With all we've accomplished at RMB Dance this year I definitely felt a need to celebrate and finish off the term with a bang, so this weekend we had our first ever Winter Choreography Celebration!
At RMB Dance, we celebrate creativity. In that sense, I'd like to describe this event as "a party with an RMB Dance twist". I thought this would be a great opportunity for our dancers to showcase their individuality and creative ideas, and they definitely did that!
I try to plan everything we do to be meaningful for the children. Although this was a party with heaps of fun intended, I still wanted the children to have a worthwhile experience and hopefully gain something from attending. I definitely saw children pushing themselves out of their comfort zones, developing confidence throughout the afternoon and being so kind and supportive towards each other. For some of them, coming along and participating took a great deal of courage so I'm very proud of them.
On top of being an experience for them, I wanted this to be my thank you to the children for all their efforts this year. They really have achieved so much, perhaps more than they realise, and I hope I also showed them my pride and gratitude. As well, I hope it was a chance to make more memories with their dance friends. If you haven't already, check out the reel of the highlights on our social media pages - definitely worth a watch!
I think my favourite part of the afternoon was seeing dancers from all classes and age groups together. It was lovely to see them in festive, celebratory spirits and having fun based on the common factor: dance! Being a relatively new dance school, with the added element of launching during the pandemic, we've not had many opportunities to mix like this. Yet I believe that these opportunities - chances for the children to be in an environment where they can safely express themselves alongside others who love the same thing - are so important.
Now that I've known some of our dancers, and their families, for a while now (several years in some cases!), they really are much more than just my students. With my own actual family living quite a distance away, RMB Dance really is my second family so it's important to me that we have valuable time together. I really felt that on Saturday.
I'm also incredibly thankful that whenever we do big events, I'm never short of parents willing to help out. Huge thanks to the parents who were so valuable on Saturday, stepping in happy to help whenever needed - again, just like family.
To me it's quite funny that I've hosted so many parties for children across Edinburgh, but this being the first one for the dance school felt completely different and definitely a step out of my comfort zone! Whenever I do a new event I always feel a little apprehensive, wondering if I've made a right decision, prepared properly and covered all bases. Really, it's thanks to my dancers for inspiring me to put on events like this, and making me want to try new things. I'm so glad we did it...it's been quite the year for new experiences at RMB Dance and now I'm even more excited to keep going!
I can hardly believe we're now heading into our last week of classes of 2023! But we're not winding down just yet, with our end-of-term Class Presentations set to properly finish off the year!