The BTDA Festival, Auckland 2014 - Salem's Report

This is Salem's report on the British Theatre Dance Association Dance Festival 2014, which he attended as part of the Waikanae Dance School's performance team.
He did this report to the Kapiti Coast Youth Council as he received a $200 Youth Dollars grant from them to help cover his costs to take part in this festival.

Salem’s Trip to the BTDA Festival in Auckland

5^th – 8^th June 2014

At the Youth2U Dollars ceremony

A very big “thank you” to the Kapiti Youth Council for granting me $200 Youth2U Dollars.  This helped me cover the rest of my costs for me to participate as part of the Performance Team for Waikanae Dance School at the British Theatre Dance Association’s dance festival for 2014.

As part of the performance team, I had helped in some of the fundraising activities such as performing at the Waikanae Easter Market, and even performed for the Paraparaumu/Raumati Community Board to get some funding for the team’s trip up to Auckland.  It was a lot of fun.

After all our hard work, I was so excited to go on my first plane flight ever, to Auckland.  I had never been to Auckland before either so it was a weekend full of new experiences.  We stayed at a holiday motel/park was had loads of palm trees which I was very impressed with as we don’t have any, or as many, down this part of the North Island.

I really enjoyed being part of the BTDA dance festival, I met a lot of new people and made plenty of new friends.  It was great to be able to compete against a lot of new people.

The Attitude film crew

I also had a film crew from Attitude Pictures with me.  They had been filming me before this trip, at home in Kapiti, having lessons and me teaching as well.  I got very used to having them around.  It was weird saying good bye to them at the end.  

You can watch my documentary at  http://attitudelive.com/blog/dan-buckingham/documentary-salems-ballet.  Here is the add for the programme on You Tube :

These were the first competitions I had ever danced as part of a duo, a trio, and an acrobatic troupe.

It was also the first time I had competed doing an acrobatic dance solo as I had only started learning acro in term 4 of last year.  I had choreographed my acro solo over the summer holidays and this was my debut performance.

I was up against very experienced and amazing girls, they were all very nice to me too.  I was a bit nervous as to how I would do. 

I received 2^nd Place.  I was very happy with that result.

Practicing for modern trio

My results for the festival were:

   

    1^st Place – Acro Duo

    2^nd Place – Acro Solo

    2^nd Place – Acro Troupe

    Highly Commended – Classical Duo

    Commended – Lyrical Solo

    Commended – Modern Trio

1st Place for Acro Duo

You can see some of my dances from the festival on my You Tube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWosTjBuKQhhucPJMxSK7Xg and I put together a video about my trip to the festival which you can watch at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PhZETQwTcE.

So “Thank You” again to the Kapiti Youth Council and the Youth4U Dollars grant for helping to make this great experience happen for me.  It has been really appreciated.

Salem Foxx