Modern Exam

Last Tuesday, I had my first exam, modern. Though it was an exam, it was also like a small performance of sorts, and I enjoyed it. It wasn't perfect, but it went pretty well, both for me personally and for my class as a whole; everyone danced well (and we all passed the exam).

Here I am with some of my classmates after we had finished with the exam. From left to right, the people in the picture are Nastia (Russia), Albina (Kyrgyzstan - not an international trainee, though), Mao (Japan), Virginia (Brazil), Nika (Russia), and me.

Here I am with my modern teacher, Maya Popova, after the exam.

During the exam, we performed several combinations that we had learned and rehearsed in our modern classes during the previous months of the academic year. A judging panel, composed of teachers and other school faculty members, sat in front of us to watch and take notes. A large number of the school's other students were watching, too, sitting or standing in the balcony overlooking the studio. The two studios in which the exams for the older students take place each have a balcony built to allow people to watch without taking up space in the studio itself.

After we finished dancing, the judging panel left the room to consult and assign grades. For the international students, this works slightly differently than for the other students; the jury grades international students on a pass-or-fail basis, while each one of the other students are assigned a grade between one and five (three or higher is a passing mark, five is the highest). International students' specific number grades are assigned by the teacher instead of by the jury.

Now we're now busy preparing for our ballet exams, which will happen in just a few days. The boys will have their exam on Thursday (the tenth of April) and ours will be the day after that. It's a little intimidating, as the ballet exam is going to be much longer and more physically demanding than the modern exam was. There are just seven of us who will be dancing in the exam, which currently looks like it will end up being nearly an hour and a half long (including some tiny breaks during which we'll catch our breath, change places, or switch into our pointe shoes). We each get to dance a lot during the exam and will all have the chance to be seen, something that I am very happy about but which also means that the exam will be particularly challenging physically, since few people and lots of dancing means little time for resting between combinations. Still, my overall feeling about the exam is leaning more towards excitement than anything else. I don't feel ready quite yet, but we still have three days to get everything together, polished, and ready for presentation, something that I think we're perfectly capable of doing.

:)