Wendy Serrano Eng 1102 Ms.

Caruso 7/25/12 Foreign Dance Training Dance training in foreign countries is a very rigid process; a dancer would have to start their career in a very early age in order to be able to have a full career as a dancer. A career as a dancer is pretty short compared to a regular job, to other people. I would like to compare the training in the United States versus in a foreign country, based on my experience and my research I have found that the training one receives in another country makes you a much more complete dancer versus the training you receive in the United States.
Comment [MN1]: Reviewed by Matt Naurayan Overall I feel your content is great and that you have a lot of information to work with but now you just need to fine tune your paper. There are some grammatical issues that will make it harder to get your idea across to the reader. Id work on the organization of the paper and splitting some sentences into two. Id also split your paper into multiple paragraphs in order to show where you transition from idea to idea such as where you transition from your personal experience in dance training, to the history of dance in foreign countries. Comment [MN2]: I believe this part is unnecessary

Comment [MN3]: Good sentence stating the purpose of your paper

I have been dancing for Six years professionally, my life was not always about dance I discovered dance late in life when I was Twenty-three years old my life was not about dance. I was in school to become a Nurse and then Dance happened, I grew up with my grandparents not listening to any type of Caribbean rhythms my grandparents listen to Reginal Mexican which shares some similarities to country music, and when I hear this type of music my hearts melts and makes me feel like I am home. When I first started dancing I started with Argentine Tango, what I loved about this dance is the passion, the connection with your partner, the history of the dance, the environment always making it perfect and welcoming to a new comer like me., shortlyShortly after I met my now Husband Rodrigo Jimenez , the only difference between Rodrigo and I was the fact that he has spend all his life dancing,
Comment [MN5]: Id also split these sentences into two as they are two separate ideas Comment [MN4]: Id split these into two sentences as it seems to be a run-on sentence

training since he was four years old, and dancing professionally since he was seven years old. His training started in Folkloric dancing such as Flamenco, Chilean dances and Mexican Folk, under the training of one of the best dance instructors in that region a free after school program that gave the opportunity to so many kids an opportunity to learn something different. Rodrigos training was very challenging his parents were not always available to take him or pick him up from class, he had to walk several miles to get to his dance class and once he got there a regular dance class would run about three or four hours, all students had to be very serious in class if the dance instructor had to tell you to be quiet several times he would kick you out of his class, if you were not doing the steps correctly after a certain amount of time he would dismiss you from the program (Jimenez). Because of his dedication and natural talent Rodrigo possessed he was the lead dancer in many shows, and later in his career he also mastered all Caribbean dances, Argentine Tango, Gipsy Russian, Indian dances and many more. Under his training I have been able to train in Salsa, Bachata, Merengue, Flamenco, Argentine Tango, Capoeira, Samba, Kizomba, Gipsy Russian, Indian dances, Caporales, Cueca, and some Mexican folk as well. When I first started dancing I wanted to just focus in Salsa and Tango but Rodrigo told me you can not call yourself a professional dancer if you only know one style of dance, as a dancer you must maintain an open mind to learn and appreciate different styles of dance. I was able to understand how important it is to train, your body and your mind in order to become a great dancer, not only learning the steps but also learning each dances history, as a performer I have been able to understand how important it is to interpret each dance accurately, being able to

transmit the feeling of the dance to my audience and always making it a memorable performance. Together we have been able to achieve a lot together to now owning our Dance studio, traveling all over the United States and Europe. As a dancer I had to learn to be very discipline and I have sacrificed so much but most dancers are also in the same position. USA is the only country where anyone can do what ever they wants to do, and become successful, the beauty of FREEDOM, only here that I could have the opportunity to start a career in dance without any prior dance training, some of the countries that are very well known for exceptional dance training are: China for their folkloric and interpretation dances, Cuba for their AfroCuban, Ballet and Modern. Russia for their Ballet and Russian Folklore, in fact Fidel Castro determined to acquire a ballet to match Russias Bolshoi and the Kirov (Russias Ballet form), and now Cuba is known as one of three styles of ballet in the World (Alonso), and of course to follow the original style it self the French style Ballet. In any of these countries a dancer would have to start in a early age to train in order to even consider having a career as a dancer, in countries such a Cuba it is essential to train in all styles of dance in order to consider yourself a complete dancer one must be able to train in all Afro-Cuban and Guanganco dances in addition to Ballet and Modern. All of our Latin dances can be trace back to African roots and Cuba obtains a large majority of African root dances. As a dancer being able to move and express is as necessary as food and water, being able to express, explore and create such beauty is a privilege to my self and my higher being to grant me the ability to move and hopefully touch others hearts. Based on my research I have been able to see and discover that here in the United States since everything is

much more available to everybody, making a career of just about anything is as easy as one, two , three. Our dance school offers classes to the regular people people that would like to learn to dance for fun, we have a large number of students that have discover dance to be a healing energy in their lives, and we have had some people that come and take a couple of lessons and think that they can also do it too, in the past two years we had three different students that now hold their own classes teaching people to dance Salsa, because their training is not an extensive training they teach andteach and create mediocre dancers, they teach a sloppy step without any history and yet they succeed, they would never be able to do this in any of the countries mention above, in Latin dance events our main audience is a general middle age and older public that is interested in learning to dance, that have never attended any of theseis types of events or very few that have attended any type of visual arts events in a theater or concert, making any performance an excellent performance in their opinion. In the United States only twenty-three percent attend any type of Opera or Musical-Theater event according to the New York Times (Yarrow), so when an experience dancer/performer goes in-front of the other seventy-seven percent, this people think they are experiencing some really high quality performance when in fact they are not qualified to even touch a dance stage. The United States tends to baby us as much as they can, making it difficult for people to realize that sometimes if we really want to do something we must work extremely hard to achieve to best results, we must sacrifice our time, our bodies and our minds if we have to in order to go all the way, it is as simple as Black and White. Every year my dance company teams up with the Latin American Womens

Association (LAWA), and we offer an Elementary after school program to help kids that are having problems in school and at home to participate in a dance competition, every year is the same thing happens, kids are not excited to be in dance but once I am able to work with them they get supper excited and get very competitive, they train for two months and compete against three other Elementary schools, I am able to work with all schools and I teach them not only the steps but also the attitude, the respect towards your partner, the ability to work together as a team and be supported of your group, they learn trust, confidence and presence by the end of this program we have accomplish so much that the competition itself is just an experience. I believe that in this competition they should have first place, second place and third place, LAWA believes that everybody is a winner so everybody received medals but in my opinion this leads to believe that is ok not to succeed, and if you loose is ok and kids do not strive to become the best, they are lead to believe that if they do things half way it is still ok, this is why USA does not have a large number of American dancers, some of the best dancers representing an American Dance company are either Russian, Chinese, or Cuban. As the years go by we have it so much easier in this country versus in other countries people have fight and prove that they can pursue their passion, I feel so lucky and blessed to be able to do something that I truly love and be successful in my career, I am so happy that I have a partner that has taughhought me the importance and meaning of becoming a dancer, how important it is to train and become a presentable artist, and always striving to become a leading, humble artist. Dance is the air that I breathe, the taste

in mouth, the urges in my body, I dance because words can no longer express my feelings.