feature,
Feature: Do you know Ballet?
Elegance, flexibility, passion and a lot of… tip-toes? These are what might come to mind upon hearing the word “ballet”. But what is it really? How come it’s a rare topic in UPIS? To answer these questions, we talked to Erika Sasazawa of 11 - Amado V. Hernandez and asked her to share her experiences and insights regarding Ballet.
Erika dances gracefully during their recital entitled “10 Ten D Sarapen” last March 31, 2019 at the Ateneo Irwin Theatre, Quezon City. Retrieved from Erika Sasazawa.
Erika started learning ballet 11 years ago with her sister at Powerdance for jazz, hip-hop and ballet. Erika’s mother enrolled Erika and Erika’s sister due to her love for dancing. Erika was just six years old back then and she doesn’t really remember well what genre of dance she loved the most but, regardless, ballet is where she stayed because she saw its benefits.
Ballet helps with the coordination of movement, especially with music, Erika shared. It trains the body to have better muscle memory and to be more flexible. Besides that, Erika mentioned that ballet taught her discipline, not just in terms of respect, but also in terms of her diet.
Erika (in the far right), along with her dancemates, performs their routine on “10 Ten D Sarapen” on March 31, 2019 at the Ateneo Irwin Theatre, Quezon City.
However, Erika said, the other dancers sometimes do the diet discipline at extreme levels, leading to anorexia. Besides the possible chance of having anorexia, there are also quite a number of struggles that Erika faced as she continued her ballet life. One of which is keeping your commitment to the activity. According to Erika, if you really want to do ballet, you have to give up a lot of time.
Other than that, you should also take care of your wallet because, you’d most probably be spending a lot of money for ballet classes. According to Erika, in a month, she spends an approximate P5,000.00 for her ballet. This includes the tuition fee of the dance school and other miscellaneous expenses for the costumes for recitals.
Lastly, just like every sport, you should be open to criticisms because ballet is all about looking like you’re not struggling while you perform, said Erika. Instead, these criticisms should be used as your fuel to further improve, Erika said. Also, she added that sometimes it’s a lot of pressure to catch up and learn the choreography on time.
“Mahirap kasi sumayaw. I mean, habang sumasayaw ka kasi, nag-iisip ka [ng steps] and kasi, nagwo-worry ka rin [sa sayaw].” Erika said. (It’s hard to dance. I mean, while you’re dancing, you think about the steps and you worry about the dance as well.)
10-Ten D Sarapen posters shows the date and the venue of the event. Retrieved from: Erika Sasazawa
These are only some of the struggles that Erika could mention. Despite these, Erika still continues to attend ballet practices every other day. Asked why she continues to do ballet despite the struggles, Erika said that, for her, she has not yet reached her full potential and she wants to keep challenging herself to be better. As a matter of fact, Erika recently transferred to Manila Ballet from IDMM Ballet School, her previous school so that she can have trainings more often. She shared that in her last school, IDMM, there were only trainings twice per week.
Though some may say that ballet is just a waste of time, effort and money, for Erika, it’s more than just a mere hobby. Erika said ballet is a difficult activity but she considers it her passion and it gives her a feeling of satisfaction. //by Kiel Dionisio & Ned Pucyutan
0 comments: