Betsy Klauck - Dance

Inflammatory Breast Cancer

I could whine about my health and cry about losing my hair, or I could continue living my life to the best of my ability and truly believe that cancer was not going to defeat me. This inspiring quote was the first step of my project. This semester, I wanted to dive deep on cancer. The first type of cancer that I thought of was breast cancer. Breast cancer for women is the most common cancer and the most meaningful type to them. Women love their breast, they feel that that one body part differs themselves from men. Looking at all the different kinds of breast cancer, one stuck out like a sore thumb, inflammatory breast cancer (IBC).

IBC is a very rare type of breast cancer that is actually very aggressive. It comes without warning with no physical sign of a lump and cant even be found on a mammogram. It causes the breast to inflame and become red, swollen, and hard. Although it is very treatable, the 5 percent of women who have died had no idea that they had it, until it was too late. The one story that I found so disappointing was a teenage girl knew something was wrong with her breast. She was afraid to tell her mother about it and ended up passing away with IBC. That touched me on a personal level because you should always have that trust in someone you love so deeply to go up to them and say there is something wrong with me and I dont know what it is.

I read several different books ranging from what breast cancer is to chemotherapy to real life stories of cancer survivors. From those books I found quotes that inspired me to create a dance to show the struggling of breast cancer. I decided to show it through contemporary dance. Contemporary dance is the most common style today. It takes modern dance but changes it up to make it more for this century style. It usually uses the lyrics to inspire the moves and also is commonly done using the ground support. Its also a mix of lyrical dance because some of the moves go with the words to the song.


In my choreography I wanted to tell a story. It shows a regular woman living a normal life until she gets the news that they discovered cancerous cells in her breast. She then goes through chemotherapy that makes me lose her hair and makes her very weak. Throughout the entire process, the song tells about needing someone so much closer. In the dance the audience will see a lot of reaching of the hands and pulling them closer to represent the fact that when you are going through this hard time, its always better to do it with someone by your side. Also in my choreography, I was going to add a lot of technique in the dance, but then realized that you dont always need to, especially when your trying to tell a story.


I hope that the audience will go home or even to a friend and tell them about IBC. Not enough people know this and it has been labeled the silent cancer killer. Even if it has nothing to do with IBC, I hope that even the message about cancer comes across the audience. This may sound bad to say, but I hope the audience cries. I feel that they would show me that it can touch someone whether it be in a personal way or anything.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Betsy
• AI
• Dance

[qtbailey]

amazing...

[jaidelowe06]

I was wondering what the first song is and it's a very gd choreographed peice