It’s that time of year again – Spring Showcase! This means Canyon Concert Ballet students are now engaged in part of all regular dance training: learning choreography. In truth, dancers learn short bits of choreography throughout class as they memorize sequences for their combinations. Thus all dance training blends cerebral and cognitive thought processes with muscle memory and ‘proprioception’ held in the cerebellum. What is that you say? This simply means that dancing is good for the brain and the body! Here is a list of things that your student will be learning that are a bit more particular to picking up the longer choreographic sequences they will be using for their Showcase dances:
- Teamwork: students must engage in more cooperative teamwork to move in and out of choreographic patterns and stay together during sequences.
- Musicality: while students work on musicality throughout the year, teachers may choose music with more complex rhythmic patterns that students will need to master.
- Artistry: dancing on stage requires a character or the presentation of a particular emotion. These are usually very simple at first with dancers simply needing to “be happy” on stage, but as dancers progress they will work on the nuanced emotional presentation of the work.
- Heighten responsibility: In the theater, dancers are expected to get themselves prepared and be in their places at the right time. This becomes easier as dancers get older, but it is a definite learning curve for our younger dancers.
Click here for a great article on the benefits to our brain of dancing as we age. It’s called: Use It or Lose It: Dancing makes you Smarter, Longer!
