Activity 

The last semester of DP1 was unexpected, confusing, and challenging. For me personally, being unable to enter a dance studio for nearly five months has surely affected my progress and left me stranded in having to catch up with all the practice time I missed out on. However, now that studios are open again I’m more than happy to put in the extra hours to build my way back up.I have several goals for the year in terms of dance and look forward to crossing each one off my list as the year goes by. 

One of my  primary goals this year is to compete in the upcoming latin dancesport competitions. My first dancesport competition was scheduled in June 2020 but was canceled due to covid 19. But as things begin opening up there are a few competitions coming up in the coming months. Having never competed in latin before this would be a new experience for me and I hope to work hard on my technique and also my performance. The format of dancesport competitions is also foreign to me in terms of how multiple competitors share the dancefloor at the same time. Thus dancing in a group setting would definitely be intimidating. However, I believe this would be a good learning experience and help me develop my confidence on the dance floor. 

Ballet has been a dance style I’ve been doing consistently and I hope to continue it through the year. My goals in relation to this activity remain the same and that is to get a distinction in my exams which are planned to be held virtually at the end of 2020.

I also recently started learning hip-hop to add to my dance resume as it’s been a style that I’ve always found challenging and never been comfortable with. My goal for this activity is to attend class weekly and while I’m currently taking a beginner class I aim to advance into the advanced level by the end of the year. The reason I decided to take up hip hop is primarily that I want to join a dance team in university or take dance as a minor. I believe learning a broader range of dance styles would better equip me to take up dance at university. 

Art: creativity

For me, one of the positives of five months of quarantine was being able to focus on my art. Having so much more free time than usual I found myself painting almost every day during curfew and summer break and coming up with new concepts and trying out a range of techniques.I hope to continue working on my artwork throughout the school year as well. I’ve been working on making my paintings look more realistic as well as expanding my color palette. I usually tend to deviate towards blue and reds in my art so one of my goals would be to expand my color choice and also work on building skin tones.I also want to continue working on anatomy and aim to keep and dedicate a sketchbook to anatomy which I would fill in throughout the year. As someone who generally paints portraits and avoids drawing figures and motion, I think it would beneficial to overcome these fears and better grow as an artist. On a larger scale, I also hope to exhibit my artwork this year. 

Service:

As our school service activities are suspended for the moment due to COVID 19 I am unsure as to whether I would be able to continue at my service ‘Hope for kids’ which work in association with the Maharagama cancer hospital. In the meantime, I hope to engage in service and volunteer activities that take place within the school. Additionally, I’m also looking forward to performing in the dance show presented by my dance school next year which features Latin, ballet, contemporary, and traditional dance. The proceeds from the event are event are donated to an elders home t help fund their development projects.