Musical Theatre 01/11/18
Shannon showed us the song Cinema Italiano from Nine the Musical - this was the song we would be performing. It is sung by Kate Hudson in the film Nine. She told us that we should research the film and learn the song. She then gave lines to everyone. My line is "I love the dark handsome guys . . . out of sight" and we all sing the chorus. She then taught us some of the choreography and assigned us roles as she won't be here next week. I am Dance Captain again! Leah is Rehearsal Director and Ghazall is her assistant.
We were each given papers which we were supposed to use as a placard for something we would protest about, whether it's political, cultural, social, etc. I am not a very political person so I didn't want to write anything political, so I wrote 'Be Kind to One Another' which is Ellen DeGeneres' famous quote. The context behind this was to make all schools/ colleges/universities to have lessons where they talk about morals and have calm debates on how to go about your life. Here are pictures of some of the posters:
We then had to make four movements which resembled protest. I came up with a beckoning gesture, sitting cross-legged eyes closed, smiling with your face in your hands and a sort of freeze-frame of someone dancing crazily. This represented encouraging people to be kind, to be peaceful with everyone, showing it makes you happy to be kind and that dancing can unite people from different walks of life. Then we were paired to intersperse our movements with someone else's protest movements. I was paired with Marshall and we managed to make a really good movement piece in my opinion. His movements were about thinking for yourself. However, when Shelley came to see it, she felt it needed to show more protest suggesting maybe someone spray graffiti and that it should be less of a story and more of a choreography piece. We were working on it for the rest of the lesson and we'll be continuing to work on it tomorrow. Everybody else merged their pieces into a bigger performance.
Musical Theatre 08/11/18
We were told last week from Shannon to go through the dance and create some of our own choreography. The second-years helped us get in character so we could look good on stage. When working on using my hips, I hurt my right hip but I managed to get through this dance and will rest it over the weekend.
Project workshop 12/11/18
Marshall and I finished our movement piece. I tried to add some facial expressions and make sure we looked at each other during the piece to create a connection between our characters. Our piece is very abstract and I think is entertaining to watch. However, I want to make our piece come to life by making it more fluid and using more facial expressions. I worked quite well with Marshall but sometimes struggled remembering what we had choreographed and what we should do next. When working with others, I have to make sure I'm listening to their ideas as well as giving my own. We then merged our piece with the group piece and Faith and Marshall choreographed the last part of the performance.
Project workshop 13/11/18
Today we finished the first section of our performance and we performed it in front of Michelle McGrath, facilitator of the British Museum. Today, we finalised the movements in our duet and merged it with the whole group performance. We did that by seeing what movements we both thought were appropriate and looked good taking on board Shelley's advice to add more levels to our performance. The strengths of this piece were that the message of protest is clearly portrayed and we worked well as an ensemble. The parts that need improvement is more intense facial expressions and to be more rough and sharp with our movements so that it flows better and will help bring my character to life. During the part with the arm movements in cannon, we weren't entirely sure of when our cue to come in was. We overcame this by figuring out how many times this arm movement is done and telling everyone when their cue was. We still need to work on our timing during that part in our performance and will perfect it next lesson. Overall, I think our first section was successful and the museum facilitator was very happy with it. My ideas for costumes/ props is to use simple protest pieces (like a pussy hat or a yellow umbrella) with a plain outfit so that the theme of protest stands out.
Musical Theatre 15/11/18
We showed Shannon what we added on to the dance last week and she then choreographed a lot more to the piece:
Project workshop 19/11/18
We were working on the second section of the performance by using your protest to create eight movements. This time, I made sure to make my movements bigger and to use more facial expressions to convey the message of my performance to the audience. We were all struggling to start our pieces so Shelley gave us sheets where we would write down what themes and feelings come from our protest. Here is the poster I made and a video of my piece:
We were then put into pairs to combine our movement pieces. I was paired with Sonnah because her protest was against violence which can be linked to my protest. Here is her poster and the video of our duet.
I think that the strengths of this performance was that we conveyed the message clearly and we improved on our facial expressions. The weaknesses were that we could make the part where we are walking away from each other into something more creative - maybe Sonnah could walk around me instead of walking away.
