DAY 117 - March 11th 2014 (By Elin Karabuda)

DAY 117 - March 11th 2014 (By Elin Karabuda)

Right now we are being educated on teaching. 

Last time we focused on Intermediate Level Classes. 

This time around it’s beginners (for students taking their first dance class)

Each one of us gets to teach one class.  

And guess who the students are? 

I can’t here you. Oh forget it… It’s us. 

We don’t even have to act ourselves as beginners. 

No no. 

This is our chance to be who ever we want to be. 

No boundaries what so ever. 

The enormous freedom paralyzed my imagination and I was stuck characterless. 

Anyhow, today it was Mantas and Anton’s time to work their magic. 

Both of them did a really good job, I would say. 

They started with a cute introtalk, where we got to know them a little bit and how they see HipHop. 

Then they broke down some basic steps and grooves. 

Later they went into a simple choreo.

Since Anton is teaching beginners on a regular basis he was working that class. 

He was very calm (in a good, none sleepy way) and he still filled the room with energy. 

Mantas did a heck of a job too. 

I like how he was able to somehow keep his style, even though the playground of moves had been drastically reduced. 

So if you two are reading this, here is a pat on the shoulder.

I’m out.

Elin Karabuda

DAY 116 March 10th 2014 (By Kallum Khaos)

DAY 116 March 10th 2014 (By Kallum Khaos)


Hola!

Today started with the Warm Up/Work Out – which if my blog post got put up for Friday of last week, you will know I love  :-D

This was followed by a breakin' class with K, which was really productive. 
We all made mini sets from the steps we covered and shown them in front of the rest of the class. 
Mine was created from variations of steps I'm already (semi) comfortable with – for example I took a 6 step that we covered and instead used 4 step in my set - I took zulu spins, and instead worked with 1 handed zulu spins. 
It was a good session.

After lunch we recapped a routine that Jeppe from Robot Boys taught us, it's been a while but it came back to us quicker than I expected. If you've not seen the clip you can check it out here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbZYiqgmIxo

After Jeppe we had a nice long stretch – it always feels good to get a full 30 minutes to stretch :-)

We finished the day with a meeting about making a teaser/trailer for our upcoming dance production. I don't want to give away too much but you will see when it's out. Exciting times!!

Catch you soon.

Peace

Kallum

DAY 115 - March 7th 201 (By Denice M Solberg)

DAY 115 - March 7th 201 (By Denice M Solberg) 

Blog time! 

So today was a very productive day in the MATRIX office! 

We are starting to form a pretty good manuscript that I am excited about! 

It is very fun to see where this is going! 

If you have no clue of what I am talking about, we are having a graduation show with The Hip Drop evening students 27th of June. 

It is going to be based around the three Matrix movies and it’s going to be very cool, I am sure! 

Today we decided what we wanna focus on other than the choreographies, like who will be in charge of costumes, promotion, lighting, programs, stage decorations and stuff like that. 

We are learning so much from this project and we feel like this is our little baby!

Before the Matrix meeting we had an insane Warm-Up session + Class with Lin. 

She got inspired by Huyns classes with us last week and wanted to push our limits and kill us a little bit. 

We learned a simple (but don’t take it wrong-it was still hard) choreo to 

”Rihanna/Where Have You Been” and we actually did the whole song with some freestyling in there. 

I was struggling, but I had so much fun!! 

She wanted us to feel the commercial side of dancing and imagine ourselves on a stage with an artist. She pushed and pushed and in the end she gave us some personal feedback on what was good and what she would want differently.

It was a very good day today like usual, but now I’m looking forward to a nice and relaxed weekend! We have a new girl moving into the Shore this weekend, so that is going to be exciting! She is a dancer from Stockholm who is going to do a big dance gig in Copenhagen. 

I’m looking forward to having some new energy in the house!

Take care and enjoy your weekend guys!

Denice Miriam Solberg

Day 114 – March 6th 2014 (By Anton Swerkström)

Day 114 – March 6th 2014 (By Anton Swerkström)

Tjena Blog!

The days/weeks are passing by quickly now, almost felt like yesterday I wrote my last blog entry, but I guess its really been eight school days. Its probably because we are working pretty intensely now both in school and after school as well, everyone is stepping up their game and are really putting in work in different areas and things we individually need to improve.
For me its taking more evening classes as well as lots of freestyle practice, to push my physical ability, and to prepare for the upcoming battle. 
I have been at the school for aproxm. twelve hours everyday except for one this week. 
But its so much fun I dont mind it at all :-)

After a one and a half hour WarmUp/WorkOut program today we had class with co-director Karsten who actually taught probably the first choreo that will be used for our big end production in June. 
Epic music, high tempo and lots of level changes, legs felt a little rubbery after wards :-)

The whole afternoon we spent on working on the Matrix show and today we finished up the script. 
We now have a complete story line and it feels really good! 
This show is gonna be so dope and I cant wait to get into it even more and start choreographing soon. 
If you are in Malmö or live anywhere close to here, or even if you live super far away I dont care, you should definitely try and be there the 27^th of June because it will be sick.

