Posted by Lieutenant Corinne Dalton/SARAH (Ships AI/Avatar) in Holodeck 1- Lessons

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Hannah Lori Asimina (Doctor) in Holodeck 1- Lessons

Posted by Lieutenant Corinne Dalton/SARAH (Ships AI/Avatar) in Holodeck 1- Lessons
Posted by… suppressed (2) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

Hannah nodded and watched, her head already bobbing to the bass beat moving through her. She freely admitted that she was totally impressed by Cori as she created, from scratch, the graceful movements of a dance. Hannah was athletic, but she never thought of herself as graceful. Of course, she’d never tried to do anything graceful, like dance, either. She watched Cori for a few more beats and then began to copy her, starting with swaying and then stepping, almost like a round, where she was one complexity behind Cori. She was able to follow the beat and steps easily though her movements had none of the fluidity of Cori’s movements, but looked rather like she was trying to repeat the choreography in her head than simply dance, which she was.
Lt jg Asimina, Doctor

Nodding in approval, Dalton smiled. Good, she signed. But don’t lose the feeling. Maybe it can be helpful, since you can’t hear the lyrics, to imagine your own story this song is telling. That will tell you the kind of feelings it might bring up. From there you can match your movements to the feeling. Try to keep it lose, but don’t overthink it. She hoped that didn’t seem contradictory, as it could be a lot to do at once, but in her experience, with some practice, one could find their own way to express themselves through movement. After all, there was no right or wrong way to dance (though some might disagree).

~Corinne Dalton

My story? She considered that as the beat moved through her. Her story was struggle, and in strange ways. Hannah had never seen the struggle as a bad thing, but as more challenges to over come and enjoy the process. She had had challenges that set her back and she’d kept going to find new ways to over come them. The music, the bass beat deep, vibrating and resonating felt like that heart pounding adrenaline rush when something went wrong on a climb. She moved back and forward trying to imitate the idea of over coming challenges to also be pushed back when you failed to get up and keep going. It didn’t look good or anything resembling the dance Cori was making, but Hannah was having fun anyway.
Lt. jg Asimina, Doctor

Dalton just smiled. There was no judgement on her part and she was here to motivate and guide, not critique. While specific kinds of dance had rules and positions and proper form, right now she wanted Hannah to just find that place where she and the music met. From there, the rest would follow with practice.

Cori continued to follow the beat, but instead of just the fluid motions, she introduced a punctuated hard step that would reverberate through the holographic floor. She’d continue the undulating smooth motions for three beats, then hit hard with one beat.

Hannah was still ‘dancing’ but she was watching Cori and imitating her. The punctuated step gave her the idea that she would really like to listen to this while she climbed. Flowing up the rock face and then punctuated by the hammer as the pitons went into the rock face.

After a few bars worth of this pattern, Corinne then introduced a turn, allowing herself to spin on the ball of one foot with a net knee, her other foot kicked out behind her slightly as a counter balance over. After she finished the spin she made sure to look directly at Hannah so she didn’t miss the other woman signing.

~Corinne Dalton

Hannah grinned and decided to attempt a spin, and it wasn’t nearly as eligant as Cori, but she didn’t fall. She had good balance. After a few she attempted to spin like Cori, with one leg held out for counter balance, over compensated, lost her balance and fell. She laughed, got up and started again. Honestly this is fun, but I don’t think I have a lot of talent for it.
Lt jg Asimina, doctor

While initially alarmed when the other woman fell over, Hannah’s laugh reassured Cori she was alright. She stopped and signed back, No one is measuring anything. There is no metric you are being held to. This is about you learning to be comfortable with your own body and how far you can push it. It’s no different to rock climbing but in this case the struggle is with your own expectations. What you think you should look like, or move like. I did years of dance training, Hannah, so my skills are going to be different. But I can have all the ability in the galaxy and that doesn’t mean I will enjoy it. You seem to enjoy dancing and that is honestly the only thing that matters. All I’m going to do is show you how you can find your own way through it. If at some point you want to learn a particular style, that’s an entirely different venture and one the holodeck is great for.

~Corinne Dalton

I’m not measuring, Hannah signed with a smile. There are things I’m good at and things I’m bad at. I enjoy them all. She began an almost sticcato type sway from side to side, stomping out a rhythm with the bass guitar with her feet, her swaying with the drums. Of course Hannah only felt it as vibrations and not different instruments. As the rhythm continued her swaying turned into turns and twists as she moved around the room rather than staying in one spot. At some point she doubled her movements to the rhythm. After a while she stopped having worked up a slight sweat and was thirsty. She called a pause to the music and replaced her implants. She grabbed a water, and started to ask Cori if she wanted one. She knew Cori didn’t need it, but she offered it anyway. She would offer any friend the drink and Cori was her friend, so she would offer even if she didn’t drink it. “That was fun. Thank you Cori.”
Lt. jg Asimina, Doctor