For my final project, I wanted to tell the story of my relationship with dance. I have been dancing since I was 3, but it hasn’t always been smooth sailing since then. There have been ups and downs and there was even a time where I danced very little over a span of two years. Dancing is something I am very passionate about, so I wanted to tell my story. Here is the video, and underneath I will write my reflection and explanation.
When I started this project, I wanted to find songs that described each stage of my story. I ended up choosing six Taylor Swift songs to tell my story. I chose Taylor Swift songs because I liked the consistency of having all songs be by the same artist, and Taylor Swift is an artist I have grown up with. She has been releasing music for my entire life, so it seemed fitting. The first song out of the six is “Never Grow Up”. I chose this as the first song because it is about being young and having a fresh start and outlook on life. When you are so young, there are no worries in the world. This is when I had first started to dance and there was no stress. The second song is called “Stay Stay Stay”. This stage of my story is deciding to stick with dance because I loved it. It was going well and it was something that I wanted to spend my time doing. Some lyrics that resonate are “stay, stay, stay, I’ve been loving you for quite some time”. The third song in the video is “Holy Ground”. At this point in my dance story, I am still in love with dance. The song matches because it is about everything going well. Where I was dancing was holy ground. It meant a lot to me. The next song is “happiness”. This is where things get a little rocky in my dance story. In the song she says “I haven’t met the new me yet”. In this part of my life, a lot of things were changing, so effectively things with dance changed as well. There was happiness because of dance, but also I needed some time to find the new me. The fifth song is “this is me trying”. In this part of my dance story, I was trying to get back into dance and find that passion again. I think of this song being my two year break from dance. I danced some during this time, but not as much as I used to. The last song I used was “Enchanted”. I think of this as being my reunion with dance. When I came to UMW, I started dancing a lot more again. In the song Taylor says “I was enchanted to meet you”. I was enchanted to re-meet dance and find my love again.
I edited the songs together on Audacity. I edited them so that when one song ended, the next one picked up on the same word as the last. You can notice this if you know the songs. I like how it turned out. Next, I got videos of myself dancing from all ages. I edited them so they went into chronological order. This way, the story is told correctly and the songs line up with the stages of my life. I really love how this turned out! This is what I envisioned when I thought of the project idea. I like how I was able to incorporate video and audio editing.
This was a great semester! I loved this class because it felt like a creative outlet. I hope everyone has a great holiday season, and good luck to everyone taking finals next week!
