Back to the grind

So today, for the first time since I have been working at High Point University, I arrived 15 minutes late to my class. I am usually 15 minutes early! I just couldn't seem to get a move on this morning...

However, class still went well. I have an interesting mix of students in my two dance classes, since the classes are open to anyone who wants to take them. I have complete beginners, I have intermediate students, and a hand full of experienced dancers. Today we go through our set contemporary warm-up, to which I have been adding exercises one by one since the first class. The dancers seem to be getting more comfortable with the technical concepts I am presenting, and I expect they will make great progress through out the term, should they continue to stay engaged with their learning processes. We then review some phrase work I have created for them, to which we will continue to add material, until we have a short large group piece for their final, which will be an informal showing. Last, the students show their choreographic assignments, which they have worked on during my absence in NYC. In small groups, the students created seed material for short works they will show during their final. I was pleasantly surprised to see a vast variety of approaches and explorations. I left a little scared last week, thinking that by the blank look on many of their faces, they would be lost for how to begin their phrase work.

On Thursday, I will not be late!

After teaching my classes, I went to a planning meeting for the Storyline Project one year anniversary event. The Storyline Project is an oral history project based in Winston Salem. It is a localized version of the Story Corps, as there is a spiffy bus that houses a portable recording studio, that parks around the city and collects interviews and stories from local residence to be played on the radio. I became involved with the Storyline Project through the making of my dance work, Words Apart, which features stories collected by storyline volunteers. Since I began the piece, I have become involved with the growth of the Storyline Project, in attending and assisting with events and planning for this anniversary event. Though the event was originally supposed to be a "festival," we have decided that a larger event is out of our scope for the moment, being less than a year old. Instead, we will move forward with a "birthday party!" It will be a fun, humble event for a fun, humble organization. We are switching to a smaller venue, and we are pairing down the days activities, which included workshops and many artists, to only an evening event that will include less people. I will be showing my dance piece, and the documentary that grew out of the process of making the dance piece.

The film, called, Art For The Living, and follows Jan, an artist, who lost her husband to cancer four years ago as she creates a sculpture in his essence, as part of her grieving process. I find Jan to be a graceful human being, with wisdom to share about the cycle of life and the purpose and meaning of life while one is on this earth. During the shooting of this film, I came to learn a lot about Jan, and I continue to be intrigued by her, and her art work. I hope we are friends for many years to come. I have learned so much from her! We are currently in post production, and we are so close to having our first rough cut! Until next time...

~Cara