Julio Beltran
May 8, 2013
Ann Gavit
Self-Evaluation
While taking ballet 223 I learned a lot about my body and the technicality behind dancing. I also learned about how even though you can do it the right way it does not mean that it will come every single time without thought or effort because that is the nature of ballet. In addition to learning about my body I learned to go with the flow and just dance to the music.
In the class we focused on how the human body works naturally and how you need to fight those natural tendencies and the working parts of the body to do ballet. I learned an abundance of analogies and exercises to help me find and remember where my turn out comes from, the correct way to articulate my feet when on and off the ground, and the mechanics of a turn. These analogies help me take a different approach to dancing physically and mentally and even in my everyday life like walking or exercising.
In the semester I would receive corrections and immediately I would fix them but I found myself receiving the same correction a week or two later. Especially when it came to posture I found that I had to constantly think about it and if I was not then I was not doing it properly. Even though ballet may never come naturally to me I have come to appreciate it.
In the beginning of the semester I thought it was difficult to remember the sequence of the combinations and exercises we would do. Later on in the semester I discovered that if I just think about me dancing I would do the combination correctly. Although I would make mistakes in a combination I noticed that if I focused on the dancing part and not the sequence of events then I would actually be dancing and I plan to use this in different dance classes and performances and just dance rather than thinking about what came after what and for how long.
Ballet although it is not my favorite type of dance I learned a lot about how my body works and how my body is supposed to work. I...