Intense Week - Learning

Wow! It has been intense what with this course and am in my third week of getting to into a routine of teaching dance to 30 children per class and 5 classes per day, two days per week. I established  'Moves and Grooves'(M & G) rather than 'Dance' classes, particularly for some boys.... Behaviour Policy and getting to grips with that, also taking two other classes 'Games' (never taught games) and 'Humanities' the latter of which is class based and topic subject.. Those two subjects were not expected by me, but I rise to the challenge and am enjoying it and learning.  The travelling is painful, one and half hours there and back around from M3, M25.  I had to let my social life go for a few weeks, as these new important elements are going to be in my life for a while.  I did, however, drive another hour and a half after school from where I live in Hampshire to Wiltshire for a rehearsal for a Gypsy/Flamenco belly dance fusion piece to be performed tonight in a trio.. I was so happy to do that and get back to some degree of normality. I am exhausted, but it was my choice to do...Hopefully after the show I will drive to Devon for a weekend break with my family.  I will use this time to do some 'Reader' reading.  Hope you all have a great weekend.

First Draft Professional Profile

I admit I haven't done much reading yet and I'm still getting to grips with blogging and how best to layout my tasks within this media of Web 2.0 tools, it's all the add ons in the technical set up that I'm finding confusing, please feel free to offer advice and suggestions...Here is my first draft of my Personal Profile, I haven't expanded too much and not sure if I should add more to it which will include more names, dates, places etc. I was unsure about showing finance figures and budgets, what should I exclude in this?.There's allot there..

First Draft

WBS3730

Part 1

Task 1a: Professional Profile

I had a very kind and sensitive dance teacher. I passed my first ballet grade exams with the RAD.  Ballet was very challenging, not being able to communicate in English because my first language was Italian, I mimicked the moves to start with. I continued with ISTD syllabus and added Tap Dance and Modern.  My parents realised my love dance and I realised that I had natural rhythm.  I was an introverted child but wanted to keep learning new things.  I started playing the Piano Forte, and attained grade five (Trinity College of Music) by the age of 12 years.  I played the small organ in church, I wasn’t happy with that but did my duty.  I started to formalise my Italian language studies through a teacher from the Italian consulate and attained a valid Italian certificate for study up to Year 6 (age 11). I passed all my dance exams and attended ‘The Guildford School of Acting’ where I enrolled on a three year Dance Teacher Training Course and attained; Associate and Advanced exams in Greek Dance (Ruby Ginner), Associate and Advanced in National Dance. I found Cecchetti Ballet challenging and attained Elementary grade. Other dance styles covered were; Contemporary (Martha Graham), and Jazz Dance. I was delighted to have won ‘The best progressive dance teacher’ award in my first year. I loved choreography.  I would auditioning my peers and enter them for competitions. I was asked to teach Tap Dance to all the students as I was the only one that was working on Elementary syllabus. We studied and took Speech and Drama exams with LAMDA. During my first year I also studied ‘O’ Level Music.  I was invited to join the Musical Theatre course on their tour production for extra experience and to gain confidence in performing. We studied child psychology. This was of great interest to me. ~After graduating in 1979 with a ‘Diploma’ I toured North Africa with a small modern dance troupe.

In 1982 I set up ‘The Corinda Hall School of Dance’, I delivered ballet, tap dance and modern classes for children and adults and enter them for exams. I persuaded and encouraged the students to perform for Arts festivals, events, and charity shows. 

I wanted to take dance into the community and started promoting Dance in local school and colleges. This was very welcomed and supported enthusiastically by Head teachers, parents, the local council and the current mayor of my town.  I introduced after school dance clubs. The feed back was positive and realisation of the beneficial contribution dance makes to students emotionally, physically and in some cases psychologically. At this time, I was contracted to teach key stages 1 & 2 in at St. Bede’s and St. Anne’s Junior School and key stage 4 at Bishop Challoner School where I devised and delivered my own topic.

I would collaborate with ‘Arts’ Organisations such as ‘Hampshire Dance Trust’, Eastleigh Arts’ and BT Dance’96. Organisations such as these gave community dance groups a platform to perform with other groups in the UK .

