Here is a point about experiences, from my previous post, that I would like to develop further:
The breakthrough for me was being chosen to do Swan Lake with BRB. The experience I gained working with such a prestigious company was invaluable, and from what I learnt I was able to reflect on it, put it into practice and so for the future I knew what was the unknown before.
Every moment that passes by is in a way an experience, but there are certain events in your life that distinguish them to be 'life-learning'. It may differ from person to person on its value and meaning, but we all know that the one thing we do gain is to learn. That is why dancing with BRB in Swan Lake was a turning point for me, as at first it was something so extreme and so new to me but taught me so much about the future career I wanted to pursue.
We had all just come back from summer holidays, apprehensive about starting the graduate year.
I frequently saw billboards on the buses advertising that Swan Lake was coming back to the stage, and I remember thinking, "Wow how I wish I could do this one day." The next thing, the Ballet Mistress comes in to school to audition where I never even thought I would be considered. However next day, I heard the news how my friend and I were chosen to be covers. I was just ecstatic... not knowing what to expect.
The idea about performing with BRB dawned on me after a while, but I told myself how lucky I was to get such an experience and to just live every moment of it, even if we were just covers (only for a day!) The rehearsals felt like a whirlwind as it was all very last minute. We started off with the ballet mistress teaching us the first half of Act 11 and then going into the full rehearsal where all the dancers had known everything and had already been rehearsing for two weeks. That night we tried to cram an hour and a half of choreography from the DVD. I thought I was prepared for the next rehearsal having written down everything that I had learnt and watched it all, at least. But it gave me a huge shock when the girl I was covering was resting from injury, and so I was put in- for the whole run through of the ballet!
This is a perfect example of a 'reflection-in-action' experience, as in this case the best possible way to learn so much choreography in such a short amount of time is to just do it! When it got to the point of not knowing what to do, from every single direction the dancers were prompting me where to go and what steps to do. Sometimes I found myself running from one end of the room to the other to get to my correct spot, with occasional crashes along the way; one of the funniest but embarrassing moments of my life!
Although in the end, a day or two later I knew more or less the whole of Act II and Act IV, as I just had to learn from being in the moment. Reflecting 'off-line' by watching a DVD gives you the outline, but with all the different patterns and crossings it is best to just do it so your body learns where to go, therefore muscle memory plays a big part in this whole learning process.
Because we were on stage for 45 minutes at a time, you have to always be very alert having to be aware of your surroundings, not be out of line, and especially the for first few times -to remember everything (after only 5 rehearsals)! Luckily muscle memory kicks in as fast as any reflex action. I must admit I did not have enough rehearsals to be able to feel fully comfortable, but after a few performances the music and movements were familiar to me to be able to listen to my body and enjoy the whole process.
So here is a typical example of learning from an experience where the unknown becomes known. As I said I learnt so much! Before i had an idea of what company life was like from a student's point of view. I was lucky enough to have performed 20 shows all together, and through this experience I was able to really live this 'idea' and create a more certain perspective of what it is like to be in the whole process. I would love to be able to explain fully what I had learnt, but the theory of tacit knowledge totally comes into play here where I cannot entirely express my knowledge learnt other than having to actually turn one of my dreams (as a ballet student) into reality!
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