Day of dance - Sunday 22nd

On Sunday 22nd April I travelled up to essex to Performers college as they where holding a day of dance. I have been every time for 5 years, and I think it is  great way to live a dancers day to day life.

The first dance class started at 10 o'clock. This day allows any age, but each age group and level of dancers are split into different groups and put into different dance studios. My first class was Jazz I didn't really know what to expect as we established whilst researching Jazz dance that there are a lot of different ways to interpretate Jazz. But we where going to be doing commercial jazz, I was really looking forward to this as it isn't a style I do all the time, and when I'm older I hope to become a dancer and I am aware that this is one of the main styles when dancing in a music video etc. The girl that taught the class was an amazing dancer, she started off with a warm up which was still intense and got me really prepared for the dance. We then did some corner work like leaps and turns so she could see our ability but at the same time warm us up for the routine she was about to teach.

Once the warm up had finished it was time to learn the routine. The dance was to Niki Minaj, I was so excited to learn this! At first I was a bit shocked and got a little nervous as the routine was quite complicated, but as I started to grasp the style and practise the routine it all got a lot easier and I started to have fun with it at the same time. Once she had taught it to us she danced it all through with us but then we did it without her so she could watch us. This was great all of us were performing as this is key as well as having the right techniqual ability.

We then had our musical theatre class, a man came in who had been in We Will Rock You to teach us once of the dances that the gaga girls do, he said it was the hardest dance in the musical, so already I was worried I wouldn't be able to do it. We didn't do a big warm up as we where all already sweating from the class before. He played the music and danced it through so we could see what we would be doing. We were all shocked at how hard it was, the choreography wasn't to complex but just remembering it all in the right order etc was going to be a challenge. He started to teach us the dance and he began with the characterisation as this is key in musical theatre. We all got the style and started to learn the routine. It was very difficult but as we went over it I finally started to get it. He split us into groups so we could use all the space provided. We danced it through with him a few times and once he had taught us the whole dance he split us into small groups to perform it. The funest part of this dance was playing the air guitar. We weren't as tired after this class but we were still exhaugsted.

We had a break after this dance class to get energy for the next two classes.

We started with ballet, I was dreading this class as I dont like ballet but it is the core of all dances so it was vital we did it. It surprisingly wasn't to hard just tiring and we had to work very hard as we were being watched throughout the whole thing. We started with bar work then came into the centre. We then did some corner work and finished off with a short dance in the centre of the room. Everyone was very sweaty and exaughsted and we had Lindy hop last which requires so much excitment and energy.

Lindy hop began we where all looking forward to this but knew it was going to be extremely hard work. It was so fun everyone had a smile on there face. We started with learning basic lindy hop steps and then want on to piecing it all together to make a routine we had to go into pairs for this as it is all mainly partner work! Everyone was dripping with sweat and by the end of this class we couldn't even stand!

The day was finished and on the way home all I could do was sleep I had no energy to do anything, I was exaughsted, and the next day my muscles where aching so much!

Besides all this it was great fun, and excellent experience, I cant wait till next year!!!!

'Aspirations and Dreams' final performance

 

As part of our btec course we had to produce a final end of year performance which would be infront of an audience. This was different to all the other assignments, we had to put the whole show together including the theme, title, venue, programmes, tickets, colour scheme, guest acts and costumes. We had to do everything by ourselves and make sure it was all ready for our end of year performance on the 27th of April.

- Everyone ready to go on stage to perform Annie

It was very hard at first to find a theme, and we wanted to focus on theme from a musical, so we decided Annie. So we started learning and choreographing 'It's a hard knock life' and 'Maybe' from Annie, the choreography we did was very simple and suited for young girls in an orphanage. For maybe, we just simply sat on the front of the stage and sang whilst acting, and at the very end of the song we got up to go into our opening positions for 'Its a hard knock life' where we all sat scattered around the stage sitting on the floor acting as if we were cleaning. We went straight into this number, as we thought this would be quite effective. We had more choreography for this that went along with the words to make it look effective, and cheeky. The choreography we did was sort of army like in the sense of how we all did it together, this made it look more like an orphanage I think.
                                                       Alice getting her hair done -


However we started to go off the idea of focusing on one specific story line, and we thought it would be better to use a bit of everything, and past choreography we had done. We ended up with the idea of 'Aspirations and Dreams' because most of us dream to become something involved in the performing arts industry so we based our choreography on things that we aspire to. Thinking back over the years we remembered things that we had performed before that we could include in our final performance. We decided we would definitely use 'All that Jazz' which we performed in cabaret, we all really enjoyed this dance, and it looked really effective to. We also wanted to include singing, acting and dancing, and in order for the show to flow, and include a variety of different talents we also wanted guest performers.

