Farewelled with a flash mob.

The school bell at 3:00 this past Friday signaled the beginning of Term Break for most students and teachers, but for myself, it marked the conclusion to a rather significant part of my journey here.

I received the most heartwarming farewell from my students this past Friday as I wrapped up my teaching career in NZ. Without giving away the slightest hint that anything was going on, my hip hop crew invaded the staff room in the middle of morning tea and honored me with a beautiful performance the hip hop routine we had been practicing over the past term. Apparently, some of them were hiding in and amongst the furniture, but I didn’t have a clue that anything was up until the music came on, and the room was flooded with my gorgeous little hip hoppers. I’ll be honest- there were definitely some tears. I am SO going to miss their gorgeous little faces. A large portion of the crew are students of mine from this year and last, so we have quite a strong bond. Having never been flash mobbed before, it was pretty special, and I will never forget it. Hats off to my lovely co-worker, Kylie, for sneakily (and very successfully) orchestrating this flash mob. You are super sweet!

The farewelling only continued from here. I received so many lovely cards from students, parents, and staff, and some very special treasures to take back to my homeland as memories of this wonderful adventure.

The hip hoppers also put on a shared lunch, filled with an abundance of my favorite things, including chocolate and carrots- so thoughtful!

At the whole school assembly that afternoon, three of my former students presented me with a beautiful bouquet of flowers, a heartwarming speech, and a trophy engraved with “Best Dance Teacher.” I didn’t know it was possible to earn a trophy for teaching, but I was very honored to accept it. I was truly touched by the extent to which a few particular students, parents, and teachers went out of their way to make me feel loved and honored. I definitely felt the aroha (love), and it was absolutely the best way to conclude my teaching career in New Zealand (at least for now anyways).

While it’s certainly not ideal to be leaving in the middle of the school year, I think for the most part, the students seemed to understand that my time had come to return to my Canadian roots.

We celebrated the end to a fantastic 1/4 of the year together with a “one quarter” party, in which students brought in shared lunch items which showed their understanding of one quarter. I was thoroughly impressed with their creativity and fraction knowledge!

While I am sad to leave the darling Kiwi kids who who were in my care over the past term, the students in Room 10 are very fortunate to have a cool, creative, and vibrant young teacher taking over for me. Miss Smith and I get along great, and we had the privilege of working together quite closely over the past couple weeks to make the transition as smooth as possible.

A heartfelt thanks to all the amazing students, staff, and parents at my school for such an extragant farewell and giving me such awesome days and memories as a teacher in NZ. It was the best send-off imaginable.

Hopskotch Dance: delighted to meet you

The other night, Brendon planned a surprise date night for us.  Though I didn’t have a clue this event was even happening, Brendon had gotten us tickets to attend a hip hop performance by a local dance company (I have a pretty amazing and thoughtful husband, I know.)  I was pretty stoked about the idea of a live dance show without knowing much about who would be performing, but from the moment that the opening dance sequence began, I knew that I was in for a real treat.

The company putting on the show was Hopskotch Dance.  Founded by Josh Mitikulena and Kat Walker in 2007, Hopskotch began as a community-driven short term project based crew, but has more recently developed aims to evolve into a company of international standard.  Without knowing much of the background of the company, except that they are fairly recently established, I could tell that this dance company was not into replicating the moves of Hollywood or MTV.  Their numbers exuded vibrancy, positivity, originality, and spunk.  Their show that evening, entitled “Musicality,” played up this theme by featuring dances to everything from baroque pop, to funk, to Traditional Chinese, electro, and acoustic music.

There was some intense krump action by guest performers City Trouble,

as well as a little cypher battling between guest crews Infinite Styles and Supreme Kids.

Overall, I was impressed with the variety of dance and music genres represented, as well as with the ethos of the company. The performance was most stimulating and refreshing.   After I got home and had a chance to take a look at their website, I disovered that Hopskotch aspires to  “inspire and motivate people through dance and to continue to use their talents to help others.”  I like that… almost reminds me of another dance company I am quite fond of back home in Edmonton…  Attending the show was most definitely inspiring and thought provoking.  I liked what was going on here.

I hope in future weeks that I can get to know this Hopskotch dance company a little bit.

Checkin’ the Scene (the dance scene)

This weekend, I had the opportunity to check out the dance scene here in Auckland (representing in my HSM gear, of course).  On Friday nite, I attended a drop-in hip hop class at City Dance, a studio located in downtown Auckland in a gorgeous, old building with a long, winding staircase.

Interestingly, out of the 6 people attending the class, only one of them was from New Zealand.  Ireland, England, Japan, USA, and Canada were all represented.  The instructor, Sarah, a native of England, led us through an intense and thorough, but enjoyable warm-up, lasting half the class.  The remaining 30 minutes were spent learning a bit of a krump/funk routine.  Felt great to dance again!

That night, I learned of some $1 hip hop workshops that were going on the next day, and who can pass up a $1 dance workshop??  The workshops were being run by an Auckland hip hop crew that practices out of the University of Auckland campus called Triple 8 Funk.  I learned a fun and slightly comical routine along with about 30 other people, taught by Joel Gallarde, the founder, director, and choreographer of Triple 8 Funk.

I am looking forward to taking in more workshops and classes by other instructors here in New Zealand to get more of a feel for who and what is out there.