My Personal Aesthetic Of Dance

Two years into the competitive dance world I felt like a machine.I wanted to have my own style,and to be an artist so I left my home-studio and became an independent dancer.Being an independent dancer gave me the opportunity to find my style and who I actually am.While I was finding my own style, simultaneously my personality shifted from close-minded and analytical to optimistic,quirky and outgoing.I found myself hanging out with my friends more,and trying new things, crafting in particular.Exploring the different realms of dance showed me who I genuinely

There are many different “worlds” on this planet we live on called Earth. Everyone alive lives in some kind of little “world” of their own. There is the celebrity world, the “Disney” World, “Wally-world”, lots of different sports worlds, scholastic worlds, and so many others. There is a particular world that some live in, and that is the World of Dance. When you are a part of that world, you literally live and breathe it. Every aspect of the dance culture is wrapped up in that world. To those looking in from the outside it is beautiful, filled with lights, lovely costumes, mesmerizing music, and graceful movements.

Dance is one of the major things that defines my identity and it is an interest that had become so meaningful, that without it my application would be incomplete. This has been able to shape me throughout the years, from discipline and maturity all the way yo leadership and teamwork. I find dance as an art work, that it is easy to make mistakes and fall, you just have to learn from those mistakes and get up twice as strong as from where you started. Dance is to look above and beyond and just let everything fall into place without hesitation.

My whole life has been of dirty mirrors, old ballet shoes, and ripped tights. I was 5 years old and a beginner at a dance academy. I didn’t quite know what dance was when I got in, I thought it was just a place to spend time in and just enjoy the music they played. Over the years I learned that dance is way more than just a hobby or a place to go when you are bored. It is art, you are the one making art. Your feelings are the story to your dance, and your moves are the music. People will see your pain or happiness through these ways. Dance is not just a hobby, it’s an art, it’s something that you don’t actually have to throw music at when the steps and feelings you add are the music to your dance.

My mother once told me I was born to dance. Ballet, jazz, and hip hop nourished me from the time I was three years old. Whether helping my parents clean or walking in the grocery store, my feet sashayed beneath me to an unknown rhythm. Some of my earliest memories occur in a small studio in a converted barn, where I spent hours at the barre. Unlike performance schools depicted on reality television, my dance studio required less excessive makeup and more polished black leotards and pink tights (we did, however, have a fair share of screaming stage moms).

I was born in a seaside city where people enjoy the first ray of sunlight of a day. Running and playing on the beach is my favorite routine of my childhood life, and all my friends said that I was good at “dancing.” Frankly, I did not know what dancing was at that moment, but every time I moved my body that made me satisfied to see how it could move and make all those beautiful curves. Noticed that, my parents sent me to an after-school dance class to study when I was five, and I kept studying for seven years during which I got to be more attracted to this form of movements. In 2005, when I was twelve, I started my professional dance study in a local technical secondary school. Then，I realize that “dancing” could be my future and my life.

Dance is one of the most beautiful, expressive forms of art known to mankind. It expresses joy, love, sorrow, anger, and the list truly goes on for all the possible emotions that it can convey. Dance not only can express how one feels, but it can tell a story or even be used to praise a higher power. Dance has intricately played an important role to every culture over the course of time. Two forms of dance that have not only stood against the test of time but have influenced the development of other various styles of dance is none other than Classical Ballet and Modern Dance.

Throughout all forms of art there are several ways to portray a message to an audience, whether it be through a painting about the meat industry or a song about an unjust legal system, expression can take on many different forms. No matter what the message or motivations of the piece, it is up to the artist how they want it portrayed. Dance is no exception to this rule, in today's world dance is one of the most popular ways to spread a message. From flash mobs to protest art dance is one of the most visible forms of expression people recognize today and these pieces of art are always evolving and changing to fit the wants and needs of the artist.

Dance perspectives has been an enlightening experience for me as a young, growing human and dancer. Listening to professors and guests tell their stories of how they've come to be at this time helped me see how raw and human these idols to me are. It’s so interesting to me how people will be so scared and idolize someone due to their social status and resume , but not see that they started off similar to them, that they are human as well. The only difference between the successful and ones who believe they aren’t, is that the ones many look up to have made a conscious effort to find true self and know their own energy.

Throughout my life I have never really been interested in the dance until last year where I started to accept it. why? Why do we put ourselves through the physical stress to call ourselves dancers? Why do we love it so? I simply found those answers when I started dancing as I saw the potential it gave, showed the importance of teamwork, and the courage it taught.

It’s always good to learn different types and different ways of dancing but at the end we always end up dancing however we want. Most of the time we reflect how we feel. for example, if we are angry we tend to dance more aggressively or with a fast/ angry type of music. If we are happy we tend to dance with more excitement and with happy music, and if we are sad or feeling emotional we tend to dance to sad music and more sensitive. I know I do this a lot and it’s not something I think about, it just usually happens. Dancing is who I am and it helps me reflects how I feel. Isadora Duncan dance very beautiful and I am sure that most of her dancing reflect her feelings. Her love life wasn’t settled and while I was reading how her love stories ended made me think that could have influenced her dancing. That is just a thought that crossed into my head and made me think how her emotional life could of have been. Dancing was her whole, maybe it was the only way she was able to release stress. The advantage she had is that she was a great dancer and she was able to move like no other. Another thing that stood up to me was that regardless of how much she grew with her artistic life she never left her family

Any artist would agree with me in saying that experiencing art is of value to, and almost necessary to achieve, a well cultured life. This research should give a non-dancer a great idea of why dancers love what they do.

The quote, “Dancing with the feet is one thing, but dancing with the heart is another,” has a lots of meaning to me. It shows that you need to focus more of what your heart is telling you while dancing, oppose to focusing more on the choreography. Some dancers never learn this and end up giving up on dancing. Others, connect to it right off the bat. I was one of those people.

In one my classes; Dance Appreciation, I had an assignment to view a dance piece on YouTube. The dance that I viewed was called “She without arm, he without leg, Hand in Hand”. The dance was not only informative, but it was enlightening to watch.

I attended DancePlus show On Friday December 2, 2011 at 7:30pm at night. It was performed in the Victoria K. Mastrobounno Theater in New Brunswick, New Jersey. There were four different parts that I saw that day. All of the dances were very interesting and very different from each other. All of the dances had its own unique key factor that separated it from each other. I enjoyed the entire show very well. Out of all the dances I had strong reaction to “Lapa’s Lament”. I believe this specific dance stood out to me compared to the other dances from the show. This show had many different factors that stood out from other shows in the entire performance.