This week was the week of the dance show. In the dance show we performed as a class our dance unit piece based on The Media as well as two numbers from We Will Rock You, this allowed us to be assessed in our dance units but also test out the choreography of the numbers to see if they worked effectively in the space as well as with the audience.
In the day we do a tech run for the show, to test out the transitions between our numbers and the others, as well as the lighting in comparison to the costume and the theme of the dance. As a group we had to have a lot of patience as it takes a while to get all the different elements right and then trial them out a few times, also requiring focus. If we had any issues or queries with our set in the show we had to tell Kat therefore we had to listen carefully to one another whether it was incase we knew the answer/solution and could help, so that someone else who may know could help or Kat could answer so communication was key between us as a team in this activity.
When we finished we were allowed to split off and work on whatever piece that we needed to sort, due to an knee injury i sustained back in October i had only been given the clear to dance a few days before and had decided as i knew some of the dance from before to give it a try and input myself where i could and was safe. I asked help from some of my peers who knew the choreography i was out for the help me make sure i knew it right and how i could develop it so that i didn't have to use my knee so much, this was very supportive of them and made me feel a lot more confident for the performance as i really didn't want to let them down.
Shortly after we had to start getting ready for the actual performance, within the show order our Media piece was in the first half and our musical numbers were ending the show, allowing us enough time to be prepared for the different numbers individually as well as an ensemble.
As a result I think the performances went really well, within the media piece I wasn't involved in a lot of it as mentioned, so felt very proud to see my class perform so well a piece they had been working hard on for so long and happy i could support them the best I can. We all performed we high level focus and musicality and facial expressions allowing us to really express the themes of our performance and make an overall dynamic and effective piece as an ensemble.
To improve I feel that I could include more fluidity in my movement, this could be attained by gaining more core strength and flexibility, through weekly stretches, giving me more control over my body as a result. As a group I feel our performance skills and communication were very strong in this event and really helped us develop as a musical ensemble and a team, however we could still improve on our focus within rehearsals so that we use all time efficiently.
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In the second part of the week we worked on Act 1, costumes and the musical numbers. However we started off with working on Bohemian rhapsody, as this was something we had only vaguely worked on and needed to be looked at in more detail, for example it was quite hard for each vocal group to hear what part they were singing and what key to sing it in, this took quite a bit of time and a lot of patience from us all, which is one of our biggest targets as a group, this task however really allowed us to develop this skills a group, listening to one another and helping each other. We found as a good way of remembering the notes were to record the different groups so that could practice them at home and work on other things in this session using our time more efficiently, and really testing everyones commitment. In the tempo change of the song I struggled to find the key change for us singing the higher octave, but my cast mates helped me out with it and so we could sing it effectively.
I feel within this session I that everyones peer support and communication was strong and created a positive vibe and therefore a good result with the song, i feel i contributed to this with helping others with timing and notes for their different sections and then getting help in return.
Running act one we changed a few things as well as developed little things so that they were more refined, a lot were cases in which people didn't know all they're roles off cast like being a guard or a yuppie, which were very key fro different transitions, this was easily solved as once we gathered one of a double cast was doing something then the other noted that they were too and what that section entailed. In this we really listened to one another as it was the case of some people had been here and some hadn't so had to retrieve all useful information so we could keep moving forward and a group and production.
A lot of what we ended working on in more detail were the musical numbers as they required more time and the right people. So after completed the run through we went back and worked on a few more of the songs in more detail such as Somebody to Love and Play the Game. Focusing on the first, I added to this in the role of a Teen Queen, in this scene we are there as "bullies" against Scaramouche and to highlight her contrastive behaviour compared to them, as this is scaramouches song we only act as back up singers, however we hadn't worked in detail on our vocal arrangement for this song so this is something we need to do in the future. When discovering what needed work it was taking note of so that we could fit it all in and has special time to work on those numbers and scenes.
