Skills Audit

 Ballet Level 5

Strengths: In ballet my strengths are my Allegro Warm up, as I go through my feel especially on the Assemble, this helps me to jump higher.

Areas of Development: I need to hold my turn out in my Plie, this means I need to turn out from my hips and hold it.

Strategy: I can improve my turn out my strengthening my hips. One way of strengthening my hips is to go to the gym and use the hip abductor machine, this will strengthening my hips and I can do two different excises on the machine.

Ballet Inter foundation

Strengths: I am good at Adage as in my Port de bra I pull my shoulder blades down and have rounded arms.

Areas of Development: On my Battement Tendu I need to get more elevation when I swish my leg of the floor.

Strategy: I will achieve this by going through my feet and creating more floor pressure.

Bronze Jazz

Strengths: I have a good circular spring as it starts from the back and I get lower into it. I do this by bending my knees as my circles around.

Areas of Development: On the warm up, I should remember to roll down through my spine.

Strategy: I will do this by starting with my head and going down each vertebrae one by one. I can also imagine this happening in my back.

Jazz Technique

Strength: I got low into my Plie by bending my knees in 2nd and having a wide turn out from my hips.

Areas of Development: I need to get more elevation on my step ball change with straight legs.

Strategy: To get more height I will go through my feet and jump higher as well as bring my arms up with impetus.

Contemporary

Strength: On my split leap I got height and had straight legs and feet.

Areas of Development: I need to sustain my rise on one foot to be able to go into the nest move.

Strategy: I can do this by extending the back leg which I am standing on and tightening my core.

 

Gymnastics

Strength: I can forward walkover and backward walkover with straight legs.

Areas of Development: I need to jump into my back flick and snap down to be able to get over easier.

Strategy: I need to practice on the air track to be able to get more bounce and bend my knees to jump.

Modern

Strength: I am a good Performa, and have a good sense of rhythm when dancing.

Areas of Development: I need to improve my posture to be able to be aligned and look nicer when dancing.

Strategy: I need to lift up through my core, pull my shoulders back and straighten my back out.

 

Tap

Strength: I have light and shade when tapping, as I know when to make my taps louder and quiet.

Areas of Development: I need to improve my pick up to get more height and a cleaner sound.

Strategy: I should put more weight on to the balls of my feet to be able to pick up and get more height.

What makes a good Dancer

Being a good dancer isn’t easy to be, as it is made up of lots of areas, the first is dance styles. In dance you need to be versatile. This means not just perform one style of dance, but commit to different styles. Even if you don’t particularly enjoy that style it may help you get work in the future and improve you technique on other styles. For example you might not enjoy ballet as much as Jazz, but you may get offered a ballet job, so being versatile helps you get more work and have more opportunities. Also, the extra ballet will improve your overall technique.

                            

 

You need to be a committed dancer in and outside the stage/studio, as you have to be thinking about diet, nutrition and hydration. You should think about what foods give you energy to be able to do a 3 hour rehearsal, for example a bagel has a lot of fibre in it to give you energy. As well as limiting yourself to how much chocolate you have and not be eating it all the time. Instead of chocolate, dancers should try and eat fruit, oatcakes, cereal bars and dried fruit. Drinking water will also help you stay hydrated to be able to sweat while dancing to cool you down. It is suggested that at least 50% of a dancer's energy should come from carbohydrates, around 15% from protein and about 30% from fat. How much energy you need depends on your size, age and activity.

 

Dancers should take into account how to safely practice warm up and cool down. If you know you can’t do a certain move like the splits, you shouldn’t jump down into them, you should use your common sense and work on making them better (having warmed up first, as that will make your muscles easier to stretch). Dancers always need to warm up to increase their breathing and heart rate. By doing a warm up it will increase blood flow to the muscles, which enhances the delivery of oxygen and nutrients. This warms your muscles, and you will be able to attempt harder dance moves. When warming up, you need to start off at an easy level then get gradually harder. If you were to start exercising at a strenuous level without a warm-up, your body would be not be prepared for the high demands being made of it, which may cause injury. Cooling down after exercise means slowing down your level of activity gradually. Overall it helps your heart rate and breathing return to normal. Cooling down helps you avoid fainting or dizziness, which can result from your blood staying in the large muscles in the legs when vigorous activity is stopped suddenly. It also helps to remove waste products from your muscles, such as lactic acid, which can build up during vigorous activity.

