Little African Dancers

April 20

Well I was asked to direct an African dance for 28 four and five year olds! At first, the owner of the dance school asked me for a video of one of our African dances from "my mothers shows", but I told her I didn't have one and that they were all in America. So she asked if I could have someone send them here, I told her no because it would cost too much money. So she asked me to make up a dance for a performance they are doing in June. Today was my first day.

I got to the studio at 2pm and didn't leave till 5pm. There were, just as she said, 28 four and five year olds who were so tiny and cute. Luckily, they were the best behaved and most coordinated 4 and 5 year olds I have ever met in my life. They did not misbehave whatsoever. They were all made to stand in rows and perfect rows otherwise they were yelled at by my two assistants. One girl touched the girl in front of her and the teacher smacked her hand and yelled at her in front of the class and the parents who sat in on the class. Well these kids turned out to be better than some of the teenagers I have taught African dance too. They picked up most of the stuff right away, not everything and not all of them. But there were a few girls in the front who were great and looked great doing it even though they were only about 3 feet tall.

At one point I was having the kids do a forward roll and not everyone could do it, so I separated the kids by saying yes or no (because my assistants did not speak English, so we had a very hard time talking and translating) and putting them on one side of the room or the other. I only did this because there were too many kids for this one part so I wanted to divide it into sections with two groups doing two different things. After class the teachers who were with me were trying to tell me something, they were saying it all in Chinese and I didn't understand a word but they were also drawing it and what I got out of it was that the kids who could not do the dance were to be sent home. Their exact words were "yes, no, no-goodbye! go home" I was SHOCKED. That was not my intention when I was separating the kids and I DO NOT want to send a 4 year old home because she can not do one move. How traumatizing! So I'm going to ignore that "translation" and just keep the groups separated giving them moves they can do.

The kids danced for 2 1/2 hours straight! Every time they did something wrong they were yelled at, anytime they talked or got out of line, they were yelled at. Which I guess is why they are such good dancers. Definitely a completely different setting and teaching style than in America.

After 2 1/2 hours of dancing in the heat and humidity because there was no air conditioning or fans, the poor girls were exhausted and sweaty but were still made to stand in straight lines, standing up straight to do their end of class routine.
the girl in the pink stripped long sleeved shirt was really really good at African

one of the youngest and smallest girls in the class, again this was after 2 1/2 hours of dancing in the heat- poor thing

April 21

one of the girls got spanked today during rehearsal because she wasn't standing in line straight. for one of the formations i was trying to get them to do a circle holding the persons hips in front of them, they couldn't do it and were "fooling around" so one of the mothers came out and started yelling at them. she got them to do it right. there is no stepping out of line in this Chinese dance class!