Rosalynn Tellerman
September 16, 2023 2:02 PM
Dance Room: The Performing Arts Club presents Dancing Lessons! by Rosalynn Tellerman
There was about two months left until the Ball, and Rosalynn had put up posters all over the school (not just on the bulletin boards for better visibility) announcing that the Performing Arts Club would be hosting Dancing Lessons for anyone who wanted to come to the MARS dance room today. Bringing your own partner was, of course, encouraged but not required, as she had some performing arts club volunteers to work with their new dance students. She knew at least one of them was hoping to maybe snag a date from the process, but she made sure they all understood their help was being offered without any strings attached.As the start time of the lesson moved out of the future and into the present, Rosalynn cleared her throught and said, "Hello, and welcoming the the Performing Arts Club Dance Lesson! This is the first of a four week series that we're hosting to help people learning to dance for the ball. You can come to all of them or just one or anything in between. We will be practicing a few different partner dances today of varying difficulties, and well as some dances you can do with friends. We'll start with a little bit of stretching though, so everyone line up, please."
She led them through some limbering up excercises so nobody hurt themselves by pulling a muscle.
"Okay, now pair off. We'll start with the easiest partner dance there is: the rocking shuffle. This is basically where you just hug each other and move slowly around in a circle more or less in time with the music. It's the most basic thing you can do on a dance floor and still count as dancing, so even if you can't get anything else to work out for you, you've got this to fall back on. The most important thing to watch out for with this dance is to not step on your partner's feet, which is why just shuffling your feet is recommended. This should be pretty easy to master, so we'll just do one dance of this sort. Me and Lenny will show you a quick example."
She was taller than her fourth year cousin, but this dance style was very forgiving in that respect. She put her arms around his neck, and he put his arms around her waist, and she nodded to Isla to turn on the music, and they just shuffled back in forth in place, slowly spinning in a circle. Once they were back to their starting positions, she nodded at Isla again to turn off the music.
"All right, that's it. Everyone pair off. I think we have an even number of people today," and if there wasn't, she'd be the one to go without a partner, so she could walk around and offer suggestions on how to improve, "so everyone should be able to find someone." She could make no promises that everyone's gender preferences would be available, but a parner was all she had guaranteed.
They did one slow song with that dance style.
"Alright, the next one is a waltz. This is an actual dance, unlike the last one, with real steps and ways to give it flair. It is one of the most common partner dances in America, so most people who know how to ballroom dance, know how to waltz. Lenny and I will show you the most basic steps first, then with some embellishments you can add if you want to impress someone." This was a little more difficult with the size difference, and she had seriously considered being the boy and letting Lenny be the girl to show this off, but Lenny had expressed a preference to lead, and Rosalyn was much more comfortable following, so they were making it work. She first explained the hold as they got into it, then went through how to do a box step.
She had Isla turn the music on again, and she counted out "1-2-3 together, 1-2-3 together" as they did the basic box step in time to the music a few times so everyone could see had it worked. "Now we'll add some flourishes - dips and turns and spins are all fun and look quite fancy." She and Lenny started with a box step that just rotated them around each other, then added in increasingly more difficult flourishes. Finally they stepped back from each other and curtsied to each other (Lenny was wearing a dress, so he opted against the more traditional bow).
"Now you all try," Rosalynn instructed, and this time she and one other Performing Arts club member with some waltzing experience did plan to skip the dancing portion to walk around and provide advice and constructive criticism. "We'll do a few songs for this one until I think most of you have gotten it."
The lesson continued on like that, additionally covering swing, cha cha, and foxtrot. Rosalynn finished the lesson with a couple informal dance techniques that could be used during free dances with friends, and concluded with a old wizarding line dance that she thought might fit into the Ball's theme.
OOC: This is open to all students who want to learn to dance, not just Performing arts club members. Performing Arts clubs members can either be practicing the dances or offering advice to new learners who are struggling, or some combination of both.
