, she delved right into teaching us our first dance move. This move doesn’t have an exact name, but we called it the kick-in back-in since that’s all your legs are doing. It took us a while to really get the gist of it, but once we broke it down and practiced a few times we were ready to move on. We also learned a step-together step slide move, which also describes the movement of the feet. I found it interesting how my partner Gyu min and I have very different ways of learning the moves. For me, adding impulsive arm movements help me to get in the swing of the move, but for him, the arm movements made it more difficult. Though we are starting on very different levels, I am confident that we will be able to groove together by the end of the project. By starting with teaching us the very basics of dance, Kailey is evening out the field and making sure we are fully prepared to move forward before jumping into the final projects. If I were to mentor someone I would make sure they have a solid foundation before diving into the final product. For our next meeting, I am hoping to learn a few new basic moves, and maybe even start learning some small routines.

For my In-Depth project this year, I will be learning how to Hip-Hop dance. My goal for the end of this project is to perform a 90-second hip-hop dance routine. I want to learn certain strategies and techniques require to train my body and become a successful dancer.

Dance has always been something I’m interested in. I love expressing myself through movements and creative interpretation, and moving my body in sync with musical beats is something I find very stress-relieving and fun. However, I’ve never had the time or motivation to take dance classes. Being part of Musical Theatre means I get to learn and practice singing, acting, and dancing, but learning the hip-hop on its own requires a whole other dedication.

Thankfully, I will be able to be coached one-on-one with my mentor, Kailey Huang. Kailey has been practicing dance for 10 years and is the dance captain in Gleneagle’s Musical Theatre program. She takes frequent dance classes and knows a lot about the art of hip-hop dancing. Our first meeting took place in the Gleneagle MPR stage from 6:00 pm to 6:30 pm. Gyu min and I met with Kailey and asked her questions about hip-hop dance and what she could teach us to improve, and we captured it on video to use as a reference. She started by stating that hip-hop was different than other dances like Ballet and Tap because it is less about skill and more about interpretation and practice. We were told that she wouldn’t be able to teach us too much about the dance itself, but more about skills we would need to warm up for the type of dance we would be doing. She would also be teaching us some basic moves and techniques that hip-hop dances typically use, different styles that fall under the umbrella of hip-hop, and what to look for when creating a dance. She also gave us a few tips to start with, such as hip-hop dances usually use moves to hit the background beats that are off of the main rhythm, to emphasize the smaller parts and bring them out in the sound. After our interview, Kailey said we can start preparing by looking up short hip-hop dance routines and observing what beats they hit their moves on and also to start thinking about what song we would like our final dance to be with. Next week we will begin to learn some warm-ups and small snippets of dance routines for practice.

Some videos I watched for research:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLsqawB5vQs&list=LLcTJVcXxYTXlq4_P7Rl0kWw&index=7&t=0s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9bo9KQROLg&list=LLcTJVcXxYTXlq4_P7Rl0kWw&index=8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QC7iMA2CoQk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6hSLZkI7GY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkhK2XJLJis