Diary Entry

These past few weeks have been a mixture of every emotion a dancer can feel and experience; nerves, stress, tiredness and frustration mixed with excitement, laughter, electrifying energy on stage!

Living the tour life while performing every night is mentally and physically draining, yet so refreshing and energizing at the same time. Yes your body gets tired and sore, and you might not feel on top form the whole time. But I truly believe that from the the opportunities and exposure we are getting, especially when the going gets tough, it is from these experiences that a dancer grows as an artist and comes out stronger than ever.

I have learnt a lot on how to deal with setbacks, obstacles and the pressures we face. I am not saying I have found the answer to it all, as I still have a lot to figure out with calmer approaches to handle at times. But every human being will always find some new experience to learn from. However from investigating on topic of emotional resilience in dancers, i have been able to observe and utilise a few skills and approaches that I have picked up and attempted to put into practice.



Whilst on tour we have had many tricky scenarios to deal with such as rushing to get prepared and do class before the show as the stage would take a little longer to get ready at times or we were caught in traffic en route. Sometimes rushing makes you feel stressed and not fully prepared, or your body doesn't feel warm or prepared enough for the show. Dancers would often felt frustrated. We have had to deal with very small or obscure shaped stages and harder floors than we are used to. One venue was really small however the audience made up for it which was rewarding.
Everything fell into place on stage most of the time, as I guess all of us had to just go out there and do what we needed to do. I found what helped was to block out the negative auras around and frustrated feelings out and concentrate on what I needed to work on.Taking the time to learn how to become more attentive, conscious and mindful as you go about your daily ACTIVITIES can increase your enjoyment of those activities, and also help you to maintain a resilient attitude in the face of pressure and stress.(Mills, j. Dombeck M. 2005) Being more aware and concentrating on yourself will project out a more positive outlook to others which I find helps lift moods. I tried to always look at the positives and be grateful to actually have this opportunity to perform so much! This relates to one lit resource I have analysed about how the power of meditation and flow, and focusing on yourself helps to get a calmer perspective over things.

When the mind is overloaded, your concentration STARTS to deteriorate. Clutter is the problem. Many people have so much on their minds that they are in a constant state of stress and worry. Stress comes from brain overload and the inability to turn off the flow of thoughts. Worries pull us out of the present moment into the future (how will I pay all my bills?) and the past (why didn't I get that role?). (Weiss, D. April 2008.)

I also found that being calm helped me deal with some technical difficulties such as these very fast pirouettes in a tarantella piece, or a manége we do with many girls together. I have had to step in las minute for fouettes on stage, a step i am probably least confident in, or cygnets where I had only learnt the choreography and the first time ever dancing it was on stage! Knowing that to get worked up about it would not help, I tried o put into practice the notion of having a calm approach where I believed I could do it, tried to focus as best as I could. And it all pulled through in the end. Although I am still working on it, I have become more confident on stage to do ricky steps, especially fouettées. It proved to me that, although easier said than done, a good mindset really does help!