We have choreography assessments at the end of the month and this means that we dance in each others. Its starting to get hetic and complicated to arrange rehearsal times. It goes something like this can you do a rehearsal 6-7.30 on tuesday? I have a rehearsal with such a body...How about 7.30-9 on wednesday? I can't do wednesdays. Ok. But you can do sunday? Yes. Other dancer pipes up, I can't do sundays...and it goes on.

Right now I feel like my piece is nooo where from being done and there is no space or time to get it done......hhhmmmm.

Tuesday night I had a rehearsal for one of the pieces I am in. We did quite a lot of stuff which the choreographer was pleased with, and we, the dancers, were pleased, and we were all like yeah! This is going to be good!

On wednesday the choreographer had a tutorial, which means you get to show what material you have been working on so far and get feedback.

We showed the material. And they said, well, a lot actually. To change this..that doesn't work. You got seduced by the movement here..what are you trying to say with this here? How can you translate this idea to movement? This is better - was it at the end of the process?

After spending a lot of time and thought making movement, and knowing there's not much time is an issue, these kind of feedback sessions can feel like someone just placed a brick wall in front of you.

But we all agreed that all the feedback was true. We just hadn't seen it.

And I found it amusing that the night before we had all been so pleased with our little selves, and the next day we were like oh yeah actually. There's a lot to do.

And I got excited. Because it reminded me that we are at the very beginning. At the very beginning of a pretty big journey. That we have sooooo much to learn.

But to be honest that feels pretty darn good.

I was watching dance videos on on YouTube (I'm sorry Neil (it's ok, don't make a habit of it though! ;o) Ed!)) and I searched an American choreographer, called Rennie Harris, and his company Puremovement. I was lucky to enough to see his company perform live in Manchester about five years ago, and meet his dancers. I made friends with one and went to meet up with him in Amsterdam, where the company were performing.

It was my first experience of a professional dance company, and set the standard for how I wanted to work in the future. It was like one big family. I was amazed that the dancers would come from all over the the place, and their separate projects, and unite to produce a tight, completely connected performance. Rennie's magic. I was in awe.

It was also because of this chance meeting that I ended up in NYC and met Makeda Thomas, I highly important person in my dance story/life. This was the time I realised dance was for me. So although I have barely seen any of Rennie's work his influence in my life has been huge. And I'm still in awe.

But enough about me. The point of this blog - I was watching a documentary about Rennie's new work '100 Naked Locks'. At the end if the 'Part 1' video he talks about teachers using a structure in class to help teach, and students taking it to heart as the way things have to be.

This reminded me of something I have mentioned before - the fact that sometimes its hard to feel like your dancing when you're doing a technique class. I think its something everybody struggles with while doing a dance degree (and if you don't please tell us the secret!).

To be thinking of the exercises, all the 'correct' ways to work, your specific things to work on, breath and still dance is a skill that most defiantly takes time and practise to achieve.

In the 'Part 2' of Rennie's documentary he says 'If they [the dancers] are thinking and counting then they're not dancing...they're not engaged. They're on top of the rhythm not absorbed in the rhythm.'

I thought this was really beautiful and wanted to share it with everyone. And remind you, and myself, that its just about dancing.

Click here to see Rennie and his company in action

Through out life as a dance student you will at some point come up of against the topic of marking creative work - how should it be marked? how CAN it be marked? Its a matter of taste..its a matter of experience. Somethings don't work as a finished piece but the process was valuable. So then where is the relevance of a mark? And it goes on...

I remember in first year as it came to choreography assessment time the teachers were discussing this very topic and they made the point that sometimes people get a high mark and the next time a low one, or visa versa. And there is no really explanation why. Sometimes creativeness is successful. Sometimes it ain't.

On Monday I went to see Jasmin Vardimon's 'Yesterday', the piece to celebrate ten years of her work.

On paper this should be an amazing piece. It took movement from ten years of top level dance/s, from a highly talented choreographer, using extremely physical dancers. But for me it didn't work.