I think that our performance and preparation will really start to improve with organisation such as scheduling extra rehearsals and a time plan to fit different things in, also to really focuses on all our different characters whether it be on or off cast so we can add to the different in dynamics in the scenes and know what is going on at all times. Personally I feel I need to develop my character knowledge for the gaga kids/teen queens and guards, as they are not ones i have looked into as much and want to be confident so that i can support the others to create stronger scenes.
Friday 30 December 2016
Saturday 17 December 2016
week of the 28/11/17
This week we focused a lot on the blocking of act 2. For act two my character is only in a few scenes near the beginning and end. Most of these were ensemble numbers so allowed me to explore more of my characters relationships within the groups.
A big scene I'm involved with was the torture scene near the beginning of act 2, within this scene my character Meat and some other captured bohemians are tied up by Khashoggi into an electrocution mechanism which he uses against them when they don't answer his questions or insults him.
This was a fun one to work on as a group as we had to work out how to be in sync with one another when being electrocuted, this took a while to work out because we had to sing the flash before screaming without a cue we had to develop our own technique. However in this rehearsal we were doing it with off cast members and it may not be them in the actual performance therefore will have to create a technique that is easy to teach on to the year twelves, so can do with ease and won't waste time. As well as this we had to make it believable so we played around with a few types of scream and people had different ideas on how it would sound as well as our director so we tried out the different suggestions until we found one that we all liked, this took patience and focus but we achieved it in the end. We then tried it in both casts so they could get used to it.
In this session I found it challenging to focus near the end, due to repetition of our activity, as a group we all started to lose our focus so I think in future we need to maybe plan to do it in a smaller session so we don't take up too much of the whole groups time, so we use our class time efficiently as an ensemble.
Another scene in which I was more involved was the bar scene with Pop in the Seven seas of rye. In this we were able to work with the year twelves, which really allowed us to develop as an ensemble working with new people and creating the right atmospheres within scenes.
In this scene my character had been brain drained of all knowledge of who she is and what she believes in so is quite dreary and zoned out with the rest of the members of the bar. This particular scene was a very long scene, therefore we as a group had to have a lot of patience going through it and working out what was effective and what wasn't for those with lines and our reactions. However doing it over a few times allowed us to really get the gist of the scene as a group and our parts within it so we could really get our characterisation right this took a lot of focus from us all.
As a group we worked on the song bohemian rhapsody with the movements, we had done this before with just our class and done a rough cut of the number. So this time we had to incorporate the year twelves this took communication from us year 13s and 14s as we had already spent a lot of time on it so again had to be patient, listen to any of their queries and get it settled.
The beginning section wasn't too bad as we are split into small groups, so we just added 12s into each group and then could teach them our parts individually, for this i took a leadership within my group so they didn't get confused, as my groups section was the first part of the ensemble part, timing was easy to teach so just had to go over our verse, my group were good listeners so it went well and didn't take much time. I think my peer support here worked well as otherwise they may have been confused and it could have taken up a lot of time so helped us to work successfully.
Adding movement to the bigger sections became difficult as their was so many of us and the movement couldn't be too distracting compared to the words as well as the galileo/scaramouche of the song. This could have been improved if we had planned more in advance or split off into different groups.
As a whole I need to develop my focus when I start to get tired of lose concentration even if others are displaying a lack of focus to not join in and try to help them regain focus as well, this will help us get certain jobs done faster and work more efficiently as a group.
A big scene I'm involved with was the torture scene near the beginning of act 2, within this scene my character Meat and some other captured bohemians are tied up by Khashoggi into an electrocution mechanism which he uses against them when they don't answer his questions or insults him.
This was a fun one to work on as a group as we had to work out how to be in sync with one another when being electrocuted, this took a while to work out because we had to sing the flash before screaming without a cue we had to develop our own technique. However in this rehearsal we were doing it with off cast members and it may not be them in the actual performance therefore will have to create a technique that is easy to teach on to the year twelves, so can do with ease and won't waste time. As well as this we had to make it believable so we played around with a few types of scream and people had different ideas on how it would sound as well as our director so we tried out the different suggestions until we found one that we all liked, this took patience and focus but we achieved it in the end. We then tried it in both casts so they could get used to it.
