Welcome to my dancing curriculum vitae!
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from the age of 6 to 10 years old:
Classical, jazz, and modern dancing, with Josiane Varlet, first at “Danse Plus” located in Bourbourg, but after they moved to Gravelines, at the “Centre Artistique et Culturel François Mitterand”.
Josiane taught me all the basics, which is a very good thing because I find that a lot of dance teachers don’t care to and usually start teaching the main choreography straight away. I progressed quite quickly, therefore at the age of 9, Josiane decided to not only make me dance in the groups of my age but also move me in the older dance groups : meaning 15 and over. That year I used to do 6 hours of dancing per week. As a consequence, I did 12 choreographies in total. I think that was one of the best years I’ve experienced, even though there were times I was very tired and did not want to go to my lessons -I was only 9 after all. An other thing that made my year great was the fact that I had the opportunity to dance alone on stage. I was given this chance because every year we had this “exam” which involved the dancers to create a 1 min choreography, and Josiane would choose around 5 people who could dance alone on stage. And… I was chosen! Because the theme of that year’s dance show was “France’s history”, the theme I chose for my exam was slavery. On another note, Josiane’s dancing school was quite serious, each and one of us had to have the same outfit, and that outfit changed wether it was classical or modern/jazz. Shoes had to be correct, tights had to be correct, the ballet tutu had to be correct. Furthermore, with Josiane I was also able to learn how to dance in pointe shoes, and we weren’t that many to do so (we were two), and I absolutely loved it! I hated it because it was difficult and hurt my toes, but I really felt like a ballerina!
I then stopped dancing for a while, because the dance group was, when it was in Bourbourg, a nice and friendly place, I mean that in a way that we all felt like a family. But once it moved to Gravelines, it became very formal, we weren’t allowed to laugh anymore and we would get shouted at for no reason. The atmosphere wasn’t as pleasant as before. And at that age I didn’t accept it, because I used to be very close to my dance teacher Josiane, and then she sort of became someone we couldn’t reach, setting a barrier between her and her students. I was a bit hurt because she was my role model, the person I wanted to be later on, and so, it crushed that image. But like I said, I was very young, it would have probably went differently if I was a bit older and a bit more mature. Thus I decided to stop dancing for a few years.
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from the age of 12 to 15
My mum wanted me to start dancing again, so I started modern dancing in a group in Bourbourg. I didn’t really appreciate these years of dancing, but I danced anyways because I had missed it. The level wasn’t the same as I had known. What I mean is that I found it quite easy. But I must admit that I learned a bit more about style and attitude, whereas with Josiane it was essentially getting the moves right as the sequencing were a bit more complicated.
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from the age of 16 to 18
I stopped dancing for a couple of years because modern dancing wasn’t really what I loved the most, and the level wasn’t as high as I would have hoped. So I turned to fitness. I was finally old enough to go to the gym. And so I learned how to really reach my own goals, and made some different kind of friends. This is also when I hurt my knee, but I’ll probably talk about that in a post. I really loved fitness, but I didn’t have a healthy diet. I got so obsessed with my body and my weight. So much so that I would have a couple of leaves of salad on a small bit of bread in the evening, and would stick to the 30gr of my Special K cereal in the morning. I wouldn’t have any snacks or anything. So I had a good body, I was slim, I had nice legs because that’s the part I would work on the most (so here you can understand how my knee got messed up), but I wasn’t healthy. Overall these were nice years where I learnt a lot about myself, about how I was capable of reaching the goals I set myself, and how I could progress on my own, and always try to do better, because that’s what the gym is all about! I would go there with in the objective to run 40 minutes on the treadmill, and I would get out of there having done 45, just to know that I did better than accepted. There is nothing more satisfying that getting out of the gym knowing that you have given more than you could.
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at the age of 19
So this is when I started to do what I’m currently doing now: hip-hop. And I absolutely love it. It is such a different world. I started hip-hop with Damien Calbet, in Bourbourg, with the association “Andy Andyvie”. The hip-hop group is called Square 630. There again I quickly progressed, because in the middle of the year, in the month of Frebruary if I remember right, the teacher asked me if I would like to join the “competition group” which gathers up the best dancers of Square 630 and, as you can understand by the name, makes us participate in competitions. I obviously happily agreed! Hip-hop combines neatness, getting the steps right, being on time and being synchro with others, a lot of concentration, a lot of attitude, being impeccable… So it has taught me A LOT in just a year. And I have loved every moment of it. Not once have I had the desire to not go to a lesson.
It’s funny because when I began, I was scared that I had lost everything that I had acquired, but I came back stronger and better than ever!
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now
I am still dancing taking dance lessons with Damien Calbet, but I am also taking hip-hop lessons in Hazebrouck with Rashead Amenzou (also named Rashead Amenzulu), known to have appeared in the Guiness World of Records for having done the most number of headspins in a minute. I decided to take lessons with him because he did a masterclass in July 2017, which I participated to, and it was the first time of my life that I felt somewhat challenged by dancing! The sequencing were very complexe, and I actually found difficult to combine attitude with the steps, because I was so focused on the steps! So I have been taking dance lessons with him since September, and I already feel that I have progressed. I put more attitude in his choreographies than at the beginning. And I am also learning more about basic Hip-hop steps as Rashead invented this hip-hop alphabet, where each letter corresponds to a hip-hop step. I know, crazy!
Furthermore, I am a teacher this year! Yes, within the framework of the association Andy Andivie, and of Square 630, I am teaching hip-hop to 6 and 7 year olds! This group is called “Les Kidz”, which is a new group this year, because last year the youngest group was 8 to 11 years old. It’s volunteer work, and I love it, I am living a dream, and what is heartmelting is seeing that the little ones that I’m teaching also love what I’m teaching them. A great year this year!
So all combined I am doing 4 and half hours of dancing per week, but I don’t find that it’s enough. I need more, more dancing!