Most of the other btec girls decided to sing a solo each, and I chose to do a solo contemporary dance. We also made costumes for We Will Rock You, and we had to include these in our performance, so we took two of our favourite songs from that musical which where 'Somebody to love' Chloe had already sung this song before so we decided to all be her backing dancers and singers to the song. We based our choreography based around the singing which looked really professional and effective. We also performed 'Don't Stop me Now' we danced as well as sung to this, the choreography included a lot of high energy moves and it was really hard to sing whilst dancing it but we all managed, no matter how tired we where at the end.

So we had a variety of different talents, we asked a few people to come in from year 10 GCSE drama to perform duologues, and Isabelle came in to perform her monologue for her A-level drama piece. These were amazing!! and it was great that they agreed to participate in our show. Louise also agreed to perform a monlogue from Charlie and The chocolate Factory. We also asked music students, A-level dance students, and other dance acts to perform.

Once we had chosen all of the acts we wanted to perform in our show, all we had to do was make our pieces top standard, and create a running order. In our practical lessons rehearsed out group pieces, and complete any choreography they needed to be completed as well as cleaning it all. Then once this was done, and in our own time we had to practice our individual or duo acts. We had a few meetings to discuss rehearsals, and agree on the final running order, so it would all flow nicely. Once we had a final running order, we had to work out what mikes (if needed) people would be using, when the curtains needed to be open or closed and if they where going to perform in front or behind the curtains.

We then had to think of how we wanted the front blocks set up, and how we wanted the hall. We decided to follow a purple and silver color theme, as we thought this was quite dream like. We made the programs and tickets follow this theme too. The tables where decorated with purple table cloths, purple and white flowers, purple and silver balloons, tea lights and silver confetti. This made it have a more professional look. We wanted to be different and not have rows of seating, so we made tables spread round the hall with 8 chairs around each table, we also provided the audience with food and wine/drinks.

A week before the performance came, and we decided we needed to have a group rehearsal with all of the acts. This took place Tuesday after school, On Tuesday lunch we had a rehearsal with Jack (who plays the guitar) and the btec girls, to rehears our end song which we sang 'Use Somebody'.

The rehearsal after school was completely student lead, this was very stressful as I don't think we realized how much hard work and concentration this requires to get a positive outcome. However once we got into it everything ran smoothly, and each of us btec girls where assigned different jobs. Each act got to practice their performance on stage to check for spacing, this really helped us as well as we could tell jack, and chris what microphones where needed and when etc.

For the rest of our btec lessons we focused on the final preparations for the show, making sure it was ready for Friday, and that everyone knew what time to be there etc. We also made sure costumes where sorted, and Alice went into hemel to get any final bits that we needed so we would all be matching.

I had a last minuet stress as my job was to make the programs, but it was so hard finding a nice picture all of us btec girls where in, but I got there eventually.

It came to the 27th and we where all SO nervous. We brought bags, even suitcases to school filled with costumes, hair and make up bits etc! We all stayed behind after school to set up the hall, and make sure everything was ready for the evening, this didn't take long at all. We set out 12 tables and decorated them how planned. This looked very professional! Once this was finished we went upstairs to lay out all of our costumes and hair bits, in the right order or each performance. We set up the front blocks and got the microphones, and head mikes all ready for the evening. And to make sure everything was perfect we ran through the sound track to make sure it was in the right order, and that every song was working correctly.

The other acts started to arrive at 6 o'clock, and we sent them to there changing rooms so they could get ready. Once everyone was settled we started to get ourselves ready for our first act which was Annie, and made sure we had normal stage makeup on, and hair that would make us look like little children. Once we where all ready we had a vocal warm up at 6.45 with our music teacher.

The show then began..

