Something up my sleeve

I can't believe I'm a hip hop dance teacher! Well, I will be getting the Monday class to myself in a few weeks, anyway. I visited yesterday and those kids are so cute! There are only 4 of them (8-12 year olds), too, so I can definitely handle that. I mean, this job is the perfect way to combine my love of dance (especially hip hop) and my love of kids. I really missed both.

The idea of becoming a dance teacher had crossed my mind, but I basically gave up on that idea without trying. After I quit dancing school for dance team, I lost those connections and figured it would be too hard to walk in cold somewhere. I do have a few pretty cool dance accomplishments up my sleeve that I forgot about, but I never have a reason to mention them. Actually, I didn't even mention them to the owner, she just knew that I loved dance and choreography and that I had some experience. The school just opened in October, so they are still trying to establish themselves and figure out the best classes to offer. I might end up teaching other things, but I want to start slow. I will also probably be their designer and help out with the summer camp. It's hard to believe that this opportunity just fell into my lap.

I will be choreographing most of this class's dance to "1, 2 Step" (3 minutes). There's already a dance built into it, though, so I'll start with some of that. I'm nearly bursting at the seems with 3 years of pent-up dance moves, anyway, I think. Also, oddly enough, I made up a dance to the same song in college. I don't remember much of it, but it was sort of hard for the dance team to learn, so I'll probably just start from scratch for the pre-teens.

This sounds counter-intuitive, but I actually think that simplifying a dance for the beginner class will be more challenging than making what I consider to be a typical dance. History has shown that I don't quite understand the average person's interpretation of an "easy" dance. I'll have to figure out how to challenge them without overwhelming them.

We have 8 weeks of practice before the recital, so there's a lot to do. I'll be performing a few things with the other teachers and the adult class, at least a hip hop dance or two. You have to have a certain...I'll call it a grounded, exaggerated dance style and a cocky, irreverent attitude to do hip hop justice, and somehow, once I'm comfortable with a dance, I'm pretty sure I have that. No, really. Stop laughing. No one that I have met since college has seen me really dance and they probably don't believe me. Well, I guess I'll just have to show them. Get ready, I'm about to blow my white girl cover. ;)