Grant for CBA

Executive Summary

Champaign Ballet Academy is a local ballet studio located in Champaign, IL. It was established in 1998 by Deanna Doty, and it provides the surrounding area with an immersion into the area of arts and dance. Students come from the surrounding towns of Champaign, Urbana, Savoy, Mahomet, and Tolono. Classes are taught to ages 3-adult, and many outreach programs are implemented throughout the year. Outreach programs are also a big part of the studio’s repertoire, and these have included going to hospitals, performing at elementary schools, and raising ticket money for kids to come see the annual The Nutcracker performance.

Since the summer of 2014, Champaign Ballet Academy has offered a two week long Student Production. In this programs, the older students at Champaign Ballet Academy will mentor the younger ones, aged 8-12. These older students will be the production staff, taking the roles of director, producer, costume Designer, and choreographers to make their own production, either original work, or based off of an already well-known ballet. These works are adapted for the younger dancers to learn and rehearse. In the past, shows of Peter and the Wolf and Carnival of the Animals were produced by the Student Production staff. Sets, costumes, and choreography were all made by the production staff. By the end of the two weeks, the dancers will perform a finished show for an audience, mainly composed of their families.

In the past, these productions have been rehearsed and performed in the Champaign Ballet Academy studios. However, this year the shows will take the stage at the Parkland College Second Stage Theatre which will bring a more professional aspect to this, and expose to the dancers to the backstage experience of a performance.

Needs Assessment

The grant money from the Illinois Arts Council will be used towards funding the summer Student Production. Student Production will run from June 13, 2016 to June 25, 2016, with a preparatory week prior to the run dates for the production staff. The production staff needs funding to provide materials for the dancers and also for employment of the director, producer and costume designer. These positions will be filled by high school students that dance at Champaign Ballet Academy. Selection for these spots will be chosen through a written essay and judgement of the particular student’s willingness to participate in past outreach programs.

The job of the director is to oversee the entire production staff. The director organizes the entire program, including choosing the ballet to be choreographed. All of the program staff will report to the director and work together.

The job of the producer is to manage all the financial aspects of the Student Production. This includes buying the materials for sets and costumes.

The job of costume designer is to design and make all of the costumes that will be used for the production. The costume designer will be aided by assistants, and the younger dances also help with making their own costumes.

**This is all I have right now, but I need to add more to the Needs Assessment (like explaining the jobs and what the moneys going to be used for, etc.)

Uni P.E.

Uni’s P.E. program is pretty intense. No one would argue that running for 25 minutes straight in P.E. or lifting weights is easier than any other school's P.E. program. And I’m sure we’ve all heard the complaints from students about how Uni’s P.E. is...different from what they used to do. School athletes of course get out of P.E., because of course we know that they're getting excercise in. But I also know a lot of people that would want to get out of P.E. for doing some outside of school sport, like swimming, tennis, or dance.

Ever since I came to Uni I knew that there are set guidelines for opting out of P.E. Things such as going to practice, having good grades but the most important part seemed to be being a "fully participating member of IHSA." 

Now I understand the logic to this. On our first day of subbie P.E., the teachers made it clear that petitioning out of P.E. was a reward to the school athletes for representing the school. At that point, I’d accepted that I would have to find some way to not get completely exhausted by P.E. so that I’d still be able to work hard in my ballet class later that day. 

As I got older, this got harder, and I can understand how other athletes that don’t do Uni sports feel. There are two major disadvantages to going to P.E. when you’re already doing another physical activity. One, is that you lose 45 minutes to get work done. Just like the Uni athletes, my ballet takes up about three hours of my after school time on Mondays through Thursdays if I don’t have rehearsal. And 5 or more hours on Fridays and Saturdays. So having basically the same time commitment as the Uni athletes, I don’t get the extra time to get my work done, meaning I have to be super picky with how I spend my time. 

The other disadvantage is the physical toll that P.E. has on my body. Some days I have P.E., and I’m fine the rest of the day. I don’t really feel a difference. But after some workouts, my tendons are super tight, and my muscles are exhausted. The most disappointing thing that I’ve faced is knowing that I'm too tired to push myself hard in ballet, because I ran too hard in P.E.

