Modern Dance

DANCE The idea of dance has always been interesting and a mystery to me. When I was younger, I used to participate in Indian dance performances for birthday parties, weddings and/or anniversaries. I was fairly decent and I remember that it gave me a sense of freedom. I loved to dance. It was a way of expressing my uniqueness. However, things changed, life moved on and the stress of it all hid those feelings for another lifetime. They remained hidden for the past four years here at UCR until now, my senior year. Now was the only time in my college career that I had time for anything other than major related, science-y courses. I was excited to take a class that didn’t involve four hour laboratory times or quizzes every week. I wanted to take a class that made me feel free. That’s when I remembered how dance made me feel when I was younger and Dance 005 seemed like the perfect fit. In the short time that I have been able to take this course, I have learned quite a lot about my body’s capabilities. Usually, when I do something physical, whether it be sports or working out at the gym, I push myself hard. With dance, I felt as if I needed to take my time, and let my gracefullness take the lead. I wanted to accomplish a different side of me. I wanted to allow myself to do something that I wasn’t necessarily used to. I felt as if my strengths were mainly the numbered combinations that we learned in class. I do well with order, direction and a planned out routine. However, on the other hand, when we would practice improvisation, I found harder to relax and “go with the flow.” I realized that I don’t work well with spontaneous, no rule moments. I still struggle with that part of the class and I believe it isn’t something that can be taken care of with one course. I also enrolled in a dance of Mexico course and I enjoy noticing the differences between modern dance and cultural dance. Viewing the live performance by Paradigm put many things in perspective. My view