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One of the reasons I moved to Chicago was for Chicago summer dance. Dancing to a live band with a fantastic view of the skyline won me over. Hosted by the department of Cultural Affairs, it provides free dance lessons followed by social dancing. The styles vary each night, ranging
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8/16/2015 I’m back. I needed to take a break to work on a few projects. You have to prioritize to spend time on things that will fulfill you. Life is hard and can be a very heavy thing. I just want to encourage you to be kind and to keep
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8/24/14 This will be the final post for my summer apprenticeship with Denita and Desueño this summer, and I am ending on an exciting note. Denita has decided that Mi Bongo, the piece we’ve been working on, will be a duet. It didn’t feel like a great time to push
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8/17/14 As we continue to work on the bachata choreography at Desueño practices, I love feeling the steps become more familiar. Unlike Llego, I was able to learn this choreography from the first day it was taught, which makes it much easier to commit to memory. Today Denita added arms
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8/10/14 This was a pretty exciting week! On Thursday I met with Denita at MMA with four more 8-counts to add to the Mi Bongo choreography. First we rehearsed what we had put together last week, and we had both forgotten certain aspects, so I was glad I had taken
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7/3/14 This week I got to make my own energy flow chart for the mambo piece I would be helping create! After listening to Mi Bongo, the mambo song we’d chosen, over and over several times, I made that horizontal line that represented the length of the song and divided
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7/27/14 Earlier this week I met with Denita and she walked me through her process for creating choreography. After selecting the song, she creates an energy flow chart for the song to map out what she envisions the dance will look like based on the different sections of the song.
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7/21/14 This Sunday Desueño had a little photo shoot at Links Hall, a seductively hidden arts and performance space complete with an old-fashioned wooden bar. I helped by taking videos of the dances against the backdrop of the wooden auditorium seats. It’ll be useful to have this footage on file
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7/17/14 This blog will be about my experience practicing with Desueño for the summer of 2014, and learning from Denita Inez about her process creating choreography and managing a career in dance. She’s described to me the different methods that artists have incorporated to make a career in dance work,
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I took a break from writing since recital season hit. I’m glad I took the time to really soak in the experience. I really enjoy creating choreography and developing young dancers. So what has happened in my mini-verse? I created Desueño, a ladies styling group, and we just celebrated our
