Wellington Summer School 2014 Part Two

Chatting before Contemporary class.

After the warm-up class, Salem's first "proper" class of the day was Contemporary with Anita Hunziker.

He really enjoyed this class and said that Anita was a great teacher.

Contemporary class (1)

Salem did very well to travel into Wellington every day and the get home between 7.15 and 7.30 pm, eat dinner, tell me how his classes went and then off to bed ready to be woken up at 5.45 am for his cup of tea and to get ready for the day.  Out the door for the 6.15 am bus,then on the train where he ate his breakfast.

Contemporary class (2)

On the last day parents were allowed to watch the classes which was great.
It's really good to see what they have learnt and what they need to work on.
And of course it's a good experience to learn from different teachers.  Salem's a bit spoilt in that way.

I'm not sure yet if Salem will be going to next years Wellington Summer School as I think the Boys' Ballet Summer School in Sydney is more important for him to attend.  He really needs classes that are just for boys.

Contemporary class (3)

Unfortunately when being the only boy in a class full of girls, you miss being taught how to dance like a man.
Salem is lucky now as his teachers, Jonty, Jacqui and Michelle are concentrating on Salem standing, gesturing and dancing like a (young) man.

Contemporary class (4)

The contemporary class this year really inspired Salem and he has since choreographed a contemporary dance to "In the Shadows" by The Rasmus.  He will be doing this dance at competitions this year.

It is very different to his old contemporary dance "Du Hast".

Well, I seem to be have had better luck uploading everything tonight even though it is sooooo slow!!!!!
All the videos which are on this post are not on You Tube.

Contemporary class (5)

Wellington Summer School 2014 Part One

Repertoire Class.

Sorry for the long break between blog posts, we have been having some computer and internet issues which has been making life and blog posting difficult.  I'm hoping things are getting back to normal.....fingers crossed.

Peasant Pas de deux (1)

Salem had Summer School in January, a whole week of dance which was held at the New Zealand School of Dance.  He had such a good time.

It was a very early start for him, leaving our house at 6.15 every morning to get the bus, train and then another bus to get there at 8 am ready for the warm-up class.


The warm up was taken by a different teacher each morning.
There were a couple of morning he enjoyed and got nicely warmed up but others he was quite stiff afterwards.  He would have prefered doing the Zumba warm-ups which they did last year which definitely got you ready for your next class.

Peasant Pas de deux (2)

This year his teachers were:

Anita Hunziker for Contemporary
Pagan Dorgan for Jazz
Kerry Anne Gilberd for Repertoire
Anneliese Gilberd for Classical.

Salem with Kerry Anne Gilberd.

He didn't do the RAD class with Paula Hunt as he is no longer doing the RAD syllabus.
His favourite classes were Repertoire and Contemporary.
He really didn't like the jazz class as he thought that it didn't cater towards boys and did not like being told to "strut his stuff down the catwalk" and to be "beautiful", not what a teenage boy wants to hear.

Peasant Pas II

He had one other boy with him in his group this year, Jake, so at least he wasn't the only boy.
It was nice to meet him.

In the Repertoire class he got to do a different version of Peasant Pas II.  It was very different to his own version which he has been doing for comps.  Jonty was saying that it is the one that the Royal New Zealand Ballet does.

He also got to do the Peasant Pas de deux which he really enjoyed.  It's not very often, if ever that he gets to do a pas de deux.  He looked forward to Kerry Anne Gilberd's class every morning!!!!

Waiting at the bus stop at 6.15 in the morning.

I'm going to quit this post while I'm ahead and continue with par two later tonight as I've been losing my internet contection on and off.  Bad for uploading videos.  These videos are not on You Tube but I will be putting other ones up on there soon.

Ballet Boy is Back

We are back after having a few technical difficulties and ready to do regular posts again.
Salem has been busy with his dancing all summer only taking a few days break.
Last week he attended Summer School which was held at the New Zealand School of Dance.
He had classes from 8 o'clock in the morning and finished at 4.15 in the afternoon.  That was Monday til Friday.

He had six classes every day starting with the Zumba warm up which he didn't really enjoy but he still did it.
It really wasn't his thing.
He also had Jazz with Ange McKellar which he really enjoyed.  He liked it so much that he decided to go back to doing jazz which he hasn't done for 1 3/4 years.
Then there was the Classical class with Nicole Ransley, he liked that class but really enjoyed the Repertoire class with Shannon Dawson.  Shannon is such a good teacher.
Next up was the Intermediate Foundation Syllabus class with his old teacher from Wellington Dance Academy, Helen Calman, followed by Contemporary with Geordan Wilcox to finish off the day.

His favourite classes were the Jazz and Repertoire classes followed by the Classical.

It is sooooo nice not to have to get up so early everyday to get into Wellington in time for the classes.

On Monday he went and had a contemporary class with the Wellington Freelancers with Sacha Copeland at Thistle Hall.  He really enjoys doing these classes with adults and learns so much.  This class taught him about using space and using your body for percussion and improvisation.
What impressed him was doing some of the exercises with his eyes closed, he really got to feel the music.
We are now using that in our sessions at the studio at the gym.

The last two days Salem has been going to the Summer School that his dance school, Kapiti Dance Centre, is running this week at their new studio.  He has been helping with the littlies which he really likes doing.

This runs from Monday til Friday 9 am to 12 noon so he will be helping out for the rest of the week.

After this we have lunch then it's off to the gym for a practice session.

We have been working on all his competition dances, improvisation for his contemporary, and some jazz thrown in for good measure.

I was going to include some videos but I still can't upload them.

I'll try again tomorrow on my oldest son's computer.