I felt it lacked a sense of meaning. I loved the physicality of the movement and thought some of the dancers were amazing performers. But I couldn't connect to the piece as whole. There was too much information, for which I couldn't find a common theme to relate to. Perhaps the fact that some of the movement had been taken directly from previous pieces meant it lost its context, hence the feeling (for me) of the movement having a slightly superficial feel.

So there you go, as I contemplated the piece I just wanted to let all those current and future dance students know -don't stress! Sometimes things will work. Sometimes they won't. And if something doesn't quite work it doesn't mean you failed/ your not creative/ etc etc.

Its just part of the trade we're in. What makes it exciting. And also what makes it kind of tough.

I was trying to write something for this week, and normally ideas come quite easily to me..... this week nothing. Its the first time thats ever happened.

I was gonna waffle on about the fact that its half term..already?? still got to think about school in the holidays because we have assessments virtually straight away when we return..blah blah.

And I thought about talking about the dance student and time thing..i.e there is non. (We are starting to prepare for choreography assessments at the end of november and it means juggling rehearsal times and such...) but that seemed so over done. Yes, we have no time, but lets get over it.

So I decided if something hasn't come into my brain naturally there's no point forcing it. I'll get back to you when I actually have something to say...

I didn't quite know how to begin this blog but then I remembered the topic in hand....truth. So I'm going to tell it how it is.

I was working on a phrase for movement studies, as were a few other students, when someone from my year approached me with a problem. (I have never spoken to this student before, as we are in different classes for everything, but I was happy to help, and hoped I could).

They have recently transfered from a ballet school, straight in to second year here at NSCD. This must really hard and a bit of a shock to the system as ballet and contemporary are two very different things.

The problem for this person was they were questioning their choice to transfer and were unhappy with some elements of contemporary. And were having difficulty changing their habitual movement patterns.

My advise went something along the lines of this its hard, and it will take time, but don't think about if it was the 'right choice' yet as its too early, its probably just a lot to cope with right now because its so new. But if you want to be a rounded, adaptable dancer you have to try everything, even the stuff you don't want to do/don't like. Because you may have to do it on day.

They asked me about movement studies (we do a lot of improvisation) and I told what i saw, that for the last few classes this person had done pretty similar movement, and if they want to change they have to really think about changing their habitual movement patterns.

Unfortunately this upset them, which of course was not my intention in the slightest. So I made the next, important point, not to worry about it! Its not 'wrong' to do the same movement. We all struggle with changing our movement style. Its hard! By trying to break our habits its not to change our natural movement, its to make us stronger and broader in movement range.

I hoped my advice had helped, and thought how tough it must be for this person, especially having missed the first year of training here.

Sadly, I have since learnt that this person has said that I was particularly mean and cruel to them at their low point.

Of course, I was quite offended, and upset by this. And I decided to blog this because I think it highlights a couple of important points;

1. Dance students please please please don't act like this. A dance degree is hard enough without bitching and talking behind each other's back. Support each other.

2. Supporting each other requires an element of truth. Always always tell the truth to each other. Don't be afraid to tell someone your opinion, but of course be sensitive about how you say things.

3. As a dance student/dancer you HAVE to learn how to handle people telling you the truth, or things that are not necessarily pleasant or easy to hear. Develop a sense of objectiveness about your self.

4. If you don't like hearing the truth don't ask people.

Today we went to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, as part of our 'ideas in art' module. There was a an exhibition of Isamu Noguchi's work, who to quote the Parks brochure was;

'one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, Noguchi created and important body of work, including both small-scale and monumental sculpture, environmental projects, public commissions and landscapes as well as stage designs for the North-American choreographer Martha Graham. In addition, Noguchi developed some of the most influential pieces of furniture and household objects of his era.'

There was some really beautiful pieces of work, both sculptural and sketching. It was also quite strange to see things that had been part of Graham productions, considering a lot of my experience as a dance student has been influenced by her.

It was amazingly sunny (apparently this trip is always co ordinated with rainy days..), the trees looked stunningly autumnal and there were beautiful sculptures everywhere.