In this session I found it challenging to focus near the end, due to repetition of our activity, as a group we all started to lose our focus so I think in future we need to maybe plan to do it in a smaller session so we don't take up too much of the whole groups time, so we use our class time efficiently as an ensemble.
Another scene in which I was more involved was the bar scene with Pop in the Seven seas of rye. In this we were able to work with the year twelves, which really allowed us to develop as an ensemble working with new people and creating the right atmospheres within scenes.
In this scene my character had been brain drained of all knowledge of who she is and what she believes in so is quite dreary and zoned out with the rest of the members of the bar. This particular scene was a very long scene, therefore we as a group had to have a lot of patience going through it and working out what was effective and what wasn't for those with lines and our reactions. However doing it over a few times allowed us to really get the gist of the scene as a group and our parts within it so we could really get our characterisation right this took a lot of focus from us all.
As a group we worked on the song bohemian rhapsody with the movements, we had done this before with just our class and done a rough cut of the number. So this time we had to incorporate the year twelves this took communication from us year 13s and 14s as we had already spent a lot of time on it so again had to be patient, listen to any of their queries and get it settled.
The beginning section wasn't too bad as we are split into small groups, so we just added 12s into each group and then could teach them our parts individually, for this i took a leadership within my group so they didn't get confused, as my groups section was the first part of the ensemble part, timing was easy to teach so just had to go over our verse, my group were good listeners so it went well and didn't take much time. I think my peer support here worked well as otherwise they may have been confused and it could have taken up a lot of time so helped us to work successfully.
Adding movement to the bigger sections became difficult as their was so many of us and the movement couldn't be too distracting compared to the words as well as the galileo/scaramouche of the song. This could have been improved if we had planned more in advance or split off into different groups.
As a whole I need to develop my focus when I start to get tired of lose concentration even if others are displaying a lack of focus to not join in and try to help them regain focus as well, this will help us get certain jobs done faster and work more efficiently as a group.
Tuesday 13 December 2016
Sunday 11 December 2016
6/12/16 - first run through
chorus/cop - For this we have to surround Pop/Jade holding a rock position, we do this on a lower level as it shows jade off. We then proceed to carry her off when told to take her away.
Gaga Kid - In the opening - radio gaga -
As Emily and I choreographed this number we said we would be in it to boost the numbers as well as be able to help within the rehearsals if there were queries with counts or formations.
Gaga kids are very clone like, therefore we all decided that we should sound quite dead but with a robotic edge to our voices when saying choral lines, as well as making our movements quite isolated to once again give of that mechanical vibe. Making this a decision was effective as we were all the same, making our performance as a group more effective as well as enhancing the point of our characters, the point of our characters being to show how people have been brainwashed to believe all these rules are the way they should be and that all personality has been drained from life.
I found it quite hard to not show emotion within my voice so had to really try within vocalizing the gaga lines so I didn't sound different to everyone else. Some of the others struggle with the timing of the actions within our scene so when we had a spare five minutes I went through with them so they could understand it easier and give them better ways of remembering the timing like cue words, as not all of them were used to doing counts and timing, which was an important factor within this scene and dance.
I think that we still need to work on timing within the song but we are sorting by adding more rehearsals however we will have to practice adding time for doing it with the set as a lot of the movements will be slightly longer if they were walking up or through the set pieces. This will help the overall performance as well because the formations have a vital role within this particular number adding to the theme of the number.
Teen Queen -
In this number we act as bullies against Scaracmouche as the Teen Queens. The Teen Queens were the same as the GaGa kids but more exclusive and have more status being very fashionable (if you could use that term for people in the gaga world). I was Teen Queen 3, so had a few lines, for this character I very much got influence from the stereotypical american school girl bully, who think they are too good for anyone or anything and are very irritating. We all kind of embodied the style of someone from Essex with our vocal choices just with a more annoying twang to it, which instantly shows the audience who we are as a group and the effect we have on the other Gaga people in this instance Scaramouche and highlighting our status.
