Review Essay (1)

Melynda Phillips

Richards

English 1301

9/17/2014

My Experience at the Ballet Austin Summer Intensive

Each year, millions of dancers audition for the opportunity to dance with a professional company over the summer.  Only a few-hundred are accepted into each program.  This summer I traveled to Austin to attend the Ballet Austin Summer Intensive, a six-week camp focused on intense ballet training.  Over three hundred ballerinas, hoping to obtain a year-round position with the company or at the academy, annually attend the Ballet Austin Summer Intensive.  This is a terrific summer program for an advanced dancer.  The ballet training is fabulous and made me a much better dancer in general.

While in Austin, dancers were to stay in the Callaway House dormitory.  Upon arriving at the dorms, I was greeted by several friendly counselors.  After a smooth, simple check in process, one of the counselors showed me to the room where I would be staying. The Callaway House was an extraordinarily nice dormitory.  The rooms were very spacious and well kept.  The rooms were originally meant to have two people to a bedroom and four to a suite.  However, Ballet Austin arranged to have four girls in each bedroom and eight to a suite.  While this set-up was a bit more cramped than expected, there was still plenty of space.  Each bedroom had four beds, four drawers, two closets, two sinks, and one bathroom.  The suites had two bedrooms and in between them was a common area with a couch, coffee table, desk, and kitchenette including a microwave, full-sized refrigerator and a small table.  The Callaway House also had a rooftop swimming pool, hot tub, gym, game room, theater, computer room, and a dining hall.

The dining hall was a buffet style cafeteria where the dancers ate breakfast and dinner.  Breakfast was the same gross foods everyday.  Our options were wet eggs, salty bacon, goopy oatmeal, cold biscuits and overly ripe fruit.  Occasionally there would be pastries available at breakfast, although, usually I would try to tolerate the fruit and biscuits if I wanted to eat breakfast.  Dinner was just as disgusting as breakfast.  Almost every night we were served greasy chicken, overly buttered vegetables and a cold pasta.  However there was a salad bar available at dinner that the dancers usually took advantage of.  Lunch was catered to the Ballet Austin studio from the Callaway House dining hall, and consisted of sandwiches with slimy meat on stale bread, fruit left over from breakfast, chips and cookies.  I usually threw away the sandwich and only ate the fruit, chips and cookies.  Despite the awful lunches, the rest of the time spent at the Ballet Austin studio was fantastic.

A day at the studio began with ballet technique class.  Ballet technique was taught by Christopher Swaim or Nicolas Kepley.  Mr. Swaim was my favorite teacher during the intensive.  His classes were challenging and always provided feedback that could be applied easily throughout the entire class.  After technique, we had pointe class with Jennifer Hart.  Ms. Hart’s pointe class was difficult; although the exercises were basic, she gave corrections that made the class more demanding.  After lunch, we had either modern or jazz class, taught by Laquet Pringle, a former dancer on Broadway.  Ms. Pringle had always been exceptionally energetic and encouraging during class.  Lastly, we had choreography class with Mr. Swaim, to learn a routine to perform for the show at the end of the intensive.  Mr. Swaim’s choreography was fun to learn and exciting to perform.

Overall, the Ballet Austin Summer Intensive was wonderful.  The living arrangements were amazing and the ballet classes were incredible.  My only complaint for the intensive would be the food.  I would recommend this summer intensive to most advanced ballet dancers and hope to return myself.

		Images found at balletausitn.com and callawayhouseaustin.com

 

Reflection

            For this paper, I wish I had more time.  I could have used the extra time to go out to restaurant or movie.  This would have been an easier topic to write about and understand.  However, I did not have the time needed, and had to write about a subject in which I already had information.

            My first inclination was to write about a restaurant I went to while in Austin.  My experience at this restaurant was awful, yet, when it came time to review it, I found I did not have enough evidence to support my argument.  I spent so much time trying to make this review work that when I finally rejected the idea and decided to switch subjects I did not have enough time for a good pre-write process.  Had I started with writing about Ballet Austin’s Summer Intensive instead of the restaurant, I could have written a much better review.

            I was hoping peer reviews would provide helpful feedback, but my reviewer was so focused on the formatting of my paper (which I suppose is helpful to some extent) that they did not look for grammatical errors or give many helpful tips.  To balance out the poor peer review I went to writing lab for extra help.  The tutor at the writing lab helped me finalize my paper to point where I felt it was acceptable to turn in.

            While, I still not feel that my paper is good, I did as much as could to fix it in the time allowed.  Honestly, I would probably only grade this paper as high C or low B, as it is not a paper I would consider “college leveled”.  Although it may not be well written, I do hope you enjoyed reading the paper and found it interesting.