I thought to my self I love my degree.

On thing I've learnt through my dance training, and through my friends who are already well established in the dance world, is that you can't wait for opportunities. You got to make them.

As in with this blog. I had an idea about it, I emailed Article19, and (to my great surprise actually) they said yes.

Last week I emailed the Trisha Brown Company, to let them now that I would be in NYC for two weeks at the start of December and offering my help in their office. When I received a reply accepting my offer it was rather unexpected.

You know what? You really never know what's going to happen. If you have an idea do it.

I know that the reason for article19 giving me this little corner of their cyber world was to give the wonderous readers an insight into the life of a dance student, and I am aware that recently I have been talking more about my views about dance/what it is to be a dancer rather than life as a dancer.

But it ain't stopping just yet. I have a bee in my bonnet and need to release into the web.

But this is the thing you see, I have said it before and I'll say it again. When it comes to being a dance student/dancer every life experience counts. Even if its not directly related to you as a dancer, it will eventual effect your dance in some way.

Its these darned 'celebrity'/gossip magazines such as (an there are many more than this..and they are all equally as bad) heat, look, now.

In my eyes they are the down fall of Britain. They are the reason that everyone looks the same, they distract people from what is important, they promote shallow thought driven by image and they give the impression that a 'celebrity' life style is 1. desirable 2. achievable. In short they are slowly and surely rotting the brains of the very people that should be inspired and imaginative in Britain's development - i.e young people.

What, I hear you shout, has this to do with dance?

Well, maybe nothing. Maybe its my over dramatic brain. But I feel their evil spirit leaves no where untouched, including dance.

My last blog was referring to the fact people really disliked the Rosas performance and justified their comments with statements such as 'it was boring' or 'it wasn't entertaining'.

After the performance, on the coach back from London, we stopped at a service station and when the journey resumed I was literally surrounded by people reading the waste of paper that are the magazines I am talking about.

And there lies the problem (in my view). These magazines promote a throw away culture, fast paced, 'glamorous', always with a new trend and lots of over sensationalized controversy. With no real intelligence behind it.

This creeps in to the psyche of the reader. And when they go and watch a two and half hour performance with no interval, with lots of repetitive movement, when the effect requires a thought process from them and the dancers aren't doing tricks it is, of course, a boring, pointless piece. And the dancers have no technique.

I would like to leave you with this quote from Georges Perec's book 'Spieces of Spaces and Other Pieces'.

'What speaks to us, seemingly, is always the big event, the untoward, the extra-ordinary: the front-page splash, the banner headlines. Railway trains only exist when they are derailed, and the more passengers that are killed, the more the trains exist. Areoplanes achieve existance only when they are hijacked.....The daily papers talk of everything except the daily. The papers annoy me, they teach me nothing. What they recount doesn't concern me, doesn't ask me questions and doesn't answer the questions I ask or would like to ask.'

Monday and tuesday was a change from the usual, the timetable was put on hold for a trip to London for a Steve Reich evening with Rosas dance company, at Sadler's Wells.

The trip was pretty exhausting I must say, with five hours on the coach about two hours to see something of London (which ain't much..we opted for expensive cake eating..) the two hour and a half hour non intervalled performance, a quick catch up with my old NSCD foundation friends who are now in the third year at Laban, a quick nightcap, and early start, another five hours on a coach and to finish it (us?) off a two and a half hour choreography class.

Did I enjoy it? As a travel experience hell no. I hate coaches and I constantly get frustrated that every time I go to London I never have any time to get to see things. As a dance performance, well, this is where the fun starts.

The year is quite definitely, and strongly, divided on the topic.

This, of course, is no problem, my mother once sent me a birthday card with the quote from George S. Patton 'If everybody is thinking alike then somebody isn't thinking', and my father often told me the world would be boring if we were all the same, and I quite agree.

But as dancers, and potentially, the future British dance scene, we must must have an open mind, a willingness to see and the ability to articulate and justify your reasons for liking/not liking a piece of work.

