Wynter’s Dance Story—Wynter's Self Portrait

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I love dancing because it allows me to show my true emotions without having to speak. My project is a poster and video collage of my dancing. On the poster you will find pictures of me dancing in different places, such as Washington D.C. and Virginia. On the computer there are videos of me dancing from the age of six to now. The last video on the computer was choreographed by me. It took patience and time, but I did it.

Well, at first, I really wanted to make a glass ballerina, but after time I saw that I was not getting any work done. One day my father and I had a serious talk about the actions I would need to take about my project. First thing I did was look for apps for editing videos, so I found an app called “video saver”, it allowed me to take videos of my dancing that were on YouTube, so we can put them in the collage. It was my dad who came up with the idea of pictures, videos, and experience, “and I love it.” Then my dad and I started trying to get all the pictures and videos that we needed for the collage. After that we went to Walmart to get ink, stencil, glue, markers, and a tri-fold board. Then my father and I went to staples to see if we could print out some pictures but because of the Coronavirus pandemic we could not use the scanner equipment. We then visited Walgreens to see if we could do it there, and it worked, the next day we got our pictures and we started working on the tri-fold board. My father and I started working on the drawing part of my project. It was kind of funny because the first drawing looked like I had a huge stomach and the next version looked as if I had never eaten food in my life, but after a few minutes of editing, we got it back together. Last and not least I had to get working on my final dance for the project. I was getting nervous because I did not know what song I was going to dance to or style I was going to perform.

The song and the dance were a whole different project. I was kind of nervous to make up my own dance. Then I started overthinking the music part. Finally, I went in my room and just sat there for an hour or so and listened to songs until I felt what was right to me. When I had narrowed the songs down to two, “Brown Skin Girl” by Beyoncé and “Scars To Your Beautiful” by Alessia Cara, I asked my cousin, mom, and dad and of course they all said they liked both. My cousin gave me the idea to merge the songs together, and I was off trying to learn how to merge the songs. All that was left was the dance, I started by thinking about which moves go with the words of the music. I took off with my idea, it I came out exactly how I pictured. I am so proud of all my hard work that I put forth.

Something I learned about myself during this project is that I can be a big procrastinator. I need to be more confident with myself and just try my best. I would have these great ideas and not follow through with them. Throughout the project I second guessed myself a lot. I would always ask my parents if they thought it was good ideas instead of believing in my gut. The project really helped to enhance my confidence in my work and in myself. At first, I was just trying to rush the project, but the more I started working on it the more I enjoyed doing it. I really started to put the best effort forward. I found this project a big stress reliever, because when I was a little stressed, nervous, or flustered I was able to work on this and put my feelings in my project.