Global Journey Blog vol.5 -Hinata Matsuda

Hello, I am Hinata Matsuda☺.
It has been 11 months since I came to Gödeborg, Sweden, and I have only one month left to study here.
I am sad to leave, but I am also looking forward to going back to Japan because I miss my family, friends, and food in Japan.

Well, in this blog, I will write about the following things.

1) Dancing
2) Finally, the performance day!

Since last semester, I have been attending a kpop dance class once a week at the dance community in Gödeborg. I recently realized that dancing is one of the few things I have continued to do since elementary school until now.

This community has a variety of classes from beginner to advanced, with students from elementary school to university. Kpop is popular in Sweden, and it is nice to have friends with whom I can share common interests. I am the only Japanese person in the community this semester, and although I was worried at first, I’m enjoying thanks to everyone. 

Last semester the lessons were in English, but this semester they are in Swedish.
My level of Swedish is that I can only catch a little bit of words, so basically I don't understand what the teacher is saying. However, I have been studying Swedish at a simple level with an app, and the grammar and pronunciation of words in Swedish and English are similar, so sometimes I think I understand the conversation, and I find it interesting to take dance lessons in a language I don't know.

I would like to introduce some of the words I have learned during my many lessons in Swedish.

Höger (right)
Vänster (left)
Hoppa (jump)

These three were easy to understand because the teacher was moving and showing while saying them as she taught us the choreography.

For example, when the choreography was to move the body to the left, the teacher would say "vänster(left)", so at first I thought Vänste? Wensday? Wednesday? How can that be?, but since she repeats, I gradually understand that maybe it means left. After the lesson, I asked my friend if vänster means left, and that's when I fully understood.

Ja kan inte komma idag (literal translation: I cannot go today).
People who miss a lesson send this sentence to the group chat, with some similarities to English, such as "kan" for "can" and "kamma" for "come" (maybe).

Bra jobbat (literal translation: "good job")
After the lesson, the teacher sends a practice video to the group chat, and I always say this at that time.

It is fun to learn Swedish like this, and besides, when I ask questions to the teacher or students, they always reply in English, and it really helps that everyone speaks English, because it is English that I speak with my friends after the lesson.

And now I am focusing on expressing my feelings through dance.
The reason for this was because, as I wrote in my last blog, I found it interesting to express my feelings in ways other than words when I visited the gallery. I also wanted to enrich my facial expressions and expressiveness while dancing by looking back at videos of myself dancing. Personally, I think the most noticeable thing when watching a dance is the face. I have always paid attention to the movements of my body, but I feel that I have never paid much attention to my facial expressions or my eyes.

So I decided to write down the lyrics of the songs I dance to, interpret them in my own way by reflecting on my own experiences, and express those feelings when I dance. But it was not an easy thing to do.

At the performance stage

At first, I wrote the lyrics, translated them, and thought the lyrics were coordinated with "the strength to go on with one's life without fear," so I danced with that in mind, consciously trying not to change the choreography. 

Then there were changes in the way I danced and my facial expressions. I was happy to discover the places where I could make slow and sharp changes, the angles of my hands, the angles of my face, and the ways I could move my body, which I had never thought of before.

But for some reason, I felt like I was playing someone other than myself.
The dance I am performing is a cover dance of a certain group, and I am dancing the same choreography and standing position as the dancer herself. It is a cover dance, and I quite like to enjoy dancing as someone else, but I did not feel that I was able to express my emotions, which was my goal this time. Instead, I was dancing to the lyrics as the person who was singing them.

So the next thing I did was to acknowledge my "negative" feelings.
Recently, I have finally been able to think about being courageous and going for what I want, not because others around me are doing it, but because I think about how I feel when I see it.

But before that, and I still feel a variety of anxieties. I felt anxious and impatient when doing something different from others around me, and frustrated that it was pulling me away from my true feelings. I acknowledged that these "negative" feelings were and still are inside me. 

Found my friend 

When I danced this song with that in mind and with an awareness of my decision to "go on with my life without fear," it changed the way I expressed myself in an even better way, and I felt a joy and motivation to practice that I had never felt before while dancing.

On the other hand, I also experienced cases where I could express myself better if I did not think so deeply.
The next song was a complete change from the previous song and seemed to have a coordinated theme of "dancing with friends is fun and great”.  So I danced while imagining about what it would be like to have fun and be happy. When I watched the video, there I was, dancing happily.　

Sometimes I couldn't dance well, and sometimes I wondered why I was moving in such a strange way when I saw my dance video, but it was fun because I felt that I was learning something new every time I danced.

(2) Finally, the performance day!
Just a few weeks ago, there was a performance day of the dance club. We rented a stage at the university and had a performance stage once a semester that was open to the general public.

When we had the rehearsal, I watched my video and made corrections until the end. Rehearsals were not only a great way to check my team, but also to watch other classes dance, which was the most fun. The students ranged from elementary school students to university students, but they all shined and I learned a lot from them.

Then, on the day of the show, I was very nervous in front of many audiences, especially right before my turn. But one of the members encouraged me by saying, "We can do it!”, so I was able to gain confidence before the show. Once on stage, I fully enjoyed myself! I was conscious of expressing my emotions while thinking about the meaning of the songs I had interpreted in my own way, and I felt reassured and confident when I saw the members and my friends who had come to see us. And when the stage was over, I received many cheers and comments that it was great.

At the performance stage(The one who is sitting is me)

We danced with four members this time, and they were all highly motivated, kind, smooth in communication, and good at dancing. This is my unforgettable memory for a whole life. 

With my lovely friends

Thank you for reading this far! 
See you in the next blog!