In Scaramouches song Somebody to Love we act as background singers, but at the same time we act as her conscience. As this is her big song we didn't want to attract attention so we limited the movement to step clicks, sways and just standing and using our acting more than movement to give more of an effect with Scaramouche, also showing how much of an outcast she is with the contrast between her and us.
As a group our job was to intimidate Scaramouche or attempt to as well as show our status and roles within the world of GaGa, I think we did this effectively through our movement, vocal choices and clothing.
Super Yuppie/ Second Cop -
For this the super yuppies were always off cast characters, we came in to add to numbers for the Yuppies as well as being more involved in the scenes than the other Yuppies as we were in rehearsals more than them. For this character we were involved in the numbers Killer Queen, Play the Game and Its a Kind Of Magic. After the first two numbers is when we swap to Cops but still as super yuppies. For the second cop we had to be quite aggressive so i enthused the into my voice when saying my lines to the prisoner (Galileo), we did this to intimidate him more and add more tension to the scene. It was quite hard at first to find the right tone exactly without it sounding stupid or weird so I had a play around with different tones when with the other cops so I could make it correct.
In this rehearsal we had a lot of problems with the cop scene so I suggested that we all created a timing for what we were doing or used cue lines, this let us work a lot more efficiently and quickly with getting it right even if it wasn't what we eventually went with. I learnt that visual contact is important within scenes when communicating, we had a very important job as the cops to create the laser cell with torches in the dark, we had to all have good eye communication so that they turn on/off at the same time as well as moved at the same speed and angle to give the right impression of the cage to the audience after a few tries and timing run throughs we started to get better at it making it more effective.
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overall in this rehearsal I felt that I applied a lot of ensemble skills within rehearsing these particular scenes to work more effectively as a group, such as focus, listening to others and commitment. I think for future rehearsals I need to develop more communications skills so that we work as a more successful musical ensemble.
Gaga Kid - In the opening - radio gaga -
As Emily and I choreographed this number we said we would be in it to boost the numbers as well as be able to help within the rehearsals if there were queries with counts or formations.
Gaga kids are very clone like, therefore we all decided that we should sound quite dead but with a robotic edge to our voices when saying choral lines, as well as making our movements quite isolated to once again give of that mechanical vibe. Making this a decision was effective as we were all the same, making our performance as a group more effective as well as enhancing the point of our characters, the point of our characters being to show how people have been brainwashed to believe all these rules are the way they should be and that all personality has been drained from life.
I found it quite hard to not show emotion within my voice so had to really try within vocalizing the gaga lines so I didn't sound different to everyone else. Some of the others struggle with the timing of the actions within our scene so when we had a spare five minutes I went through with them so they could understand it easier and give them better ways of remembering the timing like cue words, as not all of them were used to doing counts and timing, which was an important factor within this scene and dance.
I think that we still need to work on timing within the song but we are sorting by adding more rehearsals however we will have to practice adding time for doing it with the set as a lot of the movements will be slightly longer if they were walking up or through the set pieces. This will help the overall performance as well because the formations have a vital role within this particular number adding to the theme of the number.
Teen Queen -
In this number we act as bullies against Scaracmouche as the Teen Queens. The Teen Queens were the same as the GaGa kids but more exclusive and have more status being very fashionable (if you could use that term for people in the gaga world). I was Teen Queen 3, so had a few lines, for this character I very much got influence from the stereotypical american school girl bully, who think they are too good for anyone or anything and are very irritating. We all kind of embodied the style of someone from Essex with our vocal choices just with a more annoying twang to it, which instantly shows the audience who we are as a group and the effect we have on the other Gaga people in this instance Scaramouche and highlighting our status.
In Scaramouches song Somebody to Love we act as background singers, but at the same time we act as her conscience. As this is her big song we didn't want to attract attention so we limited the movement to step clicks, sways and just standing and using our acting more than movement to give more of an effect with Scaramouche, also showing how much of an outcast she is with the contrast between her and us.
As a group our job was to intimidate Scaramouche or attempt to as well as show our status and roles within the world of GaGa, I think we did this effectively through our movement, vocal choices and clothing.
