This past J-Term I went to Tanzania with the Carthage Treble Choir. On this trip we were able to experience many different cultures in Africa as we visited various tribes. My goal through this project was to create dances that would demonstrate the differences in their lifestyle as compared to ours. Throughout our trip we noticed how many of the people we met had such a deep happiness and love for life, which we compared to our fast-paced society and how we are currently seeing record highs of people being diagnosed with depression and anxiety. We travelled as a musical group performing songs and were able to work with the dance group Ibuka. Therefore, we purposely were observing the different music and dance styles of African tribes and peoples. The first dance I choreographed represents the American lifestyle. I wanted to show how we have this deep unhappiness because we don’t take time for ourselves, as well as how we are afraid to show our weaknesses. In the other dance my goal was to represent the happiness and love we witnessed. In the beginning and the end I demonstrated through slow and simple movement the concept of “pole pole” which means “slow down”. This phrase is how they live their lives; they value taking time to enjoy life and create meaningful relationships over constantly working. Once the music picked up I did my best to imitate and replicate African dance movements. Their motions have a bounce to them and when they dance they feed off of each other’s energy.