Day 1: January 10th, 2018
We headed to the Skaramagas Camp around 4:15 pm and we reached the camp around 5:00 pm. Abu Amin, the organiser at the camp was already there to welcome us and he escorted us to a container reserved for music and dance classes. When we entered the room, there were already a few girls dancing on “Despacito” which we later found out that it is the most popular song in the camp. There were five of them and two more girls joined while we were sitting in a circle on the wooden floor in the container and were introducing ourselves. All of the girls understood english and spoke a little too. They introduced themselves in English. Their ages ranged from 13-22. They were from Iraq and Syria. Right after we were done with introductions, we switched to dancing. All the girls were really hyped up and wanted to share their own kind of dance, music and choreography instead of following ours. But we were able to get most of them interested in the kind of choreography we had prepared for them.
Warm Up:
Hoya and Waseem took the roles of the main choreographers. We started off with some Hip Hop stretches taught by Hoya and delved into contemporary dance moves that we learnt from Aakash. After that, Waseem taught us some salsa moves. I felt that there was a divide between is and the girls. We were standing on one side of the room whereas they were standing at the opposite end. After warm up, two Iraqi girls showed us their own sequence. We were amazed to see that some of these girls already knew how to dance. We were struggling with getting them into the sequence we had prepared for them but eventually we managed to do it.
Hip Hop Sequence (Music: Can’t stop the feeling by Justin Timberlake)
Hoya instructed the hip hop sequence. They were able to follow most of the moves. All the moves were repeated over and over again with and without music until everyone got it. There was this one particular feet sequence that everyone struggled with. So we broke down into small groups and went over them with one or two girls. Most of us were dancing with them but some of us such were trying to document the workshop through pictures, notes and videos.
Wrap-Up:
We were already here for 40 minutes going over the moves until we felt that the girls were getting disinterested and we needed to switch to something else. So, we started doing this activity where we stood in a circle and, one by one, came in the centre and did our signature move that everyone else tried to follow. We then broke down and the girls started showing us their own sequences on Arabic, Kurdish and Spanish music. They were definitely more interested in showing us what they already knew. The girls then left and we went out with Abu Amin for a short tour of the camp. We left the camp around 7:00 pm.
Day 2: January 11th, 2018
We reached the camp around 11:00 am and there were around 30 kids already waiting for us. Their ages ranged from 3-12. When we entered the room, all of them surrounded Ana. They seemed very comfortable around her. There were six more people who belonged to El Sistema and were simply observing what we were doing. We set up the music and started working on our sequence without introductions or warm up.
Waseem’s Sequence (Music: Best Song Ever by One Direction)
Waseem’s sequence was very easy to follow and really suited the kids. Mot of the kids were able to do them well but there were some who were either too young or too shy to perform. When we tried to convince and encourage the kids to dance, some of them left the room while others joined the group who were dancing. There were kids peeking into the container from the windows but never joined us in the container. The performance was so much fun that even Pantelis and Myrsini joined us. Everything went smoothly and we kept on repeating the sequence for an entire hour. Until we left the dance room for another tour of the camp and delicious lunch at the Skaramaga “Corniche”.
Workshop with the Women:
We were back in the music room before 3:00pm and we started waiting for the women to come. Meanwhile we had the room to ourselves. Some of us were dancing randomly. We shared some movements from our own cultures. It was great for us to get all hyped up before the women were here. Around eight women arrived by 3:30pm. Two of them just sat in a corner while the others were with us standing in a circle. They were uncomfortable dancing in front of men so Pantelis and Yaozhong were asked to leave the room while Waseem stayed to teach them the sequence.
Warm Up:
We had quick introductions and then we started our warm up activities. Our first activity was “Passing the Energy Ball”. It was really interesting to see how the women started getting comfortable and played around with the energy ball in different ways such as imagining it to roll down their shoulders or imagine it to be a basketball. I think it got the women becoming more flexible and letting their bodies a little lose.
