Workshop with ReGina Wielingen

Today was an amazing day for me. We had a workshop with ReGina Wielingen from 9 AM until 3 PM and throughout the day I waited a lot of positive developments such as: live music and creative tasks.

Speaking about live music, It was actually my dream to dance to live music especially drums ( Cajón ) and I was not disappointed because live music makes you feel so different and makes you dance differently. Now I understand why ReGina teach just with live music and I could see that she is connecting to this music which in my opinion is amazing and not everyone can do that.

So this morning we started with a warm up exercises in order to wake up our bodies, to improve flexibility, also to make us focus and concentrate, to get us prepared to be taught very quickly.

There's one example of an exercise: (performed both sides)

Left side:

• Lie on back with both knees in the air.

• 4 leg swings starting with the right leg.

• 5th leg swing finishing with the body going through the floor into sitting in fourth position.

• Bring right leg into a sitting position bringing your arm over your head.

• Downward dog.

• Bend left leg so the knee is on the floor bent.

• Rotate the body round, kick right leg in air and pass through to sit on it.

• Spin on the floor using your hands to push and spin you.

• Transfer all body weight forwards by a small gentle rock.

• Fish flop backwards over right shoulder to finish.

We also did one very interesting exercise which a lot of people didn't like as it was a little bit jazzy and as an African style. I really enjoyed it because it was something new and fun to do. We also had turning and jumping exercise which probably was my favorite because it showed my strengths. After a few exercises I was already sweating so much that I had to change my top and definitely wash my face.

After a little break we received a task to remember our phone number and create a small choreography showing our numbers form it. Firstly I was very confused but then I just started to move and to try to show a number and it all just hit me. I did about 7 or 8 numbers just because we run out of time.

ReGina was going around and asking to show to her what we did and I noticed that when I showed her my routine she didn't say anything which alarmed and upset me because she told something to everybody else but not to me and I couldn't understand what I did wrong or what I did right or maybe what I need to improve. Eventually when everyone were showing their piece of work to everybody else she asked me and Marie to show to her our routine and while I were dancing she said to look up and to be confident in what I'm doing.

In the second half of the day she began to teach us a choreography It was fun and I could challenge myself as a dancer. There were many ideas incorporated into this routine, for example one movement was to move like a cat, very soft and fluent, another being the idea of carrying a box. Actually nearly every movement had an idea behind it:

• Falling

• Shaking everything off

• Pulling and being pulled

• Suspense

• Feeling of a bird

After we learn't all choreography she made us do it by ourselves and the new thing for everybody was that she didn't count in she would just say go and you had to go. She was trying to find our synchronous, trying to achieve us to feel each other and feel the music which was great but awkward as well because we couldn't start at the same time she she was getting angry.

And the last thing we did that day was choreography for the show ( as we thought ). You can see the link below. We spent quite a lot of time to create this dance but in the end we didn't use it in an actual choreography for the show.

https://vimeo.com/169373468 - this link will show you the Rehearsal from the workshop.

#Workshop