I would suggest to local theatres, The Anvil and Haymarket, with funding from local council to arrange master classes for local dance students with the professional performers from the show

In 1995 I was contracted for three years to teach dance at ‘The Vyne School’ at  key stage 3.  I was given a budget, this was a wonderful opportunity to bring in out reach workers for different styles of dance to stimulate and influence the students with different styles. Street dance was especially successful for the boys with male professional dance teachers.  End of term performances were arranged in collaboration with the Music, Drama and Art departments. I was delighted to have contributed and helped this school to achieve ‘Performing Arts’ status.  

I would regularly produce, direct and choreograph shows but in 1997 I secured lottery funding for a community dance project.  I produced, directed and choreographed a musical show on a larger scale with 200 performers.  All the administration, legal contracts, designing of costumes, theatre management, technicians, scenery, licenses, music, professional guest artistes contracts, marketing and advertising with local and national media was on a bigger scale.  I realised after that I should have asked for more people to help with this project.  It was after this I retired from teaching due to burn out.  Along side my teaching I had a regular life with two sons and a Professional husband to look after.

In 1999 I made the decision to work for a corporate company to help finance our sons University Education.  I joined the Telecoms industry through my husband’s company. I progressed from Customer Services to Sales & Marketing Manager through to Product Manager.  I was motivated and determined to succeed in this new career path that I endured for several years. There were challenges of learning new skills, such as Microsoft word, excel, power point, the world wide web, at intermediate level and understanding the commercial world of Data and Telecoms Industry.

The last company I worked for was Virgin Media as Support Account Manager.

My duties included; Management and Coordination of all Ethernet & CPC

provisioning, quotations, orders and billing, presentation of financial analysis and

the management of the Business Tracker and a shared target with my account

manager for revenue for Business of £10 million.  I Co-organised the

‘Three Peaks Challenge’. My previous employments were in similar industries.

During that time I studied the Latin Dances socially. I started to teach beginners

as a guest teacher and I concentrated on my technique.  Three years ago I started

Middle Eastern Dance and am now studying the music and culture.

In June 2010 I became a free lance dance teacher.

My web site is; www.corinda.co.uk  I am currently teaching Dance in Education

in Primary, Junior & Secondary Schools,

I am a choreographer for First Dance UK, (wedding dances). I love the challenge

of working in collaboration  with non dance couples to produce a dance

performance for their wedding. The process is immensely satisfying and my

instincts and intuition are at their highest. I have had walk on parts in a

Bollywood Film (Tezz) and had the experience on a film set with Anil Kapoor,

Ajay Davgan, Kangana and Zaheed Khan. Director;Priya Darshan
I danced in a video shoot with 'Smokey Bastards' band with Face TV

(www.facetv.co.uk)

My long term career plan is as Lecturer in Dance. BAPP in Arts conversion course came at

the right time.  It will be challenging, engaging and will give me the opportunity to pursue

my continuing passion for the Art of dance. 

I have tons of experience but haven’t had the opportunity to reflect, analyse

or internalise my skills. I am self motivated, eager, determined, and enthusiastic. 

I value the opportunity to further my education as a mature student and discover

skills needed to become successful in my future career, as Dance Lecturer.

My first meeting with my Academic Adviser

Beautiful sunny day today, I drove up to Trent Park from Hampshire, I didn't sail up without traffic jams and road works so the journey was a little long and painful but when I got within the grounds I instantly began to relax, enjoy and soak up the academic energy that was wafting around the lush, magnificent surroundings and thinking how I'd like to spend time strolling around the grounds, which transported me to some of the outdoor scenes of 'Pride and Prejudice' but reality kicked in ... So I met with my adviser with hope I would get some help, clarity and relieve me from the pain of overload information, confusion and noises in and around my head about the first module.  With my adviser's help a miracle did occur and I managed to put much of my past experiences into compartments to recall for later modules.  ~Well the fog began to clear and I could see what was expected of me..So, I have started my first draught of TASK 1a PROFESSIONAL PROFILE and I'll post it soon. I look forward to your comments, this way I can get to know you as I can't attend most of the Campus sessions due to work commitments.

Corinda: Corinda

Corinda's Lift off!

Hello, I've just set up this blog page and am still learning how to add to it. As a Dance Teacher, I don't often get the chance to link with other like minded people and exchange experiences within the world of the Performing Arts. So, here we are at the off set of my BAPP (BA Honours) Professional Practice course.