Us on stage performing 'It's a hard Knock life' -
And the picture below is us performing 'maybe'. Overall both of these went very well! We were all pleased with how we sounded, and acted very well in these performances, regardless of how nervous we were the nerves soon went once we were on stage.

We also had 'Katies street crew' perform as a guest act. This was very funky, and fun to watch. I'd love to be able to do some of the moves that they do!




Gabriel and George performed a scene from 'Blood brothers' this was amazing too! After this there were various performances from individuals from the btec group. And other guest acts for example drama, music and singing solo pieces. Alfie Whitbread preformed a music piece on his saxophone, this gave the show great variety of acts.




This act closed with our 'We Will Rock You' performances. Above you see the costumes we wore, we made these in our costume construction lessons.



To open the second half we performed our 'All that Jazz' dance which we also performed in cabaret. This was great! However the music skipped, this didn't stop us, we carried on going to keep the professional feel and made sure that we stayed in character.

I performed my dance solo, I feel this went very well. I put it so much effort and made sure I used my facial expressions as well as dancing it with passion. The show continued with further solo performances from the performing arts group as well as guest acts. I performed a tap duet with Kelly Rolfe  to 'Aint no other man'. We both attend the same tap class, and have just taken out intermediate tap exam therefore we are at the same level.

The show continued with other guests. And to end the show we all got dressed up for out final song 'Use somebody' which was accompanied by Jack Dent who played the guitar.


We where presented with some beautiful flowers at the end of the show! Everyone said that they really enjoyed it.

Overall I really enjoyed the performance, and the whole experience of the evening and putting a show together. And looking back to our first ever performance we have all improved so much! The feedback from the audience was all mainly positive! Even though it was very stressful and hard work I have really enjoyed my last two years of btec performing arts. I feel we have all become a massive family now, and I would like to say well done to everyone that was involved and thank you to them all as well as Miss Hearne and Miss Dolan for all their hard work! We would have definitely not have been able to get this far without them!

jazz evalutation

I have really enjoyed the Jazz section of BTEC performing arts, I think its been great fun and all of us overall have learnt so much from it! It is a style that I have experience in, but besides this I still managed to learn so much more. The reason of this is because I think Jazz has so much to it, and everyone interprets it differently, so learning it from two different teachers has had a positive outcome. I didn't really know much about the musical Chicago, but looking further into it during the course I now love it!!


At the beginning of this section, we started to explore the different types of 'jazz' that you can do. These are all similar, but so different, as they are all individual styles, with an element of jazz in them. We did this by splitting into different groups, and each choreographed a dance to the style we we're given. My group did lyrical jazz, another group did jazz r'n'b and the last group did rock 'n' roll jazz.  We used lots of lyrical movements, but remembered to include all the vital jazz movements. This meant we had to be slick, using a lot of sharp movements, even still movements with sharp head or hands to compliment this.


Our final outcome turned out really well (video on performing arts blog) . It showed the clear difference between lyrical jazz, just jazz and just lyrical. The movements we used where elegant and flowing, and we started with this as our base but to jazz it up we used technical jazz movements and sharp heads as well as isolation's although these where mainly used in the jazz r'n'b.


Each group then taught their piece of choreography. By doing this it gave us a clearer idea, and better understanding of how jazz can be interpreted in many different ways. It showed a clear difference in the styles, but also how they where so similar. It gave us a better chance to explore the styles, and experience styles we haven't done before. My favorite one other than the style (lyrical jazz) what I am most used to was probably jazz r'n'b as It is a style that's completely out of my comfort zone, however I really enjoyed looking into it and trying to grasp the style and flavor.


My favorite part of the assignment has to be our Chicago dance. This piece was created to be performed in our school's annual Cabaret show. This dance was pure jazz and inspired by Fosse. The choreography we made up was sharp, slick and precise movements. And when performed looked extremely effective. We didn't notice how effective the performance was in rehearsals until we watched back the video (on performing arts blog) This showed us that every movement had to be in time and perfect otherwise the whole concept would have been lost. If something was out of place the eye would have been drawn straight to it. 


In our final performance we made sure everything was in time, and we went through it to make sure it was all spot on. We recorded ourselves in rehearsals then went over each part to make sure it was perfect, and to improve the parts that needed improving. To make sure we all agreed we had a group discussion and went through all the things we liked and didn't like for the performance in the evening.