Im really in a training mode now and it feels awesome. 
I think its because everything we have done up until now is starting to make sense for me, and I am starting to be able to apply it more and more. 
We talked about it a couple days ago, and it feels like some things we learn here take some time to sink in, even things we did last semester is now starting to click for us. 

That will probably go on even when the education is over. 

Hopefully this determination I have right now will last, and I am gonna try and push myself even more in the future. 
I am gonna take advantage of every single second I have left of this amazing experience!

See you in eight school days!

Anton Swerkström

DAY 113 - March 5th 2014 (By Elina Ayako)

DAY 113 - March 5th 2014 (By Elina Ayako)

Hey you, haven't talked too you in a while.. 
Is that a new haircut? 
Maybe a new shirt? 
Ha - I knew it, you look fabulous dear! 

Anyway, let me tell you a little about our day at the education.
Today our schedule was a little different than usual.
We got an assignment from Lin and K to prepare a class for beginners. 
It's a scenario in which we are teaching them for the first time, and the focus of the class is to introduce them to the world of hip hop dance and make them hungry for more.

So Denice had the hard task of going first - and she did a really good job! 
Whilst the person in front is busy trying to be a motivating and positive teacher, the "fake" beginner students (us) are trying to mess up on purpose to create a more genuine class environment. 
I must admit, it's pretty funny!! 
We might have given Denice a little bit of a hard time (apologies for that!) but she handled the out of control kids well. 

Elin was up next and her class was totally different to the first one - she decided to go with a robot routine!! 
This was definitely fun to learn, she incorporated some isolations and fixpoints so we could really get the feel of being a robot. 
And Elin's humor is just epic.. 
To explain a move, she gave us the image of a small person blowing wind at us (what the heck, right?!)

So we had a lot of good laughters in her class. 

For the last beginners class, it was Cecilia's turn. 
She chose a Swedish song and used a lot of funny stories and images to explain the moves. 
All in all the classes were super fun!

The evaluation was extremely helpful. We took a look back on all the classes, and Lin and K gave us very specific feedback on how a beginners class should look like. 
So here are some pointers to what I'll remember for the future:

- If you chose to give an introduction to what "hip hop" is, make sure to do your research,   mention the right names and give them an insight on the whole culture, not just the dance part of it

- The warm up and stretching part of your class has to be very well explained. 
Break it down as much as possible so that your students get warmed up properly and don't injure   themselves by stretching the wrong way.

- During the class, give an explanation on basic terms like "choreography", "eight counts",   "marking" etc. 
All those words are new for them so make sure to properly introduce them to the dance-language

- MAKE THEM DANCE! 
Try to avoid any technical exercises, poses or stops as much as  possible and try to focus more on grooving, moving, and making them sweat! 
When it  comes to being more detailed and teaching them the more technical side of dance, it is better to wait a couple of classes until they are really committed to dance

These are only a couple of things we learned today. 
There is way more to learn about how to teach beginners, it is definitely the most challenging group of people to teach, and you also have the biggest responsibility. 
Maybe some of you blog readers have learned something as well or just found it interesting to read what we are learning in school. 

See you next time!

Elina Ayako

DAY 112 – March 4th 2014 (By Mantas Rimeikis)

DAY 112 – March 4th 2014 (By Mantas Rimeikis)

Hello bloggg


I discovered a new thing about myself today – I really enjoy getting down on the floor and doing some crazy floor moves, there is a lot of room for improvement, but I know I’ll get there.

After our long warm up/work out we had K, and he is teaching a breaking/toprock routine which we will probably use in the MATRIX show. 

When he started to show us some floorwork techniques that’s where I found myself trying new stuff that works well for my body. 
Apparently I am strong in my core, and have pretty good control on the floor, getting down & up, something that I am slowly incorporating in my freestyle too.

As you know we are working pretty hard on the MATRIX already and good news are that we are almost done with the Manuscript, which means we can soon start selecting the music and start choreographing, I am excited !


Till next week! 


Mantas

DAY 111 - March 3rd 2014 (By Cecilia Tram)

DAY 111 - March 3rd 2014 (By Cecilia Tram)


Hey world! 