Having watched and researched other 'protest' based performances like Ghost Dances and Swansong, I feel like my piece communicates protest similarly to these two performances as we are also telling a story through abstract movement. We all have a theme of victim and perpetrator, conflict and violence. Our style focuses more on the feelings and intentions of the piece rather than sticking to a narrative - this is a very abstract and creative way of communicating thoughts on serious matters. From observing these other works, I have learnt that you can convey a message in many different ways. For example, I felt that Swansong was quite humorous at times and would then suddenly turn into something more serious. This would create a strange and almost uncomfortable dynamic which I thought was very creative, original and out of the box. Ghost dance had a very eerie atmosphere with death as a main subject. From watching these pieces, I realised you could add another layer to your performance by giving an overall atmosphere and this can be done by the more subtle things that the audience do not notice straight away like the dynamic, how you use the space, facial expressions,etc.
Project workshop 20/11/18
After showing Shelley our duet (above) at the end of the lesson, she gave us some advice on how to improve it so that is what we did today. After showing Nick, from the British Museum, our piece which he thought was good, we added our duets to section one:
Individually, I feel like my strengths are responding to my duet partner and portraying my message through movement. My weaknesses are that I could make my movements and facial expressions even bigger and better. As a group, I feel our strengths are conveying our messages and creating entertaining choreography. Our weaknesses are being in the right positions (in the part where we say "our opinions matter"). I find projecting my voice a difficulty but I try to take a deep breath and say my line as loudly and clearly as I can.
Now we have to neaten up section two and create more movement so we can fulfil our aim of an eight minute piece. We all need to make sure we use our facial expressions and be really sharp and rough with our movements so we can create an impact with our performance.
Musical Theatre 22/11/18
We learnt the entire piece and rehearsed it as many times as we could and sung it as loudly as we could as individuals and as a group:
Project workshop 26/11/18
Today we went over the second section and extended it. Marshall and I do our duet twice in the piece and the whole performance ends with Marshall holding a yellow umbrella and saying "I object". We had to consider spacing when we spread out in pairs after saying "our opinions matter" to make sure we don't bump into each other and we can all be seen. In terms of timing, we had to make sure we do certain movements at the same time and that we split up at the right time. With duet work, we need to be more rough and expressive with our movements to project our performance. We also need to practise it more so we both are confident to perform it.
The strengths of our performance is conveying our message clearly and I really think our performance can create an impact. In my opinion, the weaknesses of our performance is that it could always be more expressive.
I think all we have to do from now until Thursday is simply to practise as much as we can so we are all confident with what we are supposed to do.
I wore the 'costume' I will be wearing for the performance today. It's a t-shirt with a peace sign on it along with black leggings and just for Thursday's performance, my hair will be down with one part clipped away so it doesn't get in the way. This links to my protest about being kind - being peaceful with others, being tolerant of people who are different to you.
My protest placard says "be kind to one another" with hearts on it to showcase my positive message.
Project workshop 27/11/18
We worked on the British museum piece and rehearsed as much as we could before Nick, a British Museum facilitator came to see it. We worked on our spacing and timing and made sure everyone knew where they were supposed to be at all times. When Nick came, we performed it to him and he thought it was really good. He then talked to us about what would happen on the day and answered all of our questions. I feel ready to perform it on Thursday and am very excited to perform it in the Rotunda on Friday. For Thursday and Friday, we need to remember to make our facial expressions and movements as expressive as we can and to look out into the audience so we engage them in our performance.
Performance Day 29/11/18
Here's the video of the protest piece we performed in the Theatre in college:
Here's the video of the Musical Theatre piece - Cinema Italiano:
I have to say, I have never worked so hard on a performance piece as I did with this, asking for advice and feedback from everyone who saw it as much as I could. After working on my facial expressions and singing, the last extra thing I was trying to work on during the week before the performance was letting go and being myself, adding my own sparkle to the piece. However, all the excitement leading up to the performance transformed into nervousness on the day which made it impossible to add the last thing I had worked so hard on and so I feel like I did better in the last rehearsal and could have done better if I was feeling confident in the moment (like I usually do).
Performing this was so scary as the audience were practically on the stage so you could see them rather than them being in the dark. I also felt very self-conscious and uncomfortable but I had to let that go in order to perform. The size of the stage was reduced on both sides making it a much smaller space than in the studio so I had to make some movements smaller.
What Went Well - I used my hips very well
Even Better If - work on getting my adrenaline out and almost meditate so I can be more confident; choose a more flattering, more suitable costume; work on acting whilst singing, accenting some words
As a group, I thought we sung well together and had good spatial awareness.
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