The Awakening

"The Awakening"
Written by Jose Diaz
September 4, 2001

Dance never really grabbed me until high school. The Manhattan Center for Science and Math was granted some money and it was used for a massive amount of new programs and facilities. This started a new wave of after school programs, all of which related to dance. There was now a choice of classes to take after school up until 6pm. One could take Carribean, South American or African dancing classes. The school also required you to take a dance culture class as a prerequisite. Needless to say there was a lot of variety and since it was something new I decided to try it.

At first I was very skeptical to enroll in these classes since I wasn't entirely sure what other people would make of the courses. In other words, I was hoping I was not doing the "geeky" thing to do this semester. Guys would tease me in the beginning, but after the massive influx of women who had gone to sign up for the class I found myself accompanied by many of the football team's biggest players. Har har.

The instructors were experts in each field and were natives of the country whose culture you were studying. They started off simple by explaining how stretching and flexibility were important in order to be an excellent dancer as well as one's own safety. From there one was taught the basic stepping and from there gradually learned as much as you possibly could about the origins of the dances and what purposes they served. After that you continually practiced staying in sync with the music. That is something which I must say was a lot harder than it sounds. Every time we met, right after drills came practice with staying in sync (no pun intended). I learned that it's an excellent skill to work on your timing in all aspects of life. If you're doing your own ballet, acting in a play or even dancing at a club good timing will make you that much better of a dancer.

At the end of the semester it was time for the final exams. This was to compose your own dance sequence with a partner in an attempt to impress the masses. It didn't sound too bad until I learned we would be performing for the entire school including the principal. At that point I got really nervous, but luckily for me my partner was an extremely skilled dancer and between her knowledge of the subject and my own great ideas we put together an extraordinary piece. The background music was "I Believe I Can Fly" by R. Kelly and it was a very graceful peace if you can imagine that.

These classes really changed my perspective on dance because I never really thought all that much about dancing until they came along. They opened my eyes to a different world where everything is different. Movement, language and even thinking all works on a different level. Ever since I've attempted to learn more and more about different types of dances and what they are all about. My goal is to study it in my college for a little bit to at the very least have a firm grasp on the as many concepts as I can. I suppose one could say I myself am.. exploring dance.

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