Don’t get me wrong. A lot of the time I really appreciate the extra physical activity and endurance that fitness gives me. But we’re never given much leeway. Dancers are lucky, because during our tech week, we’re allowed to use the elliptical, but if you have a huge workload that day, too bad. 

Then when I went to California for one semester, I learned something crazy. If you had another physical activity outside of school that exceeded 15 hours a week, and was overlooked by an instructor, then you could petition out of P.E. I was amazed at how accommodating they were to athletes that didn’t participate with the school. And it wasn't just that one place, plenty of other schools allow this. After all, we are still representing the school, just not through a state sanctioned sport.

That being said, even if we were to get out of P.E., I'd probably still go most of the time because I usually enjoy the challenge and benefits. But the mandatory class definitely makes school and ballet a lot tougher to balance some days, especially during our tech weeks where we spend 7 to 8 hours rehearsing each night.

I'm not saying Uni should completely rethink their P.E. ideals but I think if they were more lenient and understood the physical and mental stress the non-Uni athletes have, it could benefit us a lot. 

The Unforgivable Curses

How much do you curse and why?  

I can’t curse. Ok, fine I can but I feel incredibly uncomfortable when I do, and I sound like I’m saying something blasphemous when I do. There’s always that hesitation before I say a curse word, because when I was younger I never really heard these words being used. When I was younger I thought that by the time that I was in highschool, cursing wouldn’t be as foreign. I mean all the older kids cursed so I assumed that it was something that would come naturally as I got older. But I guess I never got into the habit. So the only time that I heard someone curse was when they were extremely mad or frustrated, and that related cursing to anger in my brain.

I can probably count on one hand how many times I’ve actually cursed. The total of two times happened during pretty intense moments of panic. One time, during a ballet performance, I made a massive mistake in a variation that was known for its synchronization. At the moment I realized I’d jumped into the “tambe” two counts too early I was devastated, upset and ashamed of myself. I’d spent 4 months perfecting this, and I’d just messed it up in a split second for everyone. Now just so you know, speaking on stage in a ballet performance is pretty common (if you were standing on stage with the dancers, you would hear random whispers of conversation and commands). So as I was leaping into the air two counts early, the s-word slipped out of my mouth. In the moment it felt totally appropriate. But now I still think of that moment and cringe, and I think that my reaction was justified. Cursing was like the Unforgivable Curses in Harry Potter, I thought that when you curse you had to mean it. And I don’t think that I’ve gotten upset enough times to use these words that much.

I used to get mad all the time. I would race upstairs to our TV room, and hide myself in the closet, peeking through the crack of the two doors. I was also the cry baby of the family. I think this made me embarrassed about showing emotion in public, because of people that used to make fun of me for crying. So now when I’m at school or ballet I don’t really show how I’m actually feeling. And my anger has been replaced by a general not caring.

On the other hand, at home I get in plenty of arguments with my parents and my brother. I don’t think I’ve ever really shown that I was upset with someone. My version of anger is just acting a bit colder, but I can’t hold that grudge for very long. At one point I realized that I’d gotten so good at hiding my feelings that when someone was rude to me, my brain would defend them and say, “they probably had a bad day.” This doesn’t mean that people don’t annoy me, but I can’t really be mad enough to curse.

Obviously I learned that cursing didn’t require anger. Once in awhile I spend time with people that curse just because they’re used to it and want to, and also with the Internet now, I’ve grown more and more used to hearing people swear. But at least in the near future, I don’t think that I’ll be spitting out curse words one after another. Although that’s just because I don’t ever have the need. I still resort to the once in awhile “shoot” and “crap” but even those have slowly dropped out of my vocabulary.

Kids Scare Me

“Don’t worry, it’s only Ballet 1.”

That was what the ballet mistress at my ballet studio told me when I asked her what I needed to know about assisting her children’s division class for the next semester. Any other person would hear that and relax, but I on the other hand got extremely nervous. If it was “only Ballet 1” then I would probably be expected to pick up everything quickly, but I was certain that I'd probably make enough mistakes for the ballet mistress to take back what she said.

