Every night she trained after dance practice without anyone knowing it. The gymnast told her mom they rescheduled their dance hours and the habibs thought she was just cleaning up after them. She became in better shape every time. It was actually happening! Ariana was back!
My mom, aunts, grandma, and my cousins all knew how to dance. The reason why dancing is a big deal in my family is that traditional Indian dancing ties in with our religion, Hinduism and the culture. Every dance move and sometimes even the song represents or means something. Being the only girl out of two siblings, my mom thought it was a
Hairspray, hair brushes, bobby pins, lay on the bathroom counter like a pile of rubble. In the life of a dancer, this was very common. As I mentioned before, this day was very much normal. Except the fact that today, I, a 14 year old girl, would try out for a legendary dance team, a try out that would either make or break my life. I have loved dance ever since I was little, and as my coach said, I’d evolved into “an elite and capable dancer.” I trained in our gym 3 hours a day, 6 times a week.
Since a young age, my mother has told me that the world is mine. That I can be whatever I want to be, and the only thing stopping my is myself. This support led me into many learning experiences and many directions in my life. For example, my younger self saw myself as a professional ballerina. I took ballet for six years.
My Sport The sport that I participate in is modern/contemporary dance at SCAD (Sarah Cookney Academy of Dance) in Fish Hoek. I dance every Tuesday and Thursday from 5:45 – 6:30. I have danced with Sarah from grade 5 to grade 8 and then again in grade 11 and 12. I feel that it’s probably the best form of exercise as it doesn’t feel like you are exercising and yet you are working on almost every muscle in your body. I feel that dancing has improved my fitness levels as in the beginning of the year I would run of stamina and get out of breath very easily but as we danced more and got into a dance that was very fast, my body slowly got fitter and I was not always out of breath after the dance.
I remember how much I loved to dance. My mother repeatedly throughout the years told me the story of how I used to dance in front of a mirror singing into a microphone, which was actually a hair brush. Moreover, this thought years later brings me to a time at school.
My hands were shaking, and so were my ankles. I had competed at a national taekwondo competition with no fear, and a high school dance team tryout was scaring me. The coach called me to the gym with one other girl. We had to do kicks, leaps, and turns for the technique part. I managed to do okay, because I could have soaring kicks, with years of my previous taekwondo training.
She started skating when she was around four years old. She was born in Fremont, California on Aug 16, 1999. One example of Karen Chen’s skating excellence is that even by the seventh grade, she was being homeschooled, in order for her to dedicate more of her time to figure skating. When she went to public school, Karen would have to wake up at four in the morning, go to the skating rink, rush back and then travel to school in a few hours. In an interview, Chen was recorded as saying that her biggest competition was herself.
“The Cave," a modern, lyrical dance filled with beautiful lighting, astonishing choreography, and amazing movement was directed by Estee Carrizosa and performed on December 6, 2017, in the Artist theater by students in dance 2, 3, and company. Iris Swell, the choreographer of “The Cave,” is a company dancer in the Laguna Beach High School Dance Program. Swell created the dance to the song The Cave by Mumford & Sons and was inspired to create this dance from her grandma and her sisters’ individuality. She used lighting, music, energy, movement, and costumes to create a dance that portrays support, individuality, uniqueness, freedom, and nature. The lighting created an image to the audience's eyes that made it seem like the dancers were in a forest or somewhere in nature.
My elder sister was involved in a lot of school performance when I was at the age of 4 to 6 so I would always watch her practice and I often picked up some moves from her because to me it was the most beautiful form of art I have ever seen. At that age, I already knew that dancing or even simply moving my body to any kind of music makes me instantly happier. The best part of dancing is it allows you to express yourself and learning the choreography makes expressing it a little more structured and refined. I decided to join the dance team and our choreographer was one of our teachers in school who passed down the moves from the days when she was a young performer like us. She would always remind us to dance like we are performing for the King, that although our body is dancing to the fast beat, our hands should stay graceful yet strong.