I started dancing in sixth grade in primary school and soon fell in love with it. I found dancing a way to express my emotions and thoughts in an artistic way. Being enthusiastic about dancing, I soon found and joined a Wesleyan dancing group right after I entered college and performed in the Winter Dance Concert last semester.
Before college, I danced ballet and contemporary dance frequently, but I was assigned to an abstract dance group last fall. I literally knew nothing about this type of dance! In my first rehearsal, I was extremely nervous. And after knowing my teammates were either dance majors or professional dancers, I became more nervous. I was so afraid that I would do the wrong movements in our performance.
I felt nervous also because our project leader said in the first rehearsal that dancers in this project were encouraged to create movements by themselves. Through my past dance training, I was only allowed to memorize the movements taught by my teachers and had no experience with inventing new stuff. The project leader asked us to individually create a 40-second short dance that described our emotions on rainy days. I found these assignments interesting but hard. Therefore, I thought this dancing experience was really a big challenge for me.
To be a good dancer and a good community member, I spent a lot of my free time working on this dance show. I also watched many abstract dance shows on YouTube to get myself more familiar with this genre of dancing quickly. I would also spend some time every week talking to the project leader about my ideas about the performance. In the end, I was more confident when I was dancing abstract dance and was excited about our final dance showcase.
In our final abstract dance performance, there was no background and we used only our bodies to create different sounds and rhythms. This performance aimed to explore our bodies rather than telling a story or showing skills we’ve learned. This was an unforgettable experience for me as I not only learned a new type of dancing but also challenged myself to switch my role from a dance learner to a creator.
