Student Spotlight

Student Spotlight: Emma Hemsley

October 5, 2012 by 4dancers

Today meet Emma Hemsley – a dancer who is originally from Haiti…

nuevo school of contemporary dance — Emma Hemsley, Photo by Chapman & Dillingham Photography

My name is Emma Hemsley. My Haitian name is Emmana Jules. I am a Freshman in High School. I am home schooled. I was born in Haiti and adopted when I was 2 years old. My birth Mother passed away when I was one year old and I was brought to an orphanage in Port Au Prince.

My parents signed me up for dance when I was 3 years old.

Every year I wanted to dance more and more. Last year I started taking classes at Nuevo School of Contemporary Dance. This year I joined the company. Dance has been a way for me to express myself.

I would like to encourage young dancers to have faith in their skills and not give up on the dream of dance.

1. Can you tell readers how you became involved with dance?

When I came to the US, I had a lot of energy. My parents wanted to keep me busy and my older sister worked at a local dance studio and suggested a Tap/Ballet combo. I barely spoke English at the time and it helped me to focus, and I have been in love with dance ever since.

I just joined Nuevo School of Contemporary Dance with Francisco Gella and it has been such an amazing experience. Learning so much about technique and the art of dance. Seeing dance from a Concert point of view is so inspiring to me.

2. What do you find you like best about dance class? [Read more…]

Student Spotlight: Charlotte Jeffery

September 26, 2012 by Ashley David

Next in our “Student Spotlight” series, meet Charlotte Jeffery…

1. Can you tell readers how you became involved (and continued to be involved) with dance?

The start of my dance love affair began with ballet. Like hundreds of thousands of little girls across the world, when I was four, my Mum asked me if I wanted to do ballet, I said yes and it spiraled from there.

I began my ‘training’ (if we can call it that) in a drafty school hall with good toes, bad toes and winning little silver cups for my brilliant portrayal of a Siamese cat. I took all my ballet exams, and jumped around from syllabus to syllabus, I even spent one summer school at the Royal Ballet School, at White Lodge and was a Junior Associate of the Arts Educational School in Tring.

I was a ballet girl for a very long time (and still am in reality) but started contemporary when I was twelve or eleven – this incredibly cool teacher came to teach at our school (where we had dance as part of the curriculum) and introduced contemporary to all of us.

It was only natural therefore that when I continued dancing into GCSE and A level that I would take it higher into degree level. I have just graduated from Middlesex University with a 2:1 in Dance Studies.

While I was there I had the most incredible opportunity to study abroad. I traveled to the east cost of the USA, to Goucher College, in Baltimore where I stayed for four months and continued to train. I can honestly say now, that although it was one of the hardest four months of my life, emotionally and physically, it was also one of the best!!

Training in the states opened up yet more options for me and more choices for career paths. I trained in aerial dance (very scary but amazing) took contemporary, ballet, pointe work, a very intense choreography course and even got to work with some underprivileged children in the poorest area of Baltimore helping them to learn how to read and write by using movement as a tool for learning.

Now as a recent graduate I have decided to take the freelance route. I feel that there are far too many options for me, and I want to do so much, that I’m going to try and do it all; I call myself a freelance teacher, writer, community artist, dancer, arts administrator, choreographer… and the list is growing!

This has meant that even since I’ve graduated I’ve written reviews for up and coming companies, am currently in rehearsal for the opening ceremony of the Paralympics (29^th August 2012), I have taught workshops at primary schools, and as of this week (until about Christmas time) I am working at the Royal Ballet School as an Interim Development and Publicity Coordinator. (See I told you I was a real ballet bod at heart!) As of September I will add a new title to my belt, Artist in Residence, at a school in Buckinghamshire teaching lots of the extra curricular dance and some admin there too.

2. What do you find you like best about dance class? [Read more…]

Student Spotlight: Gabriella Meiterman-Rodriguez

September 24, 2012 by 4dancers

Today we have a student from the University of Maryland with us for the “student spotlight”…

My involvement in dance began when I was an infant. Most parents enroll their children in gymnastics, soccer, football, etc., but I was enrolled in dance! My mother enrolled me into my first ballet class and I have been dancing ever since. I was told that I picked up the movement and was always focused in class. I would come home and practice my tendus, plies, and arms, so from that point on, dance was my primary hobby. It was not until I was a freshman in high school when I realized dance would be my passion to pursue as a career.

2) What do you find you like best about dance class?

