At the start of this term we were lucky enough to have 5 days of intensive dance lessons with contemporary dancer and choreographer, Thomas Page. The Tom Page workshop was intensely fun and we learnt a new style of contemporary dance that we were all keen to try. Each day started with a different warm-up including running, jogging, sit-ups with partners etc…

The aim of the workshop was to create a piece of dance which explored how society places each one of us into boxes depending on our age, gender, appearance and life style choices. On the first day we were divided into mixed ability and age groups. Each group was given a different theme of emotions to work with. My group was given the topic of fear. The other emotions were sadness, anger and happiness. We had to come up with a motif for our group topic which included everyone’s ideas. We developed our dance routines and practised every day, preparing for a Dance Showcase the following week.

Tom placed coloured tape onto the floor to symbolise the boxes we are put into by society and the students started inside boxes for each age. At different points we moved into new boxes based on other personal characteristics. When we were doing dances based on emotions we moved out of the boxes to demonstrate that we all have similar basic emotions regardless of any physical characteristics. As the dance progressed the tape was gradually removed so by the end there was no tape visible and we all danced in unison to show how we are all brought together by our emotions.

During the day before the Dance Showcase we had to miss Period 5 in order to rehearse our set pieces. Tom wasn’t able to be in school on that day so we had to rely on our own memories for the rehearsal. Luckily Tom was with us on the day of the showcase so he was able to help us with last minute improvements. The show went really well. Everyone did a great job!