If I had it my way, I’d probably hire a personal consultant that would answer all of the weird and stupid questions that most people wouldn’t even think of asking, without judging me. That way I’d know that I was completely prepared for whatever was thrown at me. Sadly, that isn’t possible, so I have to make do with casually asking some of my more experienced friends and hoping that they don’t realize how out of my depth I feel.

This feeling is actually sort of refreshing because I usually don’t leave my comfort zone when I’m at school. I stick to my introverted ways; I only spend time with people that I’m comfortable with, and I don’t try to initiate conversation with people if I don’t feel like it.

But this is completely different when I’m at my ballet studio. Even though Ballet 1 only teaches kids ages 6-10, I still get extremely stressed. I definitely wouldn’t say I’m an expert at all the nuances in ballet, but I’ve read all the technique books and watched all the videos to learn exactly what was right and what was wrong. So I usually don’t question the corrections that I give to the kids, but I always feel like I’m faking it. My brain keeps telling me, “fake it till you make it, fake it till you become it” (courtesy of a TED Talk about body language).

When I assist I’m supposed to help the kids out if they don’t know what they’re doing, and also to correct their placement. But most of the time I’m scared that I’m not helping enough or I’m making things worse. Am I supposed to stand at the corner and tell the kids when they should start shassé-ing across the floor or are they old enough to go by themselves? How loud do I talk? How friendly should I be with the kids?

When I was younger, I was extremely quiet and diligent, so I never realized that the children’s division was so much fun. I used to think that ballet class was supposed to be absolutely silent. That was just the thing about ballet; you weren’t supposed to talk. So now that I’m assisting, it’s weird to see how much fun the kids have in class.

It’s even harder considering how much little kids scare me. What do I even talk to them about? I know it should easy to talk to little kids, because they aren’t the least bit self-conscious and will talk with you about anything, but it still takes some courage on my part.

Now it’s been 9 months into assisting, and I feel sort of better. Sort of. I’d say that half of the time I know exactly what I should be doing. When I should be demonstrating, when I should be correcting, and when I should be helping the kids with figuring stuff out. But as soon as the teacher thanks the class, and the kids charge towards us to give the teacher and me hugs,  their little arms that barely reaching my waist tightly squeezing me makes it all worth it.

My lamp

I had a hard time choosing specific objects to “tell the story” of my life. I don’t feel like my life is exceptional or even particularly interesting. But I did find an object that I thought did sort of represent me. My lamp. It’s a dusty, old lamp that sits next to my bed and can never stand straight on its own. The light from this lamp barely reached the edge of the room, and made my bedroom feel like I was in the 19th century. I never thought that the object I would choose to represent me would be this lamp, but it was the first thing that popped into my mind, and the more I thought about it, the more it fit.

My lamp showed how loyal and stubborn I was to things that I was used to and comfortable with. I mean, I never even got my driver’s license, because I didn’t want to have to change my morning routine to driving to school so I could get the practice. This probably wasn’t the best characteristic to have, because it’s been one that holds me back a lot.

Although this lamp would periodically fall on my face while I was asleep, I still loved it. It was the perfect distance from my bed for me to stretch (I mean really stretch) across my nightstand, and just barely reach the twisty switch. This ensured that I never had to walk to my bed in the dark (and possibly step on the many things that lay on my bedroom floor) nor did I have to get out of bed to actually turn it off. I hated walking in the dark. One, because I had a habit to never clean my room and there would be dangerous items lying on the path to my bed. I could only get lucky one so many times on my way to my bed in the dark. Two, I hated making myself uncomfortable. I’m sure everyone would agree with this, but I had such an intense hate for things that are just a tiny bit inconvenient, that I would do anything to keep from having to stand up to turn out the light. I didn’t want to get cold, and with the draft on our second floor, I was constantly cold.

For years, I didn’t let my mom switch this lamp. This was the perfect balance I had between my laziness and still being comfortable. I wouldn’t have ever changed this system. But my mom wanted to switch it with a brighter, prettier, newer lamp. A different lamp. The switch was completely different on this new lamp. It was the kind that stayed on the floor that you would turn on and off with your feet. Eventually, my mom got fed up with the precarious position that my lamp was in,  at first balanced to stay upright with a huge Lord of the Rings book as a counterweight, and later leaning against my headboard, that she switched lamps while I was at school one day. I wasn’t very grateful to say the least. Even though it was definitely way better and made my room feel a lot more comfortable, I adamantly wanted my old lamp. But over time, I realized how much better this new lamp actually was, and appreciated how brightly it lit my room up. In the same way that I'm so stubborn about the old things, once I get used to the new an improved, I genuinely enjoy it, and soon enough couldn't see anything wrong with it.

