Dare to Dance

DARE TO DANCE. My name is Jessica. I'm a dance student in London, pursuing my dream of dancing against the odds. This blog is for people who dare to dream, and dare to dance, no matter what. #wedaretodance

About Dare to Dance

Category: Interviews

Hofesh Shechter: Grand Finale & Live Interview with Sadler’s Wells!

So a couple of weeks ago, I had one of my best experiences in the dance world to date. I received the incredible opportunity to watch the Hofesh Shechter Company in rehearsal at Sadler’s Wells, and to host a live Facebook broadcast, including a Q&A with Hofesh Shechter himself! Later that week, I attended a…

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I can’t wait to be back in the studio again! 🖤 It will be a while before I’m back to doing everything I usually do and especially pointe work, but I’m really looking forward to the process of getting my strength and technique back and getting ready to perform. 💪🏻 Returning from an injury and even any extended time off is something you have to take very seriously. Most of us have learned the hard way that doing too much too soon can send you straight back to square one!🤦🏼‍♀️ This week I’m transitioning from complete rest by doing very slow and simple rehab exercises on my ankle, walking around a lot more, and now it’s getting to the end of the week I’ll add in a couple of floor barre workouts and maybe a reduced strength training session in the gym 🏋🏼‍♀️ no dancing yet and no strenuous exercise, just reminding my body where everything is and building up a bit of strength 💗

I’m feeling really inspired after watching The Royal Ballet in class today at @royaloperahouse 💗 it’s perfect motivation to work hard on my rehab to be ready to get back in the studio next week! I can’t wait!

I’ve been enjoying having a bit of time off these past 2 weeks to relax, recover and explore new things 🌸 after being so busy for so long, it’s nice to be able to just go out for a walk and get coffee, to look around shops, to watch TV at home all day, read books, try and fail at some cooking, go out for drinks and all those good things. My new favourite thing to do is watch football ⚽️ who knew? It’s crazy how long it’s been since I asked myself what I enjoy outside of dance, because dance dictates my whole life. That being said, I’ve really missed it, and this week I’m starting rehab on my Achilles and starting to move my body more so that I can come back to classes next week. I think that taking a proper break has done me the world of good and I hope I can come back even stronger to finish out the academic year! 🌸🌞

Look at these amazing journals & notepads from @happinessplanner 😍🌸 I got this huge package of inspirational stationery yesterday & you can check out my stories for a peek inside each! I’ll add a highlight once they expire & post more as I use them. Which one do you like the look of the most? 👀 💐 I’m most excited about the ‘not to-do list’ gradient notepad and the ‘law of attraction’ journal but I’ll update once I’ve tried them out! 📚 Thank you again @happinessplanner 🌸🌷🌹

A year ago yesterday I had the amazing privilege of watching @englishnationalballet in rehearsal & hosting a live interview for @sadlers_wells 💗 it was one of the most amazing experiences (and I even ended up on the ENB Instagram page! 🤗) So thankful to @sadlers_wells for all of the amazing opportunities they’ve given me! It’s always so much fun! #throwback

I may as well use my time away from the studio to catch up on some reading! 🤓 I’ve got a bunch of books from the library I’ve had for weeks and I’ve only read a few pages of each, so I’m going to dedicate some of my time off to exercising my brain! 🧠 📚 I’m actually really looking forward to it because I love reading, especially dance books, but I so rarely get to read anything other than extracts of books and articles for uni work because of how busy I am. Do you like reading? If I come across anything really good I might bring back the Dare to Dance book club on the blog! 👩🏼‍💻

When I first finished my A Levels and was applying to university, I desperately wanted to go to Oxford to study English Literature. 📚 I came very close to it, too- but ultimately I didn’t get in. I was really heartbroken, because I was so convinced it was the right place for me. 💔 The other universities I’d applied to just weren’t as good, and if I couldn’t go to Oxford, I didn’t want to go to university at all. I didn’t even know then that there were dance courses you could join at 18+. I thought that if you didn’t join a professional school aged 16, that was it. In reality there are loads of places with a flexible intake age. It was through the rejection from my dream university that I ended up studying and training in dance at a pre-professional level. If you’d told me at the time “Everything happens for a reason, maybe you didn’t get in because something even better is coming,” I would have told you to shut up. But it was true! Getting rejected by Oxford threw all my plans up into the air and it was that confusion that led me to the understanding that what I truly felt called to do was to dance. Only once I explored that did I realise there was a way that I could still do it. 💗 I’m very much still on my journey, but I have come such a long way since then. I’m so grateful for that experience, because even though it was painful, it put me on the path to my purpose.

It’s the start of a new week and the first day without uni classes as spring term is done 😌 this was taken after our Limón technique assessment on Friday! I’m out of the studio for a while now because I really need to rest. I already want to be dancing but I’m looking forward to finding some other things to do for a few weeks! Well done to all the Roehampton second years for finishing this term and for some people finishing the year! 🎉 (I couldn’t find everyone’s tag so comment and I’ll tag you ☺️)

Weekend mood! 🌸 This is how I feel about assessments being over with 🙏🏻 I can’t physically jump at the moment but I am mentally jumping for joy! If you’re finishing up some important milestones you’ve been working towards like assessments, remember to celebrate! I always skip straight over celebrating and move on to the next goal. But if you want more success, you need to embrace every small success you have and celebrate it! Otherwise you’ll always be chasing the next thing and won’t get any satisfaction from finishing something. So go on- you have permission! 🍾🥂 Photo by the wonderful @jakeowensphoto