half term

During the half term, we had a break from all the dancing. But Miss Dolan and Miss Hearne both set us some work to keep us active. Earlier on in the year we were set an 8 month task where we had to focus on dance styles research them, interview people, do different style dance classes etc. So Miss Dolan could make sure we had made a start we had to create a plan of the task and what we were going to include.

For the work Miss Hearne set us, as we are focussing on rock chick funky clothing we had to research Vivienne Westwood’s tartan collection and collect images off Google. I found this very interesting as I love Vivienne Westwood and her clothing so looking at tartan was great fun for me!

As I love dancing, and can never sit still, I went up to London to pineapple studios for a day in the half term with Kelly. It was great fun; this wasn’t my first time going to pineapple as I went three times in the summer and once this half term doing a variety of different style dancing. I am going to use this for my 8month project as evidence, its a comercial style dance we did but could also be classes as jazz. We got the train up and walked round Covent Garden for a while, as it’s not often I go into London. We did an R'n'B Jazz class with Andrew Stone it was great fun, but took up a lot of energy as the warm up was very intense as well as the dance. The style of dance was different to what we are used to, so doing this dance class was a way of learning new things to, it was similar to sorts of things you see on music channels. But it was very exiting to be dancing in pineapple studios as it is very well known and something you see on television.

Below are images of Kelly and I after our dance class-

Last week!

This week we focussed mainly on are costume construction. We have come to an end of the historical costume design, and are now studying the theme of punk, and are costumes are going to be very trendy and cool basing them on the performance We will rock you! I can’t wait, as We rock you is such a funky enjoyable performance, the costumes are also amazing! There not like normal shows they make a statement, and are all very different.

 

                                        
We were given homework which was to research the show and find funky pictures of the costumes from it. We also have been asked to bring in jeans to cut up and make funky which we will be using for our costumes as well as tartan. We have to also research the history behind the two materials (denim and tartan)

We didn’t have many dance lessons during this week but the ones we did have we were focussing on are paired work where we have to construct a routine including some movements and motions that where set like 'racing start' and 'sink to the floor' every movement we did we had to be touching through the whole routine. It’s similar to DV8 very physical, and requires a lot of energy. Every movement has to flow, and it is all based around an object, similar to Enter Achilles where they used an object in most of the dancers like the beer and the ball. I am partnered with Kelly and we have created and tried many cool lifts and rolls!

DV8 presentation

Ask miss dolan how to load microsoft power point onto here.

The fourth week to Btec Performing Arts...

These four weeks have gone so fast! Feels like only yesterday we were sitting in the drama studio talking about the introduction to the course..
I am so happy I picked the course as I’m loving in and can’t wait until we put our big performance this term together it will be so much fun, and so interesting to watch because there will be so many different things involved.

In Btec this week we continued to look at DV8. We started doing workshops based along the lines of the company, and the idea was to make all are moments flow; we had this idea because the leader of DV8 Lloyd Newson uses that in all of his dancing. We had a task this week of finding away to travel across the room in a group. The first lesson of this task we got into two's but as there was an odd number I was with Kelly and Laura Anne so it made it that little bit harder for us, but as the lesson went on it got easier and easier this was because instead of setting what we were going to do we just saw how our bodies took us. This was a very hard task; therefore I think Lloyd Newson must be very clever in his choreography to produce such beautiful work. His way of dancing is very unique and unusual to what we have done before.

The next lesson we started thinking of doing the same thing in bigger groups. We got put into groups of six and this suddenly got A LOT harder. Having to move in a line 3 moving at a time across the room. But yet again as the lesson got on we improved my using each other and working as team, Newsons work requires a lot of team work too! I can’t wait to carry on learning about DV8 as I’m not so good at it yet but it is a new fun style that I am really enjoying so far! Miss Dolan also set us a task that is due in on Friday i have done a presentation, to present to the class on DV8 and so far learning about them is almost as fun as learning about their movements.

In the costume design this week the first lesson we created strips of colours that we got from magazines based on the colours we are using on are historical costume. We haven’t looked into the costumes its self into as much depth as we have the colours!  We have to do a lot of research into styles, colours and patterns that will fit with the historical theme Miss Hearne is focussing on. I managed to complete two stripes of gold colours and pink colours; this was a difficult task as of course you would want to pick the best section for your colours. I had a lot of fun whilst doing this though, and as I was absent for the other lesson of costume design we did as i was ill, I of course can’t explain what we did, but I will catch up on that next lesson. I also can’t wait to put are colour mood boards together as so far they are all looking great! We will eventually have one for each of our colours! My work has really improved over the course... And think both the dancing and creative side to Btec performing arts is great fun.