Bryonce Musical Theatre Year 14

24/03/17 Dance Lesson Analysis

Cunningham Main Phrase:

After recapping the Cunningham main phrase I felt that my contemporary dance technique was good because I was able to stretch my feet and work on my arms, however I felt that my balance could have been improved because I kept on falling after the final jump in the phrase. To improve it I tried to use control in my legs and core muscles to be able to hold my back up, in order to stop falling forward. I tried this the next two times we ran the phrase and I think it worked effectively:

Cunningham Main Phrase (With Improvements):

Limon Main Phrase:

Due to the fact that we had performed this motif for the last few weeks, I felt that this was easier to pick up in this lesson than the previous because of the practise that I have had, however one thing I would like to improve on is my balance and control between the 'bunny hop' and the illusion, because I seem to wobble because I put a lot of energy into the bunny hop to keep my legs towards the ground, and this effects my ability to perform the illusion with flexibility because I seem to fall into it. Therefore I will work on my core strength and my leg strength to control this better in future.

Leaps:

When we were performing the leaps, I felt that I had good elevation which came from strength in my legs and another strength I think was my flexibility as I was able to get close to a split in the leaps. I think to improve I need to stretch my back leg and point my feet to ensure that the technique is better because I feel that technique is important to prevent injury, for example if I continue to bend my back leg it could effect my alignment

Discussion and Target Setting:

23/03/17 Lesson Analysis

In this lesson we continued blocking my scenes with Ferdinand and Prospera. My main focus personally was my energy, because I felt that in order to project towards the audience I needed to have high energy levels. I think that because the rehearsal space isn't outdoors and isn't as big as BOAT theatre, it is easy to play the characterisation down to suit the space you are in, however it is important to project as though I am already at BOAT so that the movements feel more natural and the audience can hear and see what I am doing and saying clearly.

As the rehearsal progressed, I begun to adapt my concept of my character to suit what Max, who is playing Ferdinand, began to find a new concept for his. These new characters changed from the classic young characters in Shakespeare's plays, like Romeo and Juliet, who carry the story of finding new love throughout the play, and changed to a comedy awkward couple, to represent a stereotypical awkward young couple meeting for the first time, and trying to flirt, but being unsuccessful. To portray this I looked into creating different movements and gestures such as touching Max's hair, and hitting his arm, to not only show that my character Miranda is unsure what to do, but to also to show the fact that Miranda has spent nearly the whole of her life on the island and hasn't met another human other than Prospera. I think that this concept works well because it adds comedy to the characters, which is one of my strengths in performing which ultimately, raises the energy levels which is what I wanted to work on, therefore making the movements and dialogue clearer and easy to understand for a modern day audience.

Song developments for Tempest

In this rehearsal we looked into the songs that our characters will be involved with in The Tempest. We added songs to make the classical theatre piece suit a modern society audience, and I feel that the use of songs will also make the storyline clearer. I feel that adding this to our piece will resemble Kneehigh's style which is what our version of The Tempest is inspired by.

In the video myself and Izzy talked about how we should project our voices to make the words of the songs loud and clear for the whole audience to hear, because the theatre is not only big, but it is outdoors too which means that we have to consider other noises that the audience could pick up on such as wind, traffic, and people walking past. I am aware that there is a park behind the theatre as well which is directly behind the back of the audience, so I would take into consideration that the audience will hear them more than me if I don't project well enough.

14/03/17 Lesson Analysis

I feel that this rehearsal was productive, because we worked on adding physical theatre to the Prospera and Caliban scene, which introduces Caliban the the audience. I think it was productive because we worked in 2 groups to create the beginning entrance to the scene, myself and Izzy worked together as Miranda and Prospera enter together, and Amber and Holly worked on the physical theatre to their song at the beginning of the scene. The physical theatre is effective here because it links to one of the aims for our performance which is to use physical theatre, but it also explores and explains the narrative towards the audience so that they are more clear on what is happening in the scene.

I tried to ensure that my facial expressions were clear so that when we rehearse and perform at boat, I am used to adding the unnatural expressions, making them natural to me, so that the audience can see what my character is feeling in this scene, which is fear. The big expressions will be effective here not only to express emotions, but to also so that they are visible to the audience in the large theatre space, and the natural lighting which will fade as the performance progresses.

Overall, I think that this lesson was successful because I was able to develop my skills as a performer by choreographing a new physical theatre motif, but also because I contributed a lot of ideas towards the motif, like when I suggested that I pull on Izzy's arm to represent the fact that my character doesn't want to go, but Izzy pulls me and controls me to show her character's manipulation. To improve I would like to maintain the physical theatre throughout the scene, to keep the fast pace going to make the overall scene more interesting and tidy.

10/03/17 Dance Lesson Analysis NEEDS ANALYSIS

Cunningham Foot warm up:

Cunningham Triplet Exercise:

Cunningham Triplet Exercise Development:

Cunningham Back and Plie exercise:

Cunningham Main Phrase:

Cunningham Main Phrase (continued)

Discussion about target setting for Cunningham main phrase:

Limon Main Phrase:

Discussion about target setting for Limon main phrase:

07/03/17 Lesson Analysis

In this lesson we blocked mine and Izzy's first scene in the script. In this scene, I understand that Miranda (my character) is angry with Prospera for raising the sea storm and harming many people in the ship that was shipwrecked onto the island. I learnt my lines for this scene prior to the rehearsals so that I could add physical theatre to the piece without having to hold my script and slow the process more. This worked effectively because we were able to block the scene quickly and begin working on physical theatre and more complicated blocking, by adding movements and gestures to make the classical language more clear to the audience.

My aim for the upcoming rehearsals is to exaggerate my movements so that the classical language is understandable for a modern day audience, and I will do this through physical theatre and facial expressions. However I do understand that due to the large performance space I need to make my movements bigger than they would be in a small theatre.