Subthreads: Contributing by Isla Brockert
Helping and seeking help by Leviosa Scurlock
Miserable by Amethyst Brockert
1
Rosalynn Tellerman
Dance Room: The Performing Arts Club presents Dancing Lessons!
1520
1
5
Isla Brockert
September 20, 2023 7:38 PM
Contributing by Isla Brockert
Isla was not looking forward to the end of the year one little bit. It wasn’t even the Ball. Or at least, not just the Ball. Honestly, so far, it was not going to be as bad as the last one. Nobody had asked her, which was what she’d expected, but while obviously Rosalynn was going to go with Tommy, nobody had asked Lorena yet either.Of course, it wasn’t as if she wanted to deny her friend a date, it was just that…this would be their very last night at Sonora. And while Isla would probably accept in the unlikely event she got a date-and even ignoring pureblood stuff, her odds had never been great what with most people being taken, gay or related to her, basically Gus would have been her only option seeing as she would hope Alexei would ask Amethyst, especially with how…sad Isla’s cousin seemed to be And it wasn’t as if she would mind going with Gus either but in that case, she’d get Ian to ask Lorena because she certainly did not want her friend to go through what she had last time-she’d still really rather just have this last night with her friends.
Because that, not the Ball itself, was a huge part of what the Aladren was dreading. Not seeing her friends as much. Obviously, she had every intention of keeping in touch with them, it was not even remotely the same as sharing a dorm room and seeing them every day. Even during the summer, Isla had coming back to Sonora and seeing them again to look forward to. Now it would be different and that was why it was important to have that last night together and why she wished that it was any of the other events this year instead of the Ball which was much more based around couples than friends. Or at least dates, even if the people weren’t actually couples. Still, it was all about pairing off much more than the other events were.
Plus, none of the other events had left her with her worst memories of her entire time at Sonora, so there was also that. In fact, the Concert in particular held some of her best, since that was when she’d been able to put on puppet shows.
Still, despite how unenthusiastic that Isla felt about the Ball, she was still attending the Performing Arts club’s dancing lessons. While it was not her first choice for an activity, she did understand that not every meeting could involve puppetry, and not everyone had taken ballroom dancing as part of their general pre-Sonora education. Obviously, she had taken them so she could learn to dance for the sake of society balls, so she was pretty sure that she would be very helpful to Rosalynn. At the very least Isla would be helping by turning on and off the music.
So she stationed herself near the music player while Rosalynn started the meeting and demonstrated the dances with Lenny, turning the music on and off when signaled to do so.
11
Isla Brockert
Contributing
1521
0
5
Leviosa Scurlock
September 22, 2023 10:16 PM
Helping and seeking help by Leviosa Scurlock
Levi had initially been disappointed when Rosalynn proposed giving four weeks of her precious performing arts club over to dance lessons. Levi had had plenty of those as a kid, and the slow and graceful spinning in endless circles had never inspired her the way that acting or juggling or any of the other worlds Rosalynn had opened up to her did. It had felt like being forced back into the narrow little boxes of her childhood, which Sonora in general, and performing arts along with duelling, had helped her break out of. Not that she had objected, of course. It was Rosalynn’s club, and she was trying to do a kind thing for people who hadn’t had dance lessons and weren’t feeling confident for the ball, and as a Teppenpaw, Levi very much believed in kind things. She was just preparing to be very bored for the next four weeks.That was, until Rosalynn introduced things called Swing and Cha Cha. Swing was wild, with flailing arms, and bubbling energy. Cha Cha was… wiggly. In a way that was very interesting to look at.They were both still dancing, but not as Levi knew it. She wouldn’t apply the word ‘graceful’ to it, nor the word ‘boring.’ Especially when Rosalynn did it with Lenny, with both their skirts flicking to the music. Dancing had never meant ‘fun’ or ‘freedom’ to Levi, but here were dances that seemed to embody both those things…
She arrived bright and early to the first dance training meeting, a huge smile on her face. She had transfigured one of her skirts to be a little bit above the knee and then hurried through the corridors hoping her sister didn’t see her. She had leggings on underneath, so it wasn’t too scandalous but she still felt very risque. She had volunteered her help for the ballroom stuff, and raised her hand to wave someone towards her when Rosalynn asked them to find partners.
