On the first day of class, you told us that, as leisure and recreation specialists, it is going to be our job to build better people. In this movie, dancing saved Billy’s life. He was on a path to be just like his father and brother, miserably working in horrific mining conditions. He could have easily gotten involved in the rioting and become a bitter person, but dancing gave him something to put his passions into. Dancing gave him an alternate path; it was crazy symbolic when Billy went off to London to attend school and his father and brother are shown being locked in the elevator and sent back into the mines on the same day. Dance made that world of difference for him. Leisure is, in my opinion, a wonderful tool to bring people together.
…show more content…
In one scene, he was lying in bed trying to go to bed and he kept whispering “prepare” to himself, something Mrs. Wilkinson told him during class one day. His dancing endured long term as he systematically pursued it, and it permeated his everyday life; he danced everywhere he went, and when he got really angry, he danced through it (before kicking out the bathroom door). He identified as a dancer, and put significant effort into it; as his dad proudly told the Royal Ballet School Board, he practiced every day after school. He continued to persevere through his struggles; at the beginning of the movie, when he first started dancing, he fell over and over and over again, but he kept trying. He did eventually have a career in this leisure film; the final scene was him, older, professionally dancing in the Black Swan (which was really cool since Mrs. Wilkinson had told him about it earlier in the film; the black swan symbolized Billy because the swan was forced to be a swan during the day until at night, when it could finally dance. Billy was forced to pretend not to dance and take care of his grandma and attend school, but he lived for and came alive while he danced). Once he was in the Royal Ballet School, he was around people with similar
In one scene, he was lying in bed trying to go to bed and he kept whispering “prepare” to himself, something Mrs. Wilkinson told him during class one day. His dancing endured long term as he systematically pursued it, and it permeated his everyday life; he danced everywhere he went, and when he got really angry, he danced through it (before kicking out the bathroom door). He identified as a dancer, and put significant effort into it; as his dad proudly told the Royal Ballet School Board, he practiced every day after school. He continued to persevere through his struggles; at the beginning of the movie, when he first started dancing, he fell over and over and over again, but he kept trying. He did eventually have a career in this leisure film; the final scene was him, older, professionally dancing in the Black Swan (which was really cool since Mrs. Wilkinson had told him about it earlier in the film; the black swan symbolized Billy because the swan was forced to be a swan during the day until at night, when it could finally dance. Billy was forced to pretend not to dance and take care of his grandma and attend school, but he lived for and came alive while he danced). Once he was in the Royal Ballet School, he was around people with similar