Introduction

Hi my name is Lucy Richardson and I am currently a third year student at Northumbria university studying Dance Choreography. My goal for this assignment is to be able to take a reflective view on my technique classes in more detail and realise what I can improve on, what I have achieved in each class and what different feelings arose that were significant or interesting to me.

    
"I don't want people who want to dance, I want people who have to dance."  ~George Balanchine

This quote by Balanchine expresses how I feel about my dancing, although I want to dance I have a feeling inside me that I HAVE to dance, just for myself and I have always known this to be true.

A few more succinct goals for this assignment and technique classes are to;

• Take all corrections given to me and work and practice with them so the week after I can show I have listened and I am starting to put it into practice.
• Work on the flexibility in my back, especially my middle back and try to work positions to the best of my ability
• In classes in the past I have been told to use breath more, so to be less self conscious about it and take the correction and the idea's on board.

To be able to achieve these goals is going to take practice not just in class but in my own personal time as well, one technique class in each technique is not enough just to use that for practice so I will go away and use studio's when they are free to practice. I also aim to complete these goals by videoing and taking pictures of myself in class so I can evidence my work and can see first hand my strenths and weaknesses in certain sequences etc. The pictures and video's will also help me see improvements from week to week.

Technique classes in dance allow you to become focused and also build strength and stamina, a lot of the techniques are obviously based on different choreographers.  I find it very helpful to learn about their different styles, how they work individually and compare similarites and differences between their techniqes. Research into why techniques are successful is also interesting.