Socks

This time in two weeks Energise 2018 will be finished, 5 months of planning and preparation, 6 meetings, 2 days of poster design, 40 million forms (ish), 5 months of choreography and over 300 performers all together to celebrate dance in the eastern region. It’s a massive day split over two performances, different casts, different styles, different dances. It’s the reason I love dance, when I first started dancing, we had a platform called Grace and Raver. It was held at the Junction and organised by Diccon Hogger. It was the chance to perform to do what we enjoyed, to be in front of an audience and share our passion. Over the years and during my training Energise was born, as a way for children to perform again. Originally arranged just by April Martin and bringing together a few schools, it is now a show bringing together groups from all across East Anglia with an ever growing production team. I love being part of a team now that has the chance to offer this big performance opportunity to so many children. So please if you’re free 27th of Jan, 2 shows please come along and support the talented kids of Cambridgeshire and further afield in a day celebrating dance. More details on the Facebook page.

Right, the title is socks and my random moment about Energise wasn’t planned. I’ve spent all weekend doing my books so i wanted a moment to remember the dance! Why do children always want to wear socks? I had a group this week that spent the majority of the class discussing why they wanted to keep their socks on. The only thing they could point to was being able to turn better, I explained that it’s a fair point the friction is reduced so you’ll spin faster, but will also be in less control and having seen children slip and slide hurting themselves in socks, it’s still a point of general health and safety, where I will always ask them to remove them. I feel that socks do have their place within teaching and teaching younger students, especially around release and floor work, but in general especially within contemporary students need to learn to be able to work and feel what bare foot is and how movement changes with that and that the more you practice the more you’ll be able to turn, slide and feel through your feet and that they aren’t just some weird, horrible, gross looking thing that’s needs to be covered up! 

I don’t know, it would be interesting to see what other people thing about the use of socks within class and their reasons for allowing/removing students socks.  

I hope everyone is enjoying the new layout of the webisite, it’s not quite finished but it is getting there! Next week, music! 

Jack.