Reflection #5

 Though I haven't started officially working directly with the immigrant and refugee community. I do see the parallels with how the environment of dance culture can parallel arriving into a new country. Though the immigrants and refugees often come from difficult circumstances or are escaping political turmoil; I still want to emphasize the sense of newness and adaptation that going from one culture to another can feel like. I hope to serve the immigrant and refugee population through assistance with ESL classes. The art of Language and the art of dance are both skills that take practice and environment to cultivate. Like many new learners of English, many of my classmates are coming from more western dance backgrounds, including myself. The aspect of performance salsa involves nueces and expression that can feel new and uncomfortable; just as learning to speak a new language. Something that has surprised me about learning salsa in performance has been how difficult it is to show positive expression, for example smiling throughout our practice time. Our instructor makes a valiant effort to ensure that we practice like we will perform. Something that has surprised me about Salsa in performance is how many other styles of dance are influenced in certain moves. For example there is a move called the suzy cue that is similar to a two step in hip hop. These kinds of dance roots are similar to language roots. There are similarities in dance moves, just as there are similarities in words. Now what? I believe that the same principles of learning dance can be applied to language. The classroom time for second language learning is preparing the students for their own “performance’ with speaking in person. The performance stage in this sense, is speaking in the U.S with different people in places like the grocery store or bank, school etc. In both cases the more practice one has either on the dance floor or in the classroom, the more they will be able to adapt to whatever circumstance they are put in. These opportunities have expanded my creativity in different ways to think about expressions and also how to get people to think about expressing themselves in new space. It's important to highlight the capabilities that each person already has in language, or dance competency. It's just about expanding those skills to fit another environment