*I'm not sure how to conclude this

The Toilet Cleaner

 Have you ever felt embarrassed by the things that you used to like? 

I used to love cleaning the bathroom. I mean really love. The shower, the toilet, the sinks...everything. I would beg to get to clean the bathroom, which to me was way better than vacuuming, washing the dishes or picking weeds. For example, when I was just 5 years old, I used to lie in the bathtub, scrubbing the already shiny floors, singing my own song that went something like “I’m washing the floor, but nobody helps me!” This would continue until I had decided that the bathtub was adequately clean, and then I would finish taking my shower.  

Eventually that stopped. But whenever my parents brought it up, I would angrily ignore them. I’m not sure why this embarrassed me so much, because it was just one of the countless embarrassing childhood stories that all parents love to reminisce about. I think it’s because I liked something that I thought literally no one else thought was enjoyable, and that most people thought was extremely disgusting. It was the weird thing about me that I used to broadcast to everyone as a child, but now I don’t even speak of it.

The first time I realized that my love for toilet cleaning was slightly weird was when my middle school table partner was complaining about chores. The one thing I remember him saying was, “and my sister, she actually likes cleaning the bathroom...freak.” That was when I really got embarrassed. It reminded me of when my favorite part about cleaning the bathroom was getting to sprinkle the (dangerous!) bleach (and eventually the more environmental baking soda) into the toilet bowl, and washing it around the side with the toilet scrubber. Before, I didn’t really think about my old likes, and I didn’t really think that what I liked was out of the ordinary. I would even wear my brothers hand me downs with pride. But it was inevitable to become self conscious. As a result of people's side comments, and my family's influence, I began to worry. I worried about what other people thought, I worried about whether or not I fit in, or whether or not I was doing things “right.” Is it weird that I enjoyed cleaning the bathroom?

Even today, I am the person responsible for cleaning the bathroom on our first floor, although I definitely don’t enjoy it as much as I used to.

YouTube stars

Do you wish you could return to a moment from your past?

I recently found videos that I made with my brother while sorting through our external hard drive. Folders were filled with these videos. Many were videos of the same scene, taken over and over, with a different person cracking up in each or our parents barging in. I almost never found a video that looked complete, but it reminded me of that time when we had time to play together.

Back then, almost all of our games consisted of some sort of imaginary game, where I would star as the smart sidekick and my brother would be the worldly hero. This was probably because he was older, and narrated all of our games. Playing these imaginary games were like starring in our own movies 24/7. On vacations, this was especially useful to combat the boring car rides and long lines. Transforming these imaginary games into videos was pretty simple for us.

We usually co-starred with my neighbors. We came up with a plot, dialogue, costumes and choreography. We reenacted scenes from Harry Potter, or our favorite book series at the time, Warriors. We filmed short commercials for things that didn’t even exist, we made puppet shows, we vlogged our "wartime" action in the backyard, and we performed hotline skits. We didn’t started making videos with the intent of becoming famous Youtube stars, we just enjoyed play acting. Now, I can’t even remember the last time that I did something 100% for my own enjoyment and also guilt free, and not as a result of some kind of pressure.

We used to film our videos even during the weekdays. We became very close friends with our two neighbors, and spent all our free time together filming.  We were so used to calling each other’s home phone and asking “Can you play?” that it's become a joke between us, and we still use that exact phrasing when we want to hang out. We filmed a lot of videos, filmed with either our camera, or my neighbors flip camera. We never ran out of ideas, and entertained ourselves by making video after video.

Eventually we decided to make a Youtube channel, and posted our first video. This was a moment of euphoria, we were going to make it big! The world would see our genius script, our hilarious accents, and celebrate us.

Two days later, we had three views.

Just doing this all day used to be plenty to entertain us, and there’s just this aura that surrounds that time that I can’t shake off.