Month: June 2016

Today is Monday, the day of the Capstone share. We will present our Capstone in front of the whole school. Well not exactly in front of everyone. First we showed different grades our projects. It was not as crazy as the whole school. The whole 5th grade split up into different group all over the school. I am in the meeting room. The first grade finally came and now it was time for them to look at my presentation with the video. It was really exciting to see all of the kids wanting to watch mine. They even looked at my blog and got to see pictures of me. All around my table there were different artifacts, from autographs to point shoes to so much more, my Capstone table was looking really cool. All of the kids seemed really interested and even teachers came over and looked at it. It was super fun presenting.

Although I made some mistakes and some of the kids were loud in the background causing difficulty to the people listening to my video it was still just a dress rehearsal. I knew that the parents would be less loud and be more focused on the video. Some of the kids walked away halfway through the video. This made me a little sad but I knew it was just because they were kids. Overall the whole Capstone project was a super fun part of Heathcote school and a wonderful day to remember. I am looking forward to the next Capstone share tomorrow!

My table photos:

Yay it’s finally Tuesday the Capstone share for the parents. I am so excited! This would be super fun. All of the parents walked in, My Mom looked at my project and got to see my blog. I even showed her some cool photos. My table was decorated with lots of photos and ballet related things. My Mom really liked my Project. Later i looked at some of my friends project and went to breakfast in the gym. It was a great day to remember. 🙂 This was one of my favorite memories at Heathcote. 

Here is

My final product was going to be the last step of my Capstone. It was really surprising that I am already almost done with Capstone. Ms. Edwards said that we could do a Ted Talk or Ignite or anything that shows that we understand our topic. I knew I would not want to do an Ignite because in an Ignite you can only talk 15 seconds per slide.  For me that would not let me get enough information into my talk. I now thought of doing a Ted Talk or maybe an iMovie or a short skit. This was getting more interesting by the minute. I thought that now I wanted to do a skit. I started to think of what the scene and setting would be. The setting did not need to be complicated, it just needed to be simple or not something very complex. It would be very fun and informative for the audience. Now it was time for me to make the script. This was not too hard for me because I already had an idea of what my script would be like. This is my script for my iMovie.

Now it was time to rehearse the script because we needed to memorize it for filming. We memorized all of our lines and now it is time to start filming. I am not going to lie but it took a lot of time to get it right. When we were filming, sometimes there was too much noise in the background, or we said the wrong lines. After we got the beginning of the film perfect, I decided that I would crop out the ending of some of the film, and make a new ending so it would look much better. Now it was finally time to put together all of the films and do some editing and add credits in. This was really fun! I watched the film several times and thought it looked really good. Each time I watched it, I edited it a little to make it even better. It was finally done! I love the way it turned out! To watch it click here. 🙂

Answering my main inquiry question was the hardest part of my whole Capstone. It was the most important part to me, this would be when I would show everything I know about my topic. I already knew all of the information I needed but I did not know how to put it all together.

The first step of answering my main inquiry question was I had to write my question at the top of the page. This did not seem to hard. I knew now that it was time to write down our first paragraph. After this got the hang of it. Finally I finished answering my main inquiry. I was feeling really relieved that it was finally done. It took me about three days to finish it. It tok me a long time to finish. When writing I had lots of good ideas and I did a lot of research before finishing.

Finally it was time for Ms. Edwards to read it. She liked it but she said I should make a few changes such as some quotes and other things making my writing more interesting. After reading it over I really liked it. I was really happy the way it turned out and I am so happy Ms. Edwards took the time and helped me write it. 🙂 

After this one I’ll only have 2 blog posts left. This is super exciting. I feel like Capstone has been going by super fast. My Capstone share is in less than two weeks!

My final essay on answering my main inquiry question:

The two most popular schools of ballet are The School of American Ballet training and the American Ballet Theatre/Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School.  Both of these schools are based in New York City.  For the purposes of my Capstone project I decided to compare the two schools’ styles, student and teacher populations, tuitions and scholarships, schedule demands, and milestone events.

The School of American Ballet (SAB) training and  the American Ballet Theatre/Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School (JKO) have different dance styles. The style of dancing taught at SAB was influenced by George Balanchine, a famous choreographer who came to the United States from Russia in 1993 after an early career in Europe.  The Balanchine style of dancing involves extreme speed, precise footwork, and special port de bras (movement of the arms), emphasizing big shapes and lines.

The JKO school  has more of a Russian Vaganova technique. In SAB performances, the dancers are more neoclassical. SAB has more leotard ballets. usually wear leotards.   The Vaganova method is a ballet technique and training system devised by the Russian dancer and pedagogue Agrippina Vaganova(1879–1951). It is a combination from the French romantic era with the athleticism of the Italian technique. In JKO dances, the dancers usually wear tutus.

SAB and JKO have different populations of teachers and students. At SAB, there used to be under 200 students 15 years ago. Now there are over four hundred students mostly in the Preparatory level. The preparatory level is for 1-5 year olds. All Preparatory Division classes last one hour. There are 13 to 14 teachers not including their the artistic director Peter Martins. The average class at SAB is 16 to 18 students, but of course there are some levels the have 14 or other levels that have 25 students. I know this because Abi Stafford Principal dancer at NYCB, former student and teacher at SAB says,”There are probably 400 students at the school.” This shows that SAB has a lot of students.” At the JKO school, led by Artistic Director Cynthia Harvey, the faculty includes members of ABT’s Artistic Staff, ABT alumni and other prominent teachers. At JKO there are approximately 300 students and encompasses a Pre-Professional Division for dancers ages 12-18 and a Children’s Division for dancers ages 3-12. This shows that SAB has more students yet the same amount of teachers.

Another thing that makes both schools different is the tuition and amount of scholarships awarded. JKO tuition is free in the specially funded Boys Program for all Boys who are enrolled in levels below Intermediate Men; only the Registration Fee is to be paid. According to SAB, ”The School has an extensive scholarship program for students who have demonstrated professional potential and whose financial situations necessitate assistance with expenses. Scholarships range from ballet class tuition only, to awards to be applied to tuition, room and board expenses, transportation, and academic high school tuition. Yet at JKO tuition for the 2016-2017 academic year will be as follows: $5,500 for students Level 4/5; $6,500 for students in Level 6; and $8,000 for students in Level 7. This shows that both schools have very different demands.At SAB