Dans – Amsterdam style

August 6, 2004  FILED TO: Dance

I’ve just realised that I haven’t posted a dance-related blog since I passed my teachers’ exam. Well, here goes…

So, I’ve been in Amsterdam for 2 months now, attending the Amsterdam Dance Centre. It’s a small school in an old converted church. It has one studio but it has classes every day of the week and given that it specialises in Jazz, Classical and some Hip-Hop / Modern, that’s a lot of choice for me. Throughout the summer they have had many guest teachers from the US, UK and the Netherlands and I’ve been soaking up their teachings as much as I can. In fact, I’ve been enjoying their classical classes so much that I’ve hardly attended any Jazz classes. And I’ve been attending between 4 and 6 classes a week. That’s a lot of dancing for me. But I’m loving it and I’ve really improved at classical – I’ve graduated from beginner to fully-fledge intermediate status

My plan, after starting work, is to attend at least 3 classes a week – one each of Jazz and Classical and then whatever else fits into my schedule. I’ll be taking home with me not only much better classical technique, fitness and flexibility but also a more broadened repertoire of Jazz choreography. I have to say, though the Classical technique training is excellent at this school, it does lack in Jazz technique – though this may be due to the range of guest teachers that I have been attending. I think it is a trend, nowadays, to teach fun, showy, funky Jazz choreography rather than focus on technique. Which is a shame because in not learning certain technique, students have a more limited range of choreography rather than a broader range. I am glad that my school back home focusses so much on Jazz technique – even though the teachers are not so uptodate with the latest choreographic styles.

I’m curious as to what the classes will be like once the summer program is over and they settle back to local teachers, that happens next month I think. I hope it is as good as it has been. It might be good to have a more settled schedule as well, since the teachers and class times are constantly changing.

So, on top of all this dancing and also riding my bide and walking, I’m managing to stay pretty fit. Let’s see if I can keep this up once I’m back at work sitting at a desk all day.