When I refer to an 'open mind' this is not saying that you must like everything. But for me, and open mind acknowledges that things can exist outside personal taste. Because a piece of work doesn't fit with a personal opinion of what is engaging the piece should not be dismissed as rubbish.

There are many people who thought the piece was incredibly boring, it wasn't 'entertaining' and the dancers had 'no technique'.

Lets start with the boring. Fine, maybe it bored you. Why? Explain. Don't just throw out the word boring. Thats easy. And maybe things are boring when you close yourself off. When I went to watch Trisha Brown my friend told me that if she is finding it difficult to engage with work she tries to see things differently, for example all the movement as lines, or just watch the hands, then it becomes interesting somehow.

Now, this concept of 'entertaining'. The obvious answer to the comment 'it wasn't entertaining' is 'does it have to be?' Personally, I imagine that it would be very difficult to find a contemporary dance company with the mission statement 'We aim to entertain'. If you like dance that entertains thats fine. But don't disappoint yourself by expecting something that probably won't be there. (Quite a few people who were disappointed with the lack of entertainment did acknowledge the Reich evening as a good example of art).

Finally, this thing about lack of technique. Thats the statement I found most most difficult to comprehend. We are training in contemporary dancers. We know how f.....g hard it is. There is NO way those dancers didn't have technique. Because if they didn't they simply wouldn't have been able to move in the way that they did.

I get the feeling that people are confusing what they expect technique to look like with actual technique. The Rosa dancers didn't look like 'typical' dancers and I think this confused some people. 'oh they don't look like a dancer. That must mean they have no technique'. I find this disrespectful to the dancers as it totally disregards all the work they have done to enable them to move with a speed and fluidity that was quite amazing at times.

I will hold my hands up and say personally the piece wasn't the most amazing experience for me. Yes. My mind drifted. (shock horror! Does that mean it was boring?) I didn't like all the dancers. (One actually irritated me a great deal). I didn't actually become properly engaged until the second to last piece (which must have been after about two hours. The 'main' female dancer was completely committed). But, to be honest the quality of the piece is not what concerns me with this discussion any more. Its how we are discussing.

My personal opinion is just that a little more thought is needed sometimes. About what people are trying to say, and how they say it.

Today we had a very enjoyable, and informative, film showing session with Darshan Sing Buller. I never knew he'd made such a varied array of film.

And I was inspired to share my badly shot, badly edited (when I have the money I'll buy the proper editing program and refine it some more....) short film

but until then..I still hope its enjoyable/gives something in even the slightest way...

When I started writing this blog I only told a few close friends at college. My reasoning for doing this was because I would 'rather people find it themselves than look for it.'

Last week a couple of people started to tell me they liked my blog. And after a while I discovered there was a link was on the opening page of the NSCD website. I had no idea that they were going to do this. And it shocked me slightly. I went down to the office to ask for it to be moved somewhere a bit more subtle.

The same night I spoke to Ricardo, the director of the company I work with in Berlin. I call him dad or papa, and he calls me Little One. He is my dance guru.

I told him about the asking for the blog to be moved. 'Little one, what a stupid thing to do' was his response.

I pathetically argued my case. But his wasn't having any of it. He pointed out that it was good for the college and good for my career. 'Just because you think something one day it doesn't mean you will the think the same the next, so why are you worried?'

Again, I feebly muttered excuses but I was beginning to realise the true motivation behind my actions.

Ricardo went on to say I was doing something public yet acting as though it was private. Like wanting to perform on stage then asking to go at the back.

And then I realised something. In class I struggle with really letting go and allowing myself to dance to my fullest. I have a fear of being exposed. Me trying to keep the blog quiet was a classic indication of this, and related directly to the things I'm trying to change.

As a dance student you are forced to become more aware of your self and make connections between all aspects of you life. As everything eventually connects back to your dance.

So, as the realisation set in I agreed with Ricardo and promised to offer the blog again for the front page of the website. (I have since done this).