But for the Swing and Cha Cha she was a beginner, in need of her own help.
OOC: Made some assumptions about what Rosalynn would have gone through (and worn) during previous meeting, hope that's okay. Happy for this post to be set at any point during the meeting - i.e. waltz training with someone who needs it, or swing training with someone who's willing to help.
13
Leviosa Scurlock
Helping and seeking help
1545
0
5
Amethyst Brockert
October 08, 2023 8:24 AM
Miserable by Amethyst Brockert
Amethyst really didn’t feel like going to Performing Arts club today. She did not feel like dancing in a literal sense and she most definitely did not in a figurative sense, as that was a figure of speech that meant someone was overjoyed, excited. That was not even close to what the sixth year was feeling, in fact it was the exact opposite of it. Amethyst was completely miserable.Still, going to Performing Arts club and helping others out with dancing-an activity that she was really quite good at and usually fond of-was an excuse to stay out of her room and away from the ongoing tension with Iris. Nothing had changed. Things weren’t any better and Amethyst wasn’t sure that they ever would be.
She hated this. She really really did. She wished that she could change it, that she could go back and do things differently. Except that she didn't know what she could have done except tell Iris what she wanted to hear, which was essentially…what? That of course Hans would prefer her to Liesl? Which was something that Amethyst was pretty sure would be true of ninety-nine percent of people- or at least, she had been sure of that at that point anyway, she wasn’t so sure of that now-but Hans happened to be in that one percent.
Maybe it was true he would have liked Iris if Liesl wasn’t around but that…wasn’t the fifth year’s fault. It wasn’t a thing where she was deliberately monopolizing his time in order to get her claws into him the way Iris had tried to frame it. It was a thing where they had common interests and a real connection. However, Amethyst hadn’t wanted to flat out tell Iris that. That would have been harsher than anything that she’d said to the other Crotalus and would have gone over terribly. Like, maybe it would have been honest, but Iris would have just taken it out on Amethyst, Like she had anyway. Nothing that Amethyst said would have gone over well unless Amethyst said that Hans was in love with Iris-obviously not true-that Liesl was in the way, and that Amethyst would help sabotage her cousin-or attempt to, since she was pretty sure it wouldn’t have worked.
Also, yeah, sabotaging anyone was wrong and bad and Topaz-ish. Amethyst liked to think she was better than that.
And anyway, look at what had happened. Hans had asked Liesl to the Ball-so that was a huge hint that he probably liked her-and oh, Henry had asked Iris. So Amethyst was right about that too. Someone else would be interested in Iris. Someone else was. Meanwhile Amethyst was miserable. She had Alexei but he had yet to ask her to the Ball. If he was even planning to. Honestly, it was one of the few things that would cheer her up, the others being Iris wanting to be friends with her again-and the other Crotalus was going to have to be the one to initiate, since Amethyst was pretty sure if she tried, she’d just get her head bitten off and Iris had to be ready to…
But neither Alexei asking her to the Ball nor getting Head Student would do anything to help the fact that Amethyst didn’t even feel safe in her own room. Not that Iris would do anything physically violent, at least not to her, but one’s bedroom should be a place where they could relax and be comfortable and Amethyst felt nothing but tension around her former friend,
So, she went to Performing Arts club whether or not she really wanted to be there. On the plus side, she could be an asset since she was an experienced dancer. She waited patiently for Rosalynn to go through the first dance demonstration with Lenny and then they were told to pair off. Amethyst looked around for a partner and was relieved when she was approached.
11
Amethyst Brockert
Miserable
1532
0
5