Salsa Time (Music: Despacito by Daddy Yankee and El Perdon by Nicky Jam)
Waseem started teaching the simple salsa moves without making pairs. There were around 5-6 moves that we went over and over again with and without music. The women really seemed to enjoy it and got hold of most of the steps. We tried to encourage the women sitting around to join us but all of them were too shy. We were not allowed to take pictures of them dancing so most of us were dancing with the women and individually helping them to get a step right. Then, we tried to practice these steps in pairs which was a little more difficult for the women and some of them got confused. One of the women, kept on leaving the group whenever she wouldn’t get a step and join again to go over it. We practiced for an hour until we wrapped up with a little activity.
Wrap Up:
In this activity, everyone stood in a circle and performed their favorite move one by one. Most of the people picked dance moves from their own cultures. It was very interesting to see that some of the kids who danced with us in the morning joined us in this session as well.
Dancing with the Teenagers (Music Can’t Stop the Feeling):
Right after the women left, the teenagers joined us a few minutes earlier than their scheduled time. There were three new faces along with the kids who have been dancing with us all day. We had a guy with us too and everybody seemed to be comfortable dancing with him in the room. We just got into the sequence that Hoya was teaching yesterday and went over it again and again. A few new steps were added to the sequence. This performance was far better than the workshop we had yesterday. Girls who seemed disinterested yesterday were more into the sequence and tried to get all the steps right. When we felt that most of the steps have been perfected, we decided to switch to salsa.
Salsa with the teenagers:
We tried to do the sequence we did with the women but it did not work with the teenagers. Most of them found it too hard to follow and simply wanted to switch back to Hoya’s hip hop sequence. We repeated the sequence for a couple of times until we left around 6:45pm.
Day 3: January 12th, 2018
Dancing with the kids:
We were around 10 minutes late to the workshop and the kids were already waiting for us. There were a couple of new faces along with the old ones. There were around 24 kids in total. We went through Waseem’s sequence a couple of times and we felt that most of the kids got it really well. We decided to teach them another sequence so Hoya improvised one on Waka Waka by Shakira at the very moment. They really enjoyed doing it and i followed most of it. Around 12:30pm, Aakash joined us and started dancing with us. He simply went through the sequences with us and then we facilitated rip offs by dividing the kids in two groups. It seemed like this added more energy to the performance and it was much more fun. We were done with our second workshop with the kids by 1:00pm.
Salsa with the women:
We were fifteen minutes late from our lunch and the women were already waiting for us. There were six in total again with four new faces. Again, there were kids who joined us. Some of them were dancing with us but most of them were simply playing with Hoya, Julie and Anastasia’s hair. This day seemed to be a little slow. We went over our old salsa sequence with Waseem and then we did not know what to do. The women were interested in dancing to a song of their choice but figuring that out took a lot of time and we decided to just go over our old sequence again and again until it was perfected.
Hip Hop with the Teenagers:
The teenagers, who seemed to be the most determined group, joined us again a few minutes before their scheduled time. There were 17 of them dancing while six of them just observed or tried to talk to some of us. Another boy joined us today and learnt the whole sequence in that one hour. We managed to complete Hoya’s hip hop sequence and went over it in two groups or one big group. Again, Aakash was there with us. He managed to hype up the dancers and add to the energy of the group. In the end, we showed them our own sequence that we learnt from Aakash and they were really happy to see that. It was great to see so many kids join us for this session as well. Some of them were really talented. A girl, Sidra, was an amazing dancer. She was there for all the dances we performed of Day 3 and she was doing all these sequences very gracefully. Not only that, many girls who were a little shy and seemed rigid were really letting go of themselves which added a fluidity to their performance.
Wrap Up:
Abu Amin let out permission forms to the kids and teenagers so that they can get them signed by their parents to join us tomorrow in the Kipseli Market for our final performance. We managed to take a lot of group pictures with these young dancers and bid farewell to those we were not going to see again.
