Just because our season at The Joyce wrapped a couple of weeks ago, it doesn’t mean Ballet Hispanico has slowed down at all! Our School of Dance students are very busy preparing for their End of Year Recital at the beginning of June, and BH Company members have graciously lent a hand. For the past few weeks, our dancers have been visiting classrooms to help our students perform their very best!
Recently, Lauren Alzamora visited Ms. Kiri’s Spanish Class. This is what she had to say about her experience:
“I asked to see the girls run their dance for the recital. This was outside of their normal routine, as it was in the first half hour of class, before practicing the piece in sections. I was pretty pleased with the run, but since there is always room for improvement, I asked each girl to tell me a spot where they messed up or could have done better. Every girl was aware of at least one or two self-corrections, and as suspected there were some commonalities. We had the girls time on their own to practice their individual self corrections.
I narrowed it down to three areas of focus and we worked on the clarity of steps and positions in those three sections. Next time I visit we will work those three corrections at the beginning and run the footwork section before running the dance. We will see what they held on to!
I love how every one of the girls demonstrated self awareness – it gives the teacher the opportunity to reinforce the virtue of self-responsibility. We are teaching them how to use their self-awareness toward a better end result (by practicing their self corrections).
I realize it is important to give them clear goals to strive for in each section. And since they don’t come to class every day, reinforce what we spoke about each time – the power of repetition! Looking forward to next week!”
We’ll have more stories in the weeks leading up to the recital. Thank you to our students, teachers, and Company dancers!
