Last classes!! :(

This week were the last belly dance classes for this season. They were full of a lot of different emotions:
Sadness, because maybe some of the people in our group won't be able to join the classes next season and we've gotten really close. We're also the biggest group they've had at Mystika Studio.
Anxiety, because they were the last classes to practice before our performance on Friday. We practiced the dance through so many times, dancing in many different directions. We also practiced with costumes, and even though it seemed impossible at first, by the end of Wednesday's class I pretty much had the hang of it. I quickly learned what to do when I accidentally stepped on my skirt. I'm really really nervous for the performance. I can already feel the butterflies slowly coming in.
Happiness, because I've had such a great time with our amazing group this year. Joining belly dance was a great decision, and I'm proud of myself! I can't wait to join the intermediate classes next year! Yay!

At the end of Wednesday's class we also did a little bit of improv. It was funny, because at first the whole group did our choreography to the slower music. However, after that our teacher told us that we actually have to improvise. It was fun, but I feel like after another year of belly dance I'm really going to be a lot more confident.

To end our classes for this season, we had a big group hug at the end of class. We'll still see each other on Friday, but the atmosphere is going to be really different there and everyone is going to be in a hurry, etc.

Oh, actually one thing that we learned this week was about how a belly dancer should act. Our teacher talked to us about how from the moment we arrive at the performance place, we need to be thinking about our posture, the way we greet people, our behaviour and everything else. We need to act professional, feminine and friendly. Dance is about so much more than it seems.. :)

Belly dance costumes!

Belly dance this week has been really busy and the classes have been really fast! Also, the temperature is quite warm so we get a lot hotter and more tired.
On Monday we practiced the choreo. A lot. Our teacher finally put us into the right positions, even though some people are still missing. We actually started with a warm up, which included many of our moves for the performance. Then we moved onto the dance. We just ran through it so so so many times, and the teacher just kept correcting our mistakes and making us better. The pressure and anxiety is really starting to increase now. I guess that is kind of good, because this is just another way I can practice coping with stress. This is also a different kind of stress from the school stress that I'm already used to.
On Wednesday, our costumes arrived!! Yay!! We spent about 40 minutes of the class just trying to match up the skirts and the top parts, since they didn't have sizes or labels. Once everyone had a whole outfit together, our teacher showed us what we needed to do so that they would fit and stay closed well. Then, we also practiced our dance. We left the skirts on, so that we could start practicing with them right away. We can't practice with the top parts until they have hooks on them to stay closed. Dancing with the skirt was sooo hard! It's like a whole different dance. We are, or I am, going to need a lot practice, and I can't believe that we only have two more classes before the performance!! 

Belly dance Belly dance

I've had three belly dance lessons in the past two weeks, and my teacher has actually been there for only one of those three. It's a little bit worrying, because our performance is in two weeks. Luckily, she is back from her trip now, and we will have her with us for our classes until then (hopefully).

The lesson that we had with her was actually two weeks ago, but it was a very useful class. She started to make the set up for our choreography, so that everyone was pretty much in the place they would be for the dance. We also re-did the end and practiced the end pose. I was actually quite happy to realise that I've pretty much got the dance down.

Last Monday we had a substitute teacher, and we had a combined class with the tribal fusion dancers. The class was pretty random and we kind of just did a bunch of random stuff. It was cool though, because we got to learn about how tribal fusion differs from belly dance. In the end, the two groups danced for each other, because we both need practice for the performance!

On Wednesday, we had a very very random class and it did not really have much to do with belly dance. The things we did were more like the stretches you do before and after gym class at school. We did some muscle work outs, which was nice, I guess…

Actually, in the end with practiced our routine without looking into the mirror, and it turned out a lot better than I expected it to! 

Student Council and Belly dance

I forgot to write about student council last week. We had a pretty quick meeting, and not many people showed up - probably because 12th graders have their exams this week. We discussed a few small things about the school, but nothing big. Some member told us about their visit to the G5 café, and we discussed some things in relation to that. I actually really enjoy student council meetings, because we are all quite familiar with each other now and it's fun thinking up ways to make school better for everyone.

Now, for our belly dance lesson today.. I thought it was absolutely fantastic!! Well, first of all, my teacher said she had a bit of a fever - so, I was surprised that she even bothered to come at all and I'm really happy she did. She spent most of the class sitting on the floor, telling us what to do, but she did get up a few times to show us parts of the choreography. Amazing teacher! Anyways, we spent the whole class working on choreo today, which was really great. She had us dance it over and over, stopping us to correct us or change some parts. We also divided up some of the moves today, so that only half of the group does one move, and then the other half does another move. I think the dance looks even more awesome now!! :D We also worked on the ending pose, which is a lot harder than you'd think! 

CAS, oops!

I've been forgetting to keep up with my CAS blog lately, so I'm just going to have to sum up the most recent events in one post..

For the past few weeks in belly dance, we've been preparing for our performance, which is at the end of May. Actually, we haven't been preparing too much, or surprisingly little considering how soon the end of May is. We do practice the choreo at least a few times every class, but I feel like we haven't been concentrating on the choreo only. Our teacher said that we will start doing that soon though, and I hope she isn't kidding. I should really really practice at home too (not that I have the time or space for that). We also had a make up tutorial one class, where our teacher showed us what kind of make up we can do for the performance and how to do it. That was pretty interesting, and I quite enjoyed learning how to do performance make up, and to see how it differs from other kinds.

I've had a few tutoring lessons with Shelby, but as she's doing a topic that I haven't studied it has been a bit complicated. I hope that soon we'll move on to something else that I can help her with.

We had our CAS and TOK project with our Finnish partner school this weekend. We took part in the 'Let's Do It' activity, that takes place on every 1st Saturday of May. This year's theme was to clean up sports facilities, which is what we did. We went to a stadium in the city; it actually looked nothing like a stadium. It was just a big grassy field with a small overgrown area with pavement, and it had a lot of trash. So we all got trash bags and cleaning tools and went to pick up the trash. Some of the stuff we found was really nasty, for example we found syringes and old clothes. However, it was nice, because once we were done cleaning you could really see a difference between how it was before and how it is now. I wish that we could also actually fix the field, like mow the grass and make the pavement smooth, etc, so that it would be safer for the kids who have their sports classes there.