My favorite part of dance class, surprisingly enough, is the warm-up. Although it is difficult to start moving around at 9:30 a.m. in a cold studio, I find this part to be where I am most connected and aware. I have always found it fascinating when the body can transform from a stiff, cold structure into a state where it is warm, limber and ready to move and take on the class. This part of class is where I have the most self-awareness for which body parts need more attention and time for stretching. This awareness practices my self-connectivity and really teaches me to listen to my body’s needs every morning. The warm-up is both my favorite part and the most crucial part of class.

3) What is the hardest part about dance for you?

The hardest part with dance for me is being able to keep my facial expressions active throughout the movement. Sometimes I find myself getting so caught up in the moment of a performance that I lose some of the character. My face during performances is my main focus this year every dance class and it is something I am hoping to make stronger so that I can be a well rounded dancer and performer.

4) What advice would you give to other dancers? [Read more…]

Student Spotlight: Murilo Leite

August 30, 2012 by Ashley David

Murilo Leite - Earthfall Dance - Hugo Glendinning — Murilo Leite, Earthfall Dance, Photo by Hugo Glendinning

Here’s another of our “Student Spotlights”…get to know Murilo Leite…

1. Can you tell readers how you became involved with dance?

Dance has been in my life for as long as I can remember but not in the usual sense. I didn’t start ballet when I was 3 years old and go through all the exams in tap and modern. I grew up next door to a dance college in Brazil and even as a kid I used to sneak out of my house to watch the classes because there was something about the atmosphere that enticed me. I’d then go home and teach myself the sequences in secret but it wasn’t until I was 12 or 13 that I attended my first class and really I didn’t start doing it regularly until I was 16 when I co-founded a performing youth company called Re*Flex Dance Co. which is still going today 8 years later!

2. What do you find you like best about dance class?

The hard work. I love a class that challenges my mind and body to the maximum, there’s no better feeling than finally being able to do a sequence that at first seemed impossible but with perseverance and determination the reward is unmatched. Also sweating is the sign of a great class!

3. What is the hardest part about dance for you?

For me the hardest part is also the most productive. I find myself constantly comparing myself to other dancers in the studio, admiring the ease of his grand battement or how beautifully curly her feet are! Naturally there are things others can do that I can’t, I’m quite self critical and always striving to be better so though I find it hard it also pushes me to jump higher, land softer, run faster or move slower… You get the idea.

4. What advice would you give to other dancers?

I always say to dancers who are beginning their training to think hard about what it is they are doing it for. For me, I think you have to love it, no – you have feel more than love for it because it’s tough, it’s full of knock downs, it’s not the best paid job and so on. Saying that, if you love it there’s nothing else that will satisfy you more, it will be exactly the life you always hoped for and none of the bad stuff will come close to taking away from how it fulfills you.

5. How has dance changed your life?

Dance hasn’t changed my life, it has shaped it. It is something I’ve always loved and for many years it was my sole focus, all my energy was being put into dance as my final goal. I feel I am blessed to have had dance in my life because it has always given me a path to follow so that when in other parts of my life or when my friends and family reached that part in growing up that we all go through where we are unsure what the hell we’re doing I could put my efforts further into dance.

Since then I’ve realised that it doesn’t need to be the only thing in my life which I guess could be something else I would use as advice, but I also think this is something one needs to find out for themselves. Yes, to succeed with dance as a career you must put 200% and more but you should never forget that you are a person first, a dancer second. That is something that really opened my eyes to life and the world when the penny finally dropped.

Student Spotlight: Thomas Wilkinson

August 6, 2012 by 4dancers

To start the week off we have a student spotlight to share with readers….

1. Can you tell readers how you became involved with dance?

I actually fell into dance whilst studying a Performing Arts btec at college in Cirencester. I’d always been involved in acting whilst I was younger but had never danced and so I found it extremely challenging to start with… but I guess that was part of the appeal. I worked really hard to try and gain a place at a dance institution and was lucky enough to receive a variety of offers, from which I chose to study at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts due to its varied programme. I gained a first class honours degree in Dance and Performing Arts and also won the LIPA dance prize at my graduating ceremony which for me was a huge achievement. Since then I have taken on a variety of different projects including choreographic work, workshop leading and dance performance across the UK, and I am one of the lucky few who is able to say they make a living doing what they love.
The main aspect which has kept me involved with dance and given me the determination to succeed is the handful of individuals who really believe in my abilities and want to see me do well, all of whom have helped me to get to where I am today.

2.What do you find you like best about dance class?

My favourite aspect of dance class is the feeling of achievement (mainly evident from the amount of sweat I produce) which comes from pushing yourself to achieve new things. I am constantly trying to learn and progress, always working on my technique and focusing on my expression as an artist, and when this gets recognised in class by a teacher, there is nothing quite like it.

3. What is the hardest part about dance for you? [Read more…]

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