Dance Observation Paper

During my observation, I viewed a team of four dancers practicing together. They had been practicing together for some amount of time, and seemed to be starting to get frustrated with the situation. We were in a dance studio, and there were also two coaches sitting in on the practice to critique and change the dancing. On top of that, there were a few other girls scattered throughout the studio space, waiting for their time to dance. All of these factors contributed to the tension in the room. The team itself seemed to be somewhat disconnected. There were two distinct groups: two clusters, with two girls in each group. This seems rather odd, but also could be contributed to the fact that half of the girls were considerably older than the other half. Another observation that I made was that both sets of females were discussing what they had been learning, but not in a positive way. Both pairs of girls were criticizing the

Towards the beginning of the practice that I watched, they would call out vague corrections in hopes that the dancers would all think about what they had said, and the problem would be fixed. However, by the end of the practice, I noticed that the coaches had started calling out names along with the corrections, forcing the girls to realize what they were not comprehending. This may have fueled the gossiping between the groups of dancers. The last aspect that affected the dancers trying to practice were the surrounding girls. These girls were obviously peers, and had their own side conversations discussing what the group of dancers was doing right as well as what was wrong with the situation. There were bouts of audible giggling, as well as even some pointing. As a bystander, I noticed that this had a big impact as to how the girls were dancing. It was pushing them to do moves full out, as well as one of the girls on the team messing up under the