The future

In this blogpost I’d like to tell you what I to achieve in the future, as a dancer but also as dance teacher.

This year I only dance 1 hour a week. And I hope that next year and the years after that I will still be dancing, and hopefully more than 1 hour a week. I want to improve as much as I can, but you need time to do that, and now I don’t have the time. I’m too busy with school. I already dance for 7 years and I don’t want to give that up.

As a dance teacher I would like to teach another age group, older children because sometimes I see that my choreographies are a little too difficult for them. So maybe it would be a good idea to change of age.

If the contest still exist in a few years, I would like to enter the contest ‘So you think you can dance’ in Belgium. Because people always say: wow, you can dance really well! But that are almost always people that don’t even dance so of course they say that you’re good. I want to know where I stand, how good or bad I really am. It’s not like I’m going to enter next year, but I hope I will keep dancing and you know maybe one day I will do audition. You’ll never know.

Hopefully I will achieve one of these things in the future. But the future is unpredictable of course. So I just have to wait and see what becomes of it.
Just learn, love, live and dance. 

Chachi Gonzales

I am a dancer, and there are thousand other dancers. But everyone has his/hers idol, someone you admire. In this blogpost I will tell you who I admire the most.

Olivia Irene Gonzales, better known as Chachi Gonzales, is an American hip hop dancer, choreographer and sporadic actress. She’s born the 26^th of January 1996 in Texas.
Her nickname Chachi was given to her by her family when she was young. It is short for muchachita, which means ‘little girl’ in Spanish.

She started dancing at the age of 6, she started with ballet at a local dance studio. So she started with the opposite of what she is dancing now. Three years later, she got her first hip hop lesson at a workshop. When she was learning this new dance style, she was completely hooked and she decided to do some more hip hop lessons.
After that she went to Lanier Middle School and after a month of hard training her own dance instructor asked her to lead the group she was being taught in. From then on, Chachi kept dancing as much as she could, it became a true passion.

In 2010 she created a new dance crew with 5 other people called I aM mE. They participated the contest ‘America’s Best Dance Crew’ in 2011 and they won the contest. While they were training for that contest, Chachi and her family created a brand of sweatpants called ChachiMomma. Those pants are very popular for dancers.

After they won the contest, Chachi has taught many dance classes and workshops in countries all over the world like Mexico, Australia, India and even in Belgium! Unfortunately I had to miss the workshop because it was during my summer job.

In 2014 she launched her own clothing line named ‘Dotheads by Chachi’. This year she was busy with acting because she had the lead role in a movie and she was in the cast of a teen drama.

I hope I will get another chance to do a workshop of her, she is so good, it would be a dream come true.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chachi_Gonzales

Teaching dancing lessons

I don’t only dance on my own, I also give dancing lessons. I will tell you a little bit more about that in this blogpost.

I started teaching when I was 15 years old. The dancing school where I danced were looking for new teachers because the current teacher was going to stop. The head of the dance school asked me and a friend of mine if we wanted to try it. And of course we said yes! It was a new chapter in my ‘dance adventure’.

Now I’m still doing this, it’s my fourth year and I really love it. In these 4 years I always taught the same age: kids between 5 and 8 years old. This is the age when they start dancing so it’s important that you learn them the basics of dancing and that they enjoy it.
Sometimes it is a little bit hard because at that age they are very playful and they don’t listen always that well.

Last year we had a big show for all the parents, grandparents, friends, etc. This period is always really stressful because you want that you choreography is almost perfect so everyone can be proud of their child/ grandchild.
The show went really well, we were really proud of our girls and boy!

I’m really happy that I may do this for already 4 years and I hope that I can keep doing this in the future. It’s a good recreation and you learn how to be responsible for the kids and the result. 

Kunstbende

In my first blog post I told you that I participated a contest called Kunstbende. Now I will tell you a little bit more about that contest.

Kunstbende is a Belgian art contest for teenagers between 13 and 19 years old. The contest is set up in 1999. Kunstbende isn’t a contest in just one category of art. There are 9 categories:

·         Fashion

·         Movie

·         DJ

·         Photography

·         Dance

·         Music

·         Performance

·         Text

·         Visual

You can participate in maximum 3 categories.