Overall the performance was amazing, and we were given so much positive feedback. Mr Lewis our head teacher said the style of Fosse was obvious,and he loved how well we grasped it. The performance started with a few technical faults, for example the music got a bit mixed up and we were left on stage in our opening positions, however we stayed in character whilst waiting for the right music. I also almost fell of my chair towards the end of the performance, but I managed to stay on and made sure I stayed in character throughout. Apart from this mistake I felt I gave a good performance and everyone should be so proud of what we achieved. I think it was a clear and positive performance to show off everything we have learnt about jazz. 


I think our simple movements where the best and most effective. And I am really looking forward to performing this again at our end of year show.

ROCK CHALLENGE 2012

Rock Challenge means so much to many people and without it school life would be so different! Rock Challenge is a break from everything, and I know it helps me stay calm during my GCSE'S without it I'd probably explode. It allows you to just let yourself go, and do something you have such a passion for. No matter how much hard work we all put into it, its enjoyable and I wouldn't change it for the world!

In September we start Rock Challenge with the audition process, and as we are a premier team it is vital we focus on the reliable, confident and talented dancers/actors.  Our auditions run in a very interesting way, you can chose your style from either contemporary, street, tap or drama. And you don't just have to pick one of these. We give everyone an equal chance, and support them through all of it! I choreographed the tap, and helped choreograph the contemporary teaching both of these dances to the people auditioning. We have a say on who we think has potential or who we think is very good at what we have set them, then the main decision is down to Miss Dolan, the teachers involved and the dance captains. The day the cast list goes up we have a lot of excited and happy kids running around the school.


The amount of time and hard work that goes into this is incredible but it is all worth it! It is all student lead, with guidance from the teachers, but we definitely wouldn't be able to pull off what we do without Miss Dolan, and other teacher support we have. We also get a lot of press releases to promote the school, and let everyone know about our success over the years, and recently we won the title of 'The Global People Choice Award'. This was AMAZING to win, and was a massive achievement. Receiving awards like this makes you even prouder to be a part of Rock Challenge and shows Kings Langley school how our hard work and effort just pay off.


The day of Rock Challenge is one of the best days in the school year, and after every year I cant wait to do it all over again! The night before is always a nightmare, and I can never sleep due to all the excitement. We have to be at school early but no matter how tired we are we are all also so excited for the day and night a head of us. Its a long day but it doesn't feel like long at all because your on a natural high, and that buzz gets you through it. At Stevenage we were showcasing our performance of which we will be competing in the premier final in Portsmouth. I do really enjoy it though, as I love going to watch the other schools, and we can relate to how they feel as we have been in the same position before. We also get looked up to in a way with how we are a premier league and its always nice to have that feeling and to feel respected for all the hard work we have given to get there. The atmosphere is amazing, and everyone is supporting each other. It is also a good chance to improve our performance as we get an idea of how it looks on stage, and judges comments. This has given us a change to evaluate our performance of what looks good, what didn't and what/how we are going to improve.


Getting ready for the performance is so stressful, everyone is running around! Hair and makeup is very important, as it is also vital to look amazing on stage as one of the awards is also hair and makeup! But an advantage of show casing is it gave us a better idea of what makeup and hair designs looked good and what didn't allowing us to think of better ideas. This also student lead and they all did an amazing job! King Langley definitely got on that stage and RAISED THE ROOF, showing everyone why we are premier league. Everyone was so proud of our performance! The judges comments were also amazing, and it has given us a lot to take on and think about for Portsmouth. We went home with every single award we could get! this was an amazing achievement!


We have written a list of positive and negatives from our performance, and no exactly what to work on for Portsmouth. Now all I can say is well done kings! and BRING ON PORTSMOUTH!!!