And wondered if I'll ever be as wise as Papa.

Today I hung out with my Hungarian friend and we were talking about dance. She used to do ballroom, and has only seen 'contemporary' dance a couple of times. But she said to me 'it seems in contemporary dance it is the person, not the steps, that are important'.

I wanted to hug her. It made me so happy. Thats it. It was such a simple thing to say. But I would never have thought to express it this way.

When I was in Berlin I took my friend who is an architect to see Trisha Brown. He doesn't see himself as designing buildings, rather working with space, which I thought was pretty much what we do as dancers.

In the interval I asked him what he thought and he said 'I don't know yet'. He did of course have opinions, but it reminded me that some people don't do what I do. Contemporary dance is a totally new experience for them. And thats a good thing, because it also shows you your own knowledge.

Another time I took a couple of my friends who are really great street dancers to Sylvie Guillem and Russell Maliphant. They found it really difficult to understand how dancers could keep time with a sparse/non existent music score. 'But what about the counts?' they kept asking.

I love sharing dance with normos. It means I get to see things through fresh eyes.

The first week is over - and I feel like a month has gone by already. I think this is due to the fact of getting used to the long days. I always have this feeling after holidays, because so much happens, emotionally, physically and mentally, within one day, a day tends to feel like a week.

By wednesday everyone was suffering from usual problem - muscles screaming what the ?!@* what are you doing to me?! after a month or so holiday. But it was made easier by the fact I love my new teacher.

Tiia is responsible for our second year Cunningham experience. And I think its going to be a good experience.

She has so much energy and enthusiasm. And when she demonstrates everyone's draw drops in awe. In the little warm up gig we did at the start of each class I loved to watch her face. As she wore a genuine smile of enjoyment for what she was doing.

We also have a great new ballet teacher, Kimberley, who according to rumors (school is like a rumor factory so I try to close my ears) is my age, which is highly depressing, but also highly impressive because she's a dam fine teacher.

On friday we had movement studies and spent over an hour improvising. This was good. The mention of assessments and weighting of marks and deadlines and other scary things did make me gulp slightly.

But its ok. Its still great to be back.

So tomorrow is the first day back. Second year.

I'm not really nervous - I know what to expect. I'm just wondering how my body is going to be feeling, if anything will of changed over the summer. I feel changed, a year of work and development have had time to sink in physically and mentally.

And I got moved down a technique group. I'm not going to lie I was a bit disappointed. But what could be a better motivator?

Now is the time to practise what I preach about technique grades not being a mark on you as a person, or even dancer to a certain extent, and get on with it.

On sunday I was sitting in a gondola on the Grand Canal in Venice. (The gondolier was the father of my friend - one of NSCD's international students) It was the Historical Regatta and the buildings were licked gold buy the fading sun. Yesterday I landed in Liverpool to grey grey skies.

Its about that time. The summer is coming to and end and the start of school is just around the corner.

Its time to look back on the summer. I've learnt a lot - that I need to do make sure I keep up the movement that I do in Ricardo's class. I definitely have work on my hand stands. That I should never go anywhere with out Keith, my MacBook. To get a variation of classes - ones that are totally against your natural movement and challenge you (Ricardo's) and classes that make you feel good (Jessy's). That its all about communication - what you're trying to say, how you say it and what you actually end up saying.

Its time to think about the upcoming year. What do I have to do to get where I want to be? How will I cope with the creative work? What do I want to do with the creative work? Will I get everything done that I want to?

I want to go back. I love my NSCD routine. I'm ready to dance and get working again. But when people ask me if I'm pleased to go back it takes me a minute to say yes. Why is that I wondered.

Because I know its going to be tough. They are going to hit us with it as soon as we get back. And then thats it work work work until next july. It can be a bit daunting and requires a bit of mental preparation. (And that just to re adjust to the prospect of wearing lycra once again.....)

But if its easy something ain't right. So i'm going to quit my whining and say grrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Bring it on. Here's to a tough and busy and fun second year. I can't wait.