Kunstbende doesn’t exist only in Flanders but also in the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden,…

The competition is subdivided in 12 qualifying rounds in 12 different cities in Flanders.

Every winner of each category in the 12 qualifying rounds may battle for the title in the final.

In 2013, me and my friends of course participated the contest in the category dance. My friends already participated in 2012 and they earned the 3th place. We hoped that we could get better commentaries and maybe even a better place than in 2012. We won the 2^nd place and we were really happy. We wanted to participate again this year, but unfortunately a few dancers were already 19 or 20 years old so they weren’t longer allowed to participate.

I think it’s a really good contest for teenagers with a passion for art. It’s a professional organisation, not some little amateurish contest. They help the winners to continue and to develop in their own style. You can become a famous star by participating Kunstbende and you don’t have to be afraid to show your passion for art!


Source: http://www.kunstbende.be/

Hip hop

In this blog post I will tell you a little bit more about my favorite dance style: hip hop. When I started dancing, I always danced hip hop. I will talk about the history, the different styles, clothes,…

First of all hip hop is set up in 1970 in the United States by dance crews. Mainly in the poor quarter called ‘The Bronx’. Hip hop refers to styles of street dance. Most of the time the dancers dance on hip hop music and sometimes some dancers are from a hip hop culture.

Hip hop incorporates a big assortment of styles like breakdance, popping and tutting for examples. The best known styles are hip hop fast and hip hop lyrical. Hip hop fast is a quick dance choreography with movements on every tone of the music. Hip hop lyrical is a bit slower because you dance on the lyrics of the song and you dance with more emotions

I like hip hop because you can do your own thing, is the same choreography but every dancer has his own style. It’s not like ballet, not every movement must be exactly the same as the others.

There exists a lot of movies concerning hip hop. For example, the movies like Step up, Honey, Street dance, etc…

When you dance hip hop, boys and girls wear the same things like a top or t-shirt and untighten pants with some sneakers. 

History

In my first blogpost I would like to share my story, how I started dancing.

I started dancing when I was 12 years old. I already did gymnastics since I was 6, but I wanted to try something new. I started with clip dance for 1 hour a week. But shortly after that it became clear to me that one hour wasn’t enough, so the next year I danced for 2 hours a week. Since then, I really started to love dancing. I wanted to improve my dance skills so I chose to go to a different school.

I was 16 then and I did audition for the show team of my school, these dancers may participate in contests. I thought it was really exciting so I didn’t hesitate at all. And yes, I was chosen to be a part of the team!
I stayed 2 years in that team and I learned a lot. Because when you participate contests, your choreography must be flawless. Everything must be synchronic and that’s not always that simple. Sometimes there were little frustrations but we kept going and we had a lot of fun. And that’s one of the important things when you dance. Having fun, you dance for your enjoyment.

In 2013 I also participated a contest called ‘Kunstbende’ with a composed dance group. I will tell you a little bit more about that in another blog post.

But after those 2 years I needed another change. I wanted to dance on a higher level, so I did audition again for another show team in another dancing school. And again, I was allowed to be a part of the group. Actually I was part of 2 show teams, Modern and Hip hop. I had to dance 6 hours a week, and it was the best year I’ve ever had. I can’t explain how much I learned in just one single year. We earned excellent places like 1^st , 2^nd and 3th place.

Today I only dance 1 hour a week, because I don’t have the time to dance more hours. I’m really busy with school and that’s the most important thing right now. I hope I can dance more next year, but we’ll see.

In conclusion I can say that dancing has become one of the most important things in my life until now. And I hope that my passion will stay for many years to come.  

Who is she?

Hello everyone, my name is Jolien Van de Walle.
I’m 19 years old and I live in Belgium.
I’m studying marketing at the Artevelde University College in Ghent.

I have one passion that I’d like to share with all of you, and that passion is dance.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask them! 

I hope you’ll enjoy reading my blog

-          -Jolien