Blog 8

Monday- This morning we finally cleaned ballet properly, this meant if Kelly saw something she did not like while we were dancing she would stop the music and run through it slowly. I remembered all the choreography but assessing and watching myself in the mirror gave me the time to watch my arm lines and that my leg should be turned out the whole time because I noticed some times my leg was turned in. This dance does not have a lot necessarily in content of choreography but we have to set the atmosphere while performing this piece so I know I really need to perform it to the best of my ability. In the next lesson, drama, Anna came in see told us we would perform our pieces in front of the rest of the class so we began to get use to performing in front of an audience. We ran ours second and the feedback we received was mostly positive, they said Amber stood out because her characteristics are very close to a childs’. This gives TJ and I a reason to work harder and move up to the same level as Amber. After performing to each other we had to group time with Anna, she said that our performance was getting better each time we do it and at the end of the lesson she gave us the chance to take our assessment now because Amber will not be here next Monday. We thought we were as ready as we could be so went for it and I think it went extremely well. The main improvement I personally need to make is to work on my diction especially during the speed talking. Musical theatre was our next class and Kelly said something that I really do need to focus on. She said choreographically and technically but I am holding back on my performance. This really hit hard because I am trying to perform but know I am going to go home and try a technique we learnt from Kelly before. I am going to play the song and look at myself in the mirror trying various facial expressions, she said lip sync at any moment you want to. In the last 10 minutes of the lesson we ran through the fan dance this this with the karaoke version so we all sang while performing. I did not find it particularly difficult but in some places I realised I need more breathing support. We had an hour of studio time so Millie, Maddie and I attempted to change the ending of bad but we had no inspiration and we did not want the ending to be throw together and lose energy at the end. The last lesson of the day we ran tap full out with knee pads, it went well but we discuss possibly using a different kind of knee pad as it was hard to slide across the floor with the knee pads we had. Kelly said that we know need to commit to the performance side now.

Tuesday- Today we did a run through of all the pieces and after each piece Mary and Kelly gave us feedback. They also needed to take down the time of each dance so Mary will know how long the full showcase will be. It went ok but they said that all of the dances felt that they lacked energy and commitment. I think we are all exhausted but we need to up our game. After lunch we cleaned street because this was the messiest group piece. Maddie was injured so she could see exactly what parts needed work. One thing I really did not realise was that my leg needed to bend in on the words ‘pat pat on the kitty kat’ but now I know this I can work on it. Mary came upstairs to watch and was pleased with the improvement. Today we more studio time to yesterday and Maddie, Millie and I knew we had to finish bad, we started to get extremely frustrated because we could not come up with and ending but after working together and asking TJ what looked good we finally finished it. We showed it to Mary and she told us what things we did differently, there were a couple of arm lines but the main one I struggled with was the double pirouette into the box splits. After trying it their way a couple of times I finally got the hang of it and the dance is looking really clean. We also got a chance to run rock and roll with the costume tops to see if they looked good with the dance. I think they compliment the piece very nicely.

Wednesday- Today we worked on the fan dance all morning. The first half of the morning we spent with Kelly where we finished the choreography. We did not get them a chance to clean it but at least it is completed and blocked. The second half we worked on the vocals with Claire. This I struggled with but we went through the harmonies in the end verse, we tried it the octave above and I did not feel comfortable singing it as I did not think it sounded correctly. Eventually we worked out Maddie and Zak take the lower harmony all the other girl apart for TJ take the middle harmony and Mary and TJ sing the octave above. We have now finished and cleaned street, we filmed it upstairs before the end of the lesson so we can refer to the video at home for practice. I struggled with one section of street because I could not get to my spacing in time so i had to change me walking pattern after discussing it with Emilie.

Thursday- Today we had studio time so I focussed on rock and roll and my solo. In rock and roll we made sure all the lifts were tight and in sync. I am now feeling confident with this dance but I really do need to work on my performance as a result of the showcase is next week. I also got the opportunity to run my solo once which helped keep the choreography in my brain considering I have a lot of other dances to memorise. Another dance we cleaned today was modern, Kerry was not happy with the effort we were putting in. So the next time we performed it the best we could and it already looked better apart from a couple of arm lines and filling the space at the end with a longer improvisation. I’m not worried about this dance because I have performed ones similar to it before. Our last class was contemporary but the result is that it’s still unfinished. But we did fill in the gaps in the dance we have already learnt. So what we have done is now tight and clean we only have to ending to do. I love performing this piece nevertheless I am still scared about it being incomplete.