For our final exam for CHASS Connect our task was to create a theme and be able to demonstrate it or incorporate it into a dance. The theme of our group (Juicy R) was to demonstrate how our school lacks school spirit. This university is known to be number 1 in diversity, but even then it lacks school spirit and also has a problem with showing unity within ourselves. The theme was based also on how even though we are diverse people just decide to hang out with the same type of ethnicity as their own and this just shows that they are not willing to be opened minded with different cultures and to give them an opportunity to learn different things from other cultures. So what we basically tried to do was to show that it would be better if everyone respected each other we could all be happy and united as one and have school spirit.
The objective of my group was to show three different groups and within their groups they are of the same ethnicity. To distinguish the three groups we decided to incorporate different dances and have each group judge the other groups as a way to show that they believed they are the best. The names of each group were the three letters UCR representing the school. For the first group their role was to act like if they were conceited and that they thought to be the best out of the other groups. The second group was to act like if they were somewhat conceited and into themselves by dancing like if they were superior to the other groups. When it came to the last group they were full of school spirit and united as one and from there the other two groups began to change their ways and become open-minded to other people.
The dance was well planned out and well choreographed within our group, we all got along very well, but there was a couple of people that really weren’t committed so much into the group. At the beginning it was difficult to organize the times that people were available and also just of a place where we could do our rehearsals and practice the dance moves. After that being one of our least problems there were a couple of people that would be irresponsible with paying on time for the shirts that were going to be our costumes and some time some people would constantly miss rehearsals because they would be lazy to come and practice. Despite the problems that were happening in the group we still managed to deliver the final product and hopefully were able to demonstrate that we put a lot of effort into our dance.
The dance moves that we had to learn were very easy to remember and simple but really fun to do. The steps to each of the different choreographies were fun and went great with the music that was chosen for each group. Each group was asked to make face gestures as is they were disapproving each different dance except the last one. When the last dance was performed the other groups changed their gestures and were becoming happier and that’s when we were all united.
Throughout this whole class experience I really learned so much from just attending lecture every day. At the beginning I expected this class only would mainly focus on just dancing and learning a do able choreography, but when I finally found out that we were going to learn the history behind the dance. It was difficult for me to remember the different types of orixas and their history. Although, it consisted of challenging memorizing the orixas dances and what signs we can remember so we could be quizzed on. What I learned throughout this class is that when a person simply does a movement it has a story behind it and it can have a powerful meaning. Many of the gestures that were being made had a lot of meaning and were sacred to the orixas.
This was an overall experience, I really enjoyed going to this class because at the beginning I was very shy to do some of the dances that the professor would ask us to do, but then as time passed I was able to dance without feeling shy. Although some of the dances that we did learn seemed like workouts they were easy to remember and to incorporate into our own dances that we see people do. I would like to take the opportunity to say that this Brazilian inspired dance class was very interesting and full of surprises. Besides introducing us to the background of some dances we also were introduced to a different culture and used a lot of technology to support our studies.
An overlook of our adventures in this UCR experience…
Love your slide show, Claudia! Very well done! Let's get you to work on your grammar a bit more, eh? "like if" is not a prepositional phrase and you use it quite a bit. I think you were looking for "as if." Though "like" is considered a synonym for "as," and it does sound kinda old fashioned to say "as," the proper construction is "as if" and is typically followed by the subjunctive: "Daren moved as if he were walking on clouds after Doris said she liked him." Now, that's a clunky example! You could make this sentence better by using an Introductory Prepositional Phrase: "After Doris said she liked him, Daren moved as if he were walking on clouds." You could also break it up into several small sentences to underscore the importance of the action: "Doris said she liked him. Daren was elated. He moved as if he were walking on clouds." So you need to practice learning ALL the correct prepositional phrases in English, and make sure you learn them the way they are spoken (stay away from that Thesaurus for now). Once you get that down, then expand your vocabulary to help you avoid using prepositions unnecessarily. Yes, you can over use those in English. We tend not to use them very much. Instead, there are lots of words that imply a preposition where in Spanish the preposition would be separate from the word. Then once that happens, you'll discover that getting your subject/verb agreement down is not such a chore! I know you can do it. Just need to practice.
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√ final blog