Evaluation of musical theatre

I know him so well - Chess

For my musical theatre assignment I was given an audition duet with Kelly Rolfe. Our task was to sing 'I know him so well' from the musical chess. I had never heard this song before, so before we could do anything we listened to the song so we knew what we were singing. I really liked this song, and thought we could be clever with it.  We first listened to it with the actual singers singing a long to give us  a better idea, and sang it through with them in our heads. The song didn't need much choreography so we just added different directions for different verses to give it a sense of a chess game. When singing the song we had to add emotion to our faces. We were set different verses to sing solo, and then parts which we had to sing together. I was a bit shakey when singing the solo parts as I am not a confident singer, and I think after all that rehearsals it has taught me to be more confident, so next time I am going to be a lot more confident with my singing. I liked singing with Kelly as I feel we made a very good pair and as she is a strong singer it gave me a lot more confidence with my singing. I am also happy we were given this song, as I thought it suited our voices well. When it was the other persons turn to sing I just stood still using my facial expressions as I didn't want to take the concentration away from kelly. To improve I will be more confident with my singing and sing louder! And I know that I will use a lot more confidence when singing in our end of year show.

Richard Fishers funeral - monologue 

For my drama piece I was given this Richard Fishers funeral as my monologue. We were all given a sheet with our monologue and we were told to annotate it and learn the lines. This was set as a homework so we spent no class time on it. The say we filmed it we performed it in the drama studio, and to give a professional feel we used lighting. My piece was about a girl making a speech at her dads funeral, however the girls dad used to abuse her, and the girl is telling everyone the memories she shared with her dad. None of which were nice, just how he used to abuse them and scared she was of him. I have never been in this situation so I wasn't sure how to quite act it. To relate to it I imagined myself as the character and as if it was actually my dad, this made it easier to act and helped me portray my emotion in my performance, and acting. The things I found difficult in the task was memorizing the words, but everyone had this difficulty. To improve my piece I would have made it more subtle and more emotion in my face and body language rather then the pitch of my voice.

Evidence of these are on the KLS performing arts blog.

Evaluation of Jazz

Jazz Evaluation

During the course of our spring term 1 we have been studying Jazz, of which we took part in many workshops and studied the background and history of the style. At the beginning of the course we were taught a jazz dance which our teacher has choreographed for us to the song. It was following the fosse theme using well known movements such as traditional fosse isolations and hand movements. This gave us an idea of the basic movements to jazz so we would be able to confidently choreograph our own jazz routines.

We then choreographed a jazz dance to Chicago which we also sang to. We used a lot of the fosse movements Miss Dolan had taught us as it was extremely jazz based, and fosse like! This was really fun to choreograph as it wasn’t all about complicated choreography but simple head and arm movements, which actually looked really effective. We were each given a line to sing to make sure everyone had a go, and sang some bits together!  There was also a lot of acting required in this dance to meet the full requirement s of jazz and fosse dance and make it a lot more professional.

We then where split into different groups based on our specific dance style. There was a rock ‘n’ roll group, Hip hop, and contemporary Jazz group. I was put into the contemporary group along with Alice and Kelly. We decided to use Beautiful by Christina Aguilera to choreograph our piece to. We started to choreograph contemporary steps, but as the task was to make a Jazz contemporary routine up we had to make the movements more Jazz orientated. To follow the Jazz feel the backing beat gave us a lot of inspiration as it was very powerful to the song.  Once we had finished choreographing our dance our task was to teach it to the rest of the group, remembering important teaching skills such as breaking the steps down, and doing it in slow motion so it would be easier to pick up. Within our group Alice, Kelly and I chose a section each that we would like to teach to the rest of the class. I think this was a good way of teaching as it meant we could spend more time on each section allowing it to stay in the dancer’s heads easier. We had one of us dancing it at the back, and two at the front so they felt comfortable that if they felt they didn’t know what happened next they had us there to guide them. Once all the sections had been taught we rehearsed the routine with them without the music, and then once we thought they were ready we added the music and did it a couple of times with them to give them guidance and reassurance. Once we thought it was in their heads we watched them do it, so we could see if our teaching skills had worked and if they had picked up the dance. They all did very well with learning the dance, and picked it up very quickly. I think we did a good job of teaching them the routine, the best part was how well we broke up the steps in order for them to grasp the style as it is something they are not used to. However if I could improve on my teaching skills I would have mirrored the dancers, this would have made it easier to see what the steps where meant to look like. They all performed it very well and looked really good when doing it.