Cc writing again :-) 
I hope you all are doing good and feeling happy. 
Today we talked alot! 
We evaluated Hyun and we talk about the beginners class we are going to teach. 

Lin is giving us assignments to prepare and teach a Beginners class, an Intermediate Class and an Advanced Class.

It is actually hard to come up with an easy choreography because you got so much knowledge now, and you want to use it. 
You hear the different drums or snares and you just want to hit them. 
Hahaha it is funny to hear me saying that but it just shows that I have developed a lot since start and that is amazing! 
Hug to myself :-) 

We had also a class with K today. 
I think his classes are always fun, and it is a good level for me, but I really need to work more on floorwork. 
My butt is to heavy  :-)  feeling like a kid trying to learn how to walk. 
Thank god that we are not filming those classes. 

Hmmm...I'm thinking what more I can tell you guys. 
I am still on a high from last week and I'm so happy that Mantas confirmed that I'm part of the group now. 
Haha it feels good! 
I'm always going to remember you for that ;-) haha it is not as bad as it sounds. 

We were going to give each other feedback, and he meant that I'm not the black sheep that I think I am anymore.....because that is how I have been feeling.
And now I don't have to feel it anymore. 
Haha love it! 

Hm...I don't think I can come up with more. 
Love to you all.


Cecilia Tram

DAY 110 - Friday February 28th 2014 (By Marilena Maouni)

DAY 110 - Friday February 28th 2014 (By Marilena Maouni)

This week I felt like I was at a boot camp.

It was by far the most hardcore week physically and I'm considering joining the military after this

Today was our last day with Hyen and it was a little bit different from what we did the rest of the week.

First class we did House, and even though our stamina was tested once more, I enjoyed it.

Hyen has a unique style which I would describe as "airy" and "light" when it comes to House, and learning from a female teacher makes a difference as well.

Second class for today and last class for this week we went a little deeper with the Old School Grooves that we learned the very first week Hyen was here. 

The challenge was to do the foundations with different styles of music and adjust the movement accordingly. 

House, Reggae, Old School Hip Hop, New School Hip Hop ...switching dynamics, levels, we tried pretty much everything! It was a cool exercise to make us think, and take our knowledge to the next level.

Stretching and Matrix meeting was the last thing we did at the school for this week.  

But now we are getting famous and we have a camera crew following us so our day didn't stop there. 

We all went to our house "Malmo Shore" had dinner and played games.

It was one of the most fun nights I've had here, we laughed so much! 

I am really glad that I live at the same house together with the others, it makes the experience even better and it doubles the fun!

Have a nice weekend

Marilena

DAY 109 - February 27th 2014 (By Elin Karabuda)

DAY 109 - February 27th 2014 (By Elin Karabuda)

So it’s the fourth day of Huyen. 

This time along she’s no joke… 

It would be a nice rest to join the military at this point. 

Our muscles have been cut out, beaten, sliced in pieces, yelled at and put back.

We continued working on the choreo. 

She split us up in smaller and smaller groups, until it got to solos. 

Again, EVERYONE impressed me. 

I got so excited so I just have to share.

I’ve never seen Kallum go so full out. 

But still he kept his chill moments at the perfect places. 

His freestyle parts really captured me. 

I’ve already seen that he is a sick freestyler but this was something totally different. 

I can’t even explain it. 

Cus it wouldn’t add up. 

So I wont.

Mantas keeps getting better and better at using his giantness to his benefit. 

It was soooo powerful, cus it looked like he switched levels from 100 to 1 meter within one count! From that, he was able to immediately switch to his normal chill and controlled Mantas-movements. And his expressions… I got scared.

Elina did this piece so good. 

Her natural movement and expression fits so well to this. 

Also I saw a more powerful/hulk-ish side of her. 

And yea I got a bit scared of her too. 

Anton is such a strong dancer and today he widened his horizons. 

He showed that he, with no problem, can go on super relax mode in-between his killer moments. 

That, combined with super committed expressions, made it a success.

I’m so proud of Marilena. 

Her many hours of practicing extra on her own showed clearly now. 

Everything I know she has been working on was spot on today!

Denice’s strong side shined trough so well in this choreo. 

I’m talking about her capturing expressions. 

It felt so real that I just wanted to run up and hug her and say that everything is going to be okay. Then I remembered that it just was a performance, so I stopped myself.

Cecilia keeps surprising us. 

Something I haven’t seen so much from her before was strong dynamics. 

All of a sudden she mastered it. 

How? We don’t know. 

Her expressions was so different and varied this time. 

It was so strong that I felt that a different person stood in front of me. 

And again I got scared for my life.

So to sum the day up: I got scared.

Elin Karabuda