THE BENEFITS OF PERFORMING

Jade - Kirsten & Julie Anne

Having had time to think about all that has taken place in the last two months that we have been performing I have made some interesting observations.

From the dancers perspective the benefits are more obvious.  There are certain skills that one can never acquire in the classroom or during rehearsals no matter how good the training. Performers need to feel the audience,  to learn how to deal with different types of audiences and their reactions. Being able to cope with the unexpected, make split second decisions when working in a group and something  goes wrong and  handling nerves when facing the audience is of critical importance. By performing repeatedly over a period one is able to improve on the work and listen to critism and advice on what people watching see.  

After this season we had a number of people reporting back from the audience, from fellow dancers as well as the technical staff  and it was very helpful and interesting.  Having the production filmed also helps as one can look at the work from yet another perspective.  

We will shortly be uploading snippets onto youtube.

During this run there were a number of our young dancers in the audience whose attitude to their classwork seemed to much more focussed and determined after watching the show.  Many told me they wanted to dance like Ruby or Amethyst and more important they seemed determined to work hard in the class and do their work in order to achieve this aim. I have seen this before but this time it seemed much more defined and as yet have not worked out why this should be the case.  Am only so pleased that it has happened and will definitely build on that.

Now the teenagers have to become human again and have their hormones reach an acceptable level and the future looks rosy indeed.