My experience as an intern at IDT was an eventful, period of time for my summer ‘19. I did a range of different tasks from doing administration work to filming rehearsals to choreographing small phrases for DTP classes. When I first got the news that I would be an intern with IDT over the summer I was first expecting to be in a dance studio every day observing the dance company and assisting them, but when they told me I would do admin work; I felt like I would be horrible at that job because I am terrible at working on computers. Later I realized, doing my assigned tasks on computers was nothing too complicated. It was nothing different from what I do on my phone (checking emails, writing documents, sending files, etc.) but my only issue is that I am a very slow typer. Admin work wasn’t only assignments I need to do on the laptop, it also consisted of organizing various clothing pieces into bins of costumes, making phone calls to place orders, & organizing files.
Then when it all came down to taking footage of the dancers in the rehearsals, I felt comfortable being in that space because I am used to being in a dance class but it was a different approach since I was there to take photos and videos of what was going on during their practices for both of the shows for Independent Shakespeare Company and Formulae & Fairy Tales. I am DEFINITELY NOT a photographer/ videographer, so experiencing this was very new and has helped me enhance photography as a newer skill.
My third and final workplace was being in the Dancing Through Parkinson’s, DTP, class. This was probably one of the most humbling experiences I had the chance to encounter because 1) I was able to choreograph and teach a phrase to two of the DTP classes, which that was the assignment I wanted to do initially & 2) I also got to know each of the students in the class and realized we face through some of the same struggles. I found out that some people with Parkinson’s deal with some of the things I face as a dancer, which is trying to always remain positive. Though it is something EVERY person on this planet has faced, it was unbelievable to hear that sometimes they might have a lot of self-doubt in doing their everyday activities due to their disorder, which I deal with that from being a dancer in today’s society full of tough competition. I genuinely appreciated the opportunity to be in that class because it served me the most as far as it is what I was most interested in and being able to strengthen my artistic skills. My overall experience as an intern for Invertigo Dance Theatre was an amazing learning opportunity to get to know myself better as an artist and as a young teenage girl becoming a great employee for the future jobs I work with.