Dance Lecture

My favorite lecture speaker was Peter Carpenter, a dance professor at Columbia. During our lecture series no one has been as energetic and excited to speak to us then Peter, he didn’t just talk to us, he involved us. What I mean by he involved us is that he didn’t have a power point or make it like he was just teaching us, he was interacting with us. Since he was interactive and talking all about dance it was easy for me to connect with him because I’m a dancer and when someone is just talking at me, it’s harder to learn then when someone will interact with me.

I really enjoyed the dance he showed us that he choreographed because it all dealt with today society problems and had a deep meaning behind all of it. The simple movement and design had such a deeper meaning then something with the most complicated movements you can see. The biggest issue in the whole dance piece was having money problems, which is something I think most of American society deals with.

The biggest connection I made with Peter was about his story and mine were similar in ways but not exactly the same. Our stories of how we ended where we are the same because we both knew somewhere we didn’t belong and knew that coming to Columbia was the right choice. Peter talked about how he grew up in a small town that wasn’t that great of a town, and he didn’t have that easy of a life growing up, and how dance was what made things better and how he found the passion for it and couldn’t really be without it. Well I’m the same way, I may of not of had as hard of a time growing up but very different, but dancing is the one thing that makes everything better and that I found and know my passion for it is very strong and  I know that I want to do it the rest of my life.  To be a choreographer like Peter would be a dream come true. I might not choreograph pieces like his, but it’s what I want to do, to follow my dreams like he did.