Coding and Dancing: My Experience With Girls Rise Up

                                 (Images used from Pexels and Pixabay, though I did the doodles over them myself). 

 Hello everyone! 

One thing I have really wanted to learn for a long time is coding. I sort of know a few things: my website (not my other blog, though it is linked to it) Q's Creative Corner is where I do the most coding (at least in CSS and HTML). It is very much a work in progress and something I want to eventually finish coding in the future.  

The coding in Girls Rise Up is completely different, because it uses a combination of coding and dance. My group, Courage, is not representative of what the whole camp was like. Every group did something different that was related to STEM and dance. My group did animation and a bit of Python. 

 I had tried learning Python before with different platforms, but I didn't get very far into it. I believe this was due to the way that the platforms taught it. STEM From Dance, and their (virtual) camp Girls Rise Up helped me. I felt like I learned a lot more there, especially because of the community, which was very welcoming and friendly, and I didn't feel afraid to ask questions if I had any about my coding. 

An example of some of the Python coding I did; and no, I'm not that old 

Dance was also an important part of Girls Rise Up, because most of the coding we did was related to our dancing (for example we would have animations that followed us as we danced). We'd choreograph our own dances and come up with ideas of what we'd animate over top of it. The animation we did wasn't traditional animation. We didn't draw each frame; instead, we used code in order to do it. 

During the program, I was also introduced to new dance styles. For a while, I had just done Ballet, but in this program they introduced me to different styles of dance. Had I not done Girls Rise Up, I wouldn't have decided to try out these dance styles, so I think it is amazing that they introduced me to it. 

During the camp, we had different speakers come and tell us about their careers. (They either did STEM and dance, or just STEM, or just dance.) I thought was neat because it showed more options of what you can do with STEM, dance, or a mix of both. At the end of it, we had a showcase of all the work we did. It felt really cool, and given that we had such a limited time to learn the coding and the dance, it felt really good. And as someone who does multiple creative things (which people often don't think are connected or tell you "you only can to do one"), I loved that they showed how both of them are connected. 

The code I made. 

My group choreographed a dance to the song "This is Me" from The Greatest Showman, and I ended up choreographing the lyrics "I am brave, I am bruised, I am who I'm meant to be, this is me." I decided to do a spotlight animation over my dance, where the colors changed every time I did a movement. (They went from greenish blue to dark blue.) 

Before the camp, I would have normally done something like this with video editing. I find it neat that DanceON created a way to video edit using coding (with overlaying). And, even after the camp is over I have decided to keep learning and working with DanceON, because I feel it will help my coding skills get better. And I find that I will use them in my videos, even if they aren't dance themed. 

At the end of Girls Rise Up, people in the group were awarded with different awards. (My local theatre did something similar to this.) I was awarded with "The Tech Savvy Award" and "The Leadership Award." 

Another cool thing that happened before the camp even started was that STEM From Dance sent me (and the other people participating) a t-shirt, a mask, and a note-book, among other things that are themed around the summer camp, Girls Rise Up: 

This is a really cool mask

The note-book, I actually plan to use it for taking notes about coding 
even after Girls Rise Up is over. 

Me dancing while wearing the shirt
 (You may not be able to see it well because of the bright sunlight.)

In the end, I'd really love to do more with STEM From Dance because I feel like I learned a whole lot, and their camp was an awesome experience. And I would recommend the program to anyone who is interested in learning coding and/or likes dance, or likes both. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Which do you like to do: STEM or Dance? And have you ever thought of combining them? 

-Quinley