Super Yuppie/ Second Cop -
For this the super yuppies were always off cast characters, we came in to add to numbers for the Yuppies as well as being more involved in the scenes than the other Yuppies as we were in rehearsals more than them. For this character we were involved in the numbers Killer Queen, Play the Game and Its a Kind Of Magic. After the first two numbers is when we swap to Cops but still as super yuppies. For the second cop we had to be quite aggressive so i enthused the into my voice when saying my lines to the prisoner (Galileo), we did this to intimidate him more and add more tension to the scene. It was quite hard at first to find the right tone exactly without it sounding stupid or weird so I had a play around with different tones when with the other cops so I could make it correct.
In this rehearsal we had a lot of problems with the cop scene so I suggested that we all created a timing for what we were doing or used cue lines, this let us work a lot more efficiently and quickly with getting it right even if it wasn't what we eventually went with. I learnt that visual contact is important within scenes when communicating, we had a very important job as the cops to create the laser cell with torches in the dark, we had to all have good eye communication so that they turn on/off at the same time as well as moved at the same speed and angle to give the right impression of the cage to the audience after a few tries and timing run throughs we started to get better at it making it more effective.
-----
overall in this rehearsal I felt that I applied a lot of ensemble skills within rehearsing these particular scenes to work more effectively as a group, such as focus, listening to others and commitment. I think for future rehearsals I need to develop more communications skills so that we work as a more successful musical ensemble.
Sunday 4 December 2016
Week of 21/11/16
In this week we had our final sessions on developing and planning our Durrington performance before actually performing on the 24th.
In this lesson we went off into our song groups and worked more in depth on our songs for the performance and perfecting them, a decision that was made at the beginning of the session was for people to try dialogue before their sections to see if it made it better or helped as a transition into the next section or from the previous one.
Luckily for us we have dialogue that leads into our song so we chose that as our section and started to incorporate it to work with our choreography for the beginning of the number. The hardest part of our section was the transition between double casts within the number as ours was quite fast so we had to make sure that were in the correct place before the change other wise the choreography didn't work at all.
Through focus and practicing over and over we got it down before we had to show case what we had down to the others. We all performed to each other and then gave one another feedback, with what we felt worked well and was effective and what could maybe be adapted or improved slightly.
We token all the feedback and wrote down in the form of targets to do for next lesson mine were to learn the lines for the beginning of the scene and emily and I also chose to keep rehearsing the song and movement as our other target. Doing this shall allow us to put more characterisation and energy into our performance as will be confident with what we are doing add to the performance as a whole.
In this lesson I felt like I really worked as a part of the team and even took some leadership within my small group for choreography so our section was more structured. Ive learnt that organisation is very key with working in a large group and makes everything run smoother.
Unit 40 Durrington High rehearsals 1
Unit 40 Durrington High rehearsals 7
In this lesson we went off into our song groups and worked more in depth on our songs for the performance and perfecting them, a decision that was made at the beginning of the session was for people to try dialogue before their sections to see if it made it better or helped as a transition into the next section or from the previous one.
Luckily for us we have dialogue that leads into our song so we chose that as our section and started to incorporate it to work with our choreography for the beginning of the number. The hardest part of our section was the transition between double casts within the number as ours was quite fast so we had to make sure that were in the correct place before the change other wise the choreography didn't work at all.
Through focus and practicing over and over we got it down before we had to show case what we had down to the others. We all performed to each other and then gave one another feedback, with what we felt worked well and was effective and what could maybe be adapted or improved slightly.
We token all the feedback and wrote down in the form of targets to do for next lesson mine were to learn the lines for the beginning of the scene and emily and I also chose to keep rehearsing the song and movement as our other target. Doing this shall allow us to put more characterisation and energy into our performance as will be confident with what we are doing add to the performance as a whole.
In this lesson I felt like I really worked as a part of the team and even took some leadership within my small group for choreography so our section was more structured. Ive learnt that organisation is very key with working in a large group and makes everything run smoother.
Unit 40 Durrington High rehearsals 1
Unit 40 Durrington High rehearsals 7
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