Yay, I did a good job!
The 2008 Classic is over. I just started feeling somewhat normal last Friday. My car is almost cleaned out, and all the random detritus laying around my house has been somewhat organized. I will pack it away soon.
I wish I had been able to say hello to everyone personally. I'd love to schedule times for me to just absorb the event and not have to do anything. One of my goals was to meet people and network and just get to see the variety of dancers and dance from all over. I fulfilled that goal, but I would have liked to say hello to every single competitor, and I didn't get to.
I got to spend some time with dancers from places like Canada, Washington and New York afterwards. They were very friendly and interesting people who I was glad to meet. All of them made a lasting impression on me.
I have a two day gig in Tennessee next weekend, so it's making it a bit hard to decompress. My dance buddy and I have 6 30 minute sets spread over two days (3 sets per day), so it's no small feat to plan and choreograph everything. We don't have as much info as we'd like about the stage and the drummers we're dancing with for part of the time, so I hope that all works out. We are flexible people, so I'm sure it will be fine.
I have had lots of inquiries about my classes since the media coverage for the Classic. Other dancers featured in the articles have said the same. That's pretty exciting and something I didn't know for sure would happen. So that's infusing some positive energy into the future as well. It was probably the most costly advertising of my life, though, if you consider the work that went into it.
I've gotten a suggestion to make the Classic even more high-tech by having the judges do their feedback on laptops. However, even if the funds were there to do this, I'm surprised how few people ordered their digital feedback. Also, the videographer said many people were puzzled by the offer to be interviewed on camera. [The videography company is editing the film of the dancers professionally and it was shot on a two-camera system. They had a four person crew working the event and they came from out of town to stay in a hotel. This was not a video done by someone's husband holding a handheld home camera.]
A wiser friend says that the audio feedback and the interview (for media kits) is ahead of the curve. Despite the belief we have that the internet is extremely prevalent and technology dominates our lives, people were surprisingly hesitant to implement the more cutting-edge tools. So another jump into another even more high-tech tool gives me pause...
I suppose if my instructor did not use audio feedback, I might not understand it, either. Even more disturbin is that I know many teachers use no feedback at all...meaning that they don't critique their students. A non-threatened instructor should feel safe in giving and receiving feedback to her/his students and vice versa.
Competition is an extension of the idea that we must receive feedback in order to improve. I have dance buddies who WILL tell me if my newest costume isn't great, if my hairpiece is askew or just bad, and I'll do the same for them. We have implicit and sometimes even explicit agreements to support eachother through thick and thin.
I hope that we can develop our skin to be thicker...I know I feel vulnerable sometimes and don't want to hear the negative words, but I must also improve. It's like the people on the shows where people try out their singing voices (I rarely watch TV and can't remember the name of the show?); someone told them they were good! Someone allowed these people to go so far they drove out of town, took off work and paid tons of money to humiliate themselves on TV!
I would just say, please don't be that person. Don't lie to your friends or your students. Sure, you can phrase things politely and give 2 positives for every 1 negative. But tell them. They deserve to know. And if you can ever encourage your students to compete, treat their hearts carefully as you train. Get them ready for some balanced feedback from sensitive people who are great at what they do.
Zuleika
www.zbellydance.com
The 2008 Classic is over. I just started feeling somewhat normal last Friday. My car is almost cleaned out, and all the random detritus laying around my house has been somewhat organized. I will pack it away soon.
I wish I had been able to say hello to everyone personally. I'd love to schedule times for me to just absorb the event and not have to do anything. One of my goals was to meet people and network and just get to see the variety of dancers and dance from all over. I fulfilled that goal, but I would have liked to say hello to every single competitor, and I didn't get to.
I got to spend some time with dancers from places like Canada, Washington and New York afterwards. They were very friendly and interesting people who I was glad to meet. All of them made a lasting impression on me.
I have a two day gig in Tennessee next weekend, so it's making it a bit hard to decompress. My dance buddy and I have 6 30 minute sets spread over two days (3 sets per day), so it's no small feat to plan and choreograph everything. We don't have as much info as we'd like about the stage and the drummers we're dancing with for part of the time, so I hope that all works out. We are flexible people, so I'm sure it will be fine.
I have had lots of inquiries about my classes since the media coverage for the Classic. Other dancers featured in the articles have said the same. That's pretty exciting and something I didn't know for sure would happen. So that's infusing some positive energy into the future as well. It was probably the most costly advertising of my life, though, if you consider the work that went into it.
I've gotten a suggestion to make the Classic even more high-tech by having the judges do their feedback on laptops. However, even if the funds were there to do this, I'm surprised how few people ordered their digital feedback. Also, the videographer said many people were puzzled by the offer to be interviewed on camera. [The videography company is editing the film of the dancers professionally and it was shot on a two-camera system. They had a four person crew working the event and they came from out of town to stay in a hotel. This was not a video done by someone's husband holding a handheld home camera.]
A wiser friend says that the audio feedback and the interview (for media kits) is ahead of the curve. Despite the belief we have that the internet is extremely prevalent and technology dominates our lives, people were surprisingly hesitant to implement the more cutting-edge tools. So another jump into another even more high-tech tool gives me pause...
I suppose if my instructor did not use audio feedback, I might not understand it, either. Even more disturbin is that I know many teachers use no feedback at all...meaning that they don't critique their students. A non-threatened instructor should feel safe in giving and receiving feedback to her/his students and vice versa.
Competition is an extension of the idea that we must receive feedback in order to improve. I have dance buddies who WILL tell me if my newest costume isn't great, if my hairpiece is askew or just bad, and I'll do the same for them. We have implicit and sometimes even explicit agreements to support eachother through thick and thin.
I hope that we can develop our skin to be thicker...I know I feel vulnerable sometimes and don't want to hear the negative words, but I must also improve. It's like the people on the shows where people try out their singing voices (I rarely watch TV and can't remember the name of the show?); someone told them they were good! Someone allowed these people to go so far they drove out of town, took off work and paid tons of money to humiliate themselves on TV!
I would just say, please don't be that person. Don't lie to your friends or your students. Sure, you can phrase things politely and give 2 positives for every 1 negative. But tell them. They deserve to know. And if you can ever encourage your students to compete, treat their hearts carefully as you train. Get them ready for some balanced feedback from sensitive people who are great at what they do.
Zuleika
www.zbellydance.com
Labels: competition
posted by Zuleika @ 11:37 AM
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