 

Challenging yourself is something dancers have to do all the time. Dancers will need determination to improve strength and to carry on going when it gets hard. For example, they should work on improving their core by doing crutches, improve their quads by doing a pile in second and holding it, and press ups to improve biceps and triceps. Dancers need to be physically fit and have strong muscles to sustain movements and hold posture and correct position when dancing. You also need strength to be able to support your own weight and a partner’s during lifts.

  

 

Dancers need to have good flexibility to increase the range of movement to perform. Even if you are not flexible you should be able to use your facility to the full of your potential. Some ways of improving flexibility are simply just to stretch and limber. You could do this by sitting in splits or doing bridges to improve back flexibility. Thera bands are a good way to improve strength and flexibility in feet and you can use them in a number of other ways to help increase the stretch. For example, laying on the Thera band and pulling the band from behind your head while doing crutches as it will increase your core strength and give your head a rest so you can crunch with the correct position.

 

 

Performance skills are vital to get any performing jobs. Like being on stage or doing flash mobs. You need to transmit emotion through your eyes, and change your mood to the style of dancing and the song. For example if it was an upbeat song, you would smile and project happiness to your audience. Or if it was an emotional lyrical you would project emotional through your eyes and not have a big smile on your face. You need high levels or energy to make the audience want to watch you. Dancers should already have enthusiasm and love what there are doing to make it interesting; they should have the same amount of energy even if there is only one person watching.

To be a great dancer you have to want to work hard and be the best that you can be. This means being motivated to go to lessons or rehearsals, and working hard. Even if you’re not dancing you should keep your fitness levels up just by doing other activities like running, or going out for a fast walk. You need to have high levels of fitness to be able to keep going through a routine, and not to fall short half way through.

 

All those skills are important as well as dancers needing to continuously re-assess themselves in order to become better. Dancing is also about watching other dancers, to either find new moves or to help you improve yourself by seeing what other people are good/bad at and thinking if you can improve on that yourself. You can also see why they are good/bad at that particular move, which you then can use to help your own dancing. Also, dancers should keep practising regularly to maintain skills and add new ones. Lastly, dancers need to have realistic expectations of their bodies and get a good night sleep to be able to progress.

 

History of me as a dancer

 From as young as I can remember, I have been dancing. I started dancing when I was two after a nagging my mum for ages about going to lessons.



 

 

When I was four I had a 2 year break and started at Pointers Dance Studio when I was six. Ever since then I have been dancing nonstop. I attended ballet, contemporary, modern, jazz and tap classes at Pointers. I competed in a number of festivals and won numerous 1^st, 2nds, and 3rds in the following dance competitions: Wallington, Epsom, Croydon, Beckenham, Sussex, Swale, and East Grinstead.

 

 

I learnt how to perform at Pointers as we also did a show every year at The Secombe Theatre in Sutton. I also auditioned for “Seussical The Musical” at Fairfield Halls, in Croydon and was lucky enough to be chosen.

 

Me with a few members of the cast from “Seussical The Musical”

Here are some photos of the five pointers shows I did, where I was danced in too many group dances to count and a few duets and solos.

I also performed in the "Young Performers Dance Show" at The Shaftsbury Theatre in the West End in London. Also, when I was only in year 4 I choreographed and danced in our school production of the Selfish Giant at Highview Primary.

 

After 5 years at Pointers I decided to leave when I was eleven to move on to "Grayes school of Dance" to focus on technique. Also, as I want to be a great dancer, it is vital for me to take exams if I wanted to have a career in dance. I have taken 4 dance exams in level 3&4 ballet, and grade 4&5 modern,where I received one merit and three distinctions. Over the three years I have been at "Grayes" I have been studying Ballet, Modern, tap, and Jazz.

 

Before I successfully earned a place at the Brit school, I attended Carshalton Girls and performed a solo in all three of there annual dance shows. As well as "Ignite" where I performed a tap number as part of a group.

I also performed in "Big Dance 2012" and we was taught by a dancer of the English National Ballet and got to visit their studio in London for rehearsal before performing at Kensington Palace.

 

 

 

I also won spotlight with my friend Mali where we performed a duet, myself doing ballet and Mali doing street dance.

 

 At "Grayes" I performed in their dance show called "Do You Want To Dance? "at The Epsom Playhouse. I also performed "Godspell" the musical at The Charles Cryer Theatre, in Carshalton with Grayes Musical theatre company and more recently "Cats".

 

 

 

I am now in Ballet level 5, Modern Grade 6, Tap Grade 4, Jazz level 4, and intermediate Ballet where I will be going on pointe. I am also attending Bronze Jazz as extra curriculum at The BRIT School.

 

 

 

 

 

I will continue to work hard in lessons and perform to the best of my ability.