We then got taught the Jazz rock ‘n’ roll dance. This was choreographed by Chloe Green, Laure – anne o’connor, Ellie Goodchild, Louise Baker and Shauna McMillian. They choreographed there dance to Candy man also by Christina Aguilera.  There dance style was very upbeat and required a lot of energy and constant moving.  There dance used a lot of repetition with steps and sequences which follows traditional jazz fosse style,  and there’s was therefore a lot longer than ours, and they had a lot more choreographers so they needed more sections in order for everyone to teach.  I thought something they did very well was how before they taught us there choreography they taught us the two main rock ‘n’ roll steps which are called flick basic and the 9 step. This really helped as when it got to the routine I felt a lot more confident as I knew the step; it always took less time as we all knew what to do so they didn’t have to spend time breaking it down. To improve their teaching skills, I think they could have mirrored us so we had a better idea and view of the routine/step. I really enjoyed learning this style, as it isn’t something I am used to. It was very fun to do as well as it was very upbeat!

The last dance we had to learn was the Jazz Hip hop, this was choreographed by Shannon Phillips, Chloe Stockman and Katie Burrows. The song they choreographed to was called Deuces by Chris Brown. This was quite a difficult dance to learn, as I am not used to this style at all, and it took me a bit longer to grasp the style, however I got there in the end.  The movements that they choreographed were very sharp, and danced to the beat. They also used tradition isolations which is key in fosse.  To make it easier each step was choreographed to a word, this helped as it made it easier to remember what was coming next. Once I had learnt the moves which they broke down for me I focussed on getting the street style. I liked how we kept going back to the beginning of the dance when we learnt a new bit this was because most of the routine wouldn’t make sense otherwise, as most of it flowed into each bit and carried on into each section. It helped that they mirrored us in some bits for example to show us certain arm movements. To improve their teaching they could have broken down the moves a bit more, and start at the basic step and show us how it has developed into what they choreographed.

Overall I really enjoyed doing the Jazz assignment, as we did many different ways of learning and choreographing routines. It is also a style that I haven’t done that much of and I am really happy I know the basic fosse steps and background of Jazz, as it will definitely help me in the future.

KINGS LANGLEY ROCK CHALLENGE 2012 REHEARSALS

On Friday 17th February we had a full cast rehearsals for our Rock Challenge which we are show casing on Wednesday! Everyone arrived at school at 10 o'clock ready to rehearse! We made sure we had a massive warm up before starting, as it was going to be a busy day of dancing, and we didn't want anyone to get injured!
As I have said in previous blogs how much Rock Challenge means to us, everyone has been working really hard this year as we are know in premier league and the standard is even higher than before! This will be our second year in premier so we want to show them what we've got!

We also did a cake sale, to add to our Rock Challenge fund!


After our warm up we performed our Rock Challenge to older students who used to be strongly involved in Rock Challenge when they came to the school, so they knew exactly what they where looking for and gave us back very important advice on what to improve on. After a few practices of the performance everyone went off into there own groups with their choreographers to clean, clean, clean! All of the dances our finished now we just have to look at performance skills now, and taking what we have already and making it even bigger and better!! We spent some time cleaning the routines and making them a lot better, we were ready to put it all together and perform it to the teachers.


Everyone got into there opening positions and the music started! I felt this run through was a lot better then what we had done before as we felt the pressure because Rock Challenge is so close now! But I did also notice that some people can put in a lot more effort then they have been doing! Miss Dolan, and the teachers where happy with the performance, thought it was better once it had been cleaned but still a lot more effort could have been put in!


It was time to rehearse in costume!! Everyone went off into the own groups and got into their costumes it was great to see what everyone was going to look like, and hopefully this was going to make everyone perform a lot more, as they will feel more confident in their outfits!

Here is a picture of Alice and I in our costumes! Alices costume was made by Miss Hearne and the Btec girls! 


Being in costume made the performance make a lot more sense as you could tell who was in what dance, and the costumes gave everyone a role! We did a couple of practices in costume to see what its like and if we are able to dance in our costume as well as if there was any costumes that didn't suit the characters, or fit people. All in all the costumes where fine! And it made people put more effort in however there is still room for improvement! But Kings Langley always brings it out the bag on the night! Even though this gives Miss Dolan a heart attack! 


I love being a part of Rock Challenge and being a Choreographer, it's a great experience to be able to be a part of and I feel it will really help me in the long run as this is the industry I want to be involved in! I cannot wait for Stevenage but mainly Portsmouth! COME ON KINGS! as Miss Dolan says 'Let's RAISE THE ROOF KINGS!'