Jarrell Ireson
My name is Jarell Ireson; I’m one of the new apprentices working at the Oxford Quakers. Working at the Oxford Quakers is helping me develop new skills and talents, like baking/cooking, gardening and management, as well as my social skills. I was told I could write something negative, but I really don’t have anything negative to say. Everyone I’ve met so far has been wonderful, with many unique personalities and professions, so you never get bored. It’s a wonderful placement that I’m thankful for.
Prior to my placement at the Oxford Quakers, I was practicing art work in anatomy in order to draw the human body with accuracy. However, I am self-taught and have a very long way to go before I feel comfortable doing it professionally.
When I was 6 or 7, I started dancing as a hobby at Flaw-R-Tists; it was my sister’s friend Melissa’s idea to start taking me to a break dancing troupe where all we would do was break dancing, flips, spinning on our heads, and foot work. None of us did it professionally. Just as a hobby we’d get together in a gym, with no more than 10 or so people. It was a small group, and though we occasionally did performances, most of the time we’d just get together every Friday to dance together.
At some point I left that dance troupe and started going to a different one called Messy Jam, where I danced for 6 years. It was pretty much the same thing as Flaw-R-Tists, but we did varied styles of break dancing and even dabbled in completely different genres of dance such as ballet and Zumba for occasions. At first it was a still relatively small troupe, but it grew over time and eventually we started partaking in dance competitions and performing at venues, even eventually qualifying for finals and going to a competition inside Disneyland Paris, where we won a total of 19 trophies in different categories such as solos, duos, trios, squads, and teams.
When we would perform we’d go to different venues such as schools, St Giles fairs, and stages at festivals, which were always the most fun to attend since there wasn’t nearly as much pressure.
There were times when we would dance at charity events. I remember doing one for Cancer Research, and another for Cultural diversity as well as many others. These were usually the most fun to do because it always felt more like a community than it did a professional venue dancing in front of hundreds of people; it was just everyone getting together for a good cause.
Despite how much fun I had while dancing, I eventually decided to leave just before my 15th birthday, mainly because over time I got fatigue. I had a lot of fun dancing; I learned many talents and met a lot of people and experienced many things that some could have only dreamt about doing.
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Forty-Three Newsletter • Number 510 • October 2021
Oxford Friends Meeting
43 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LW