jazz and a busy two weeks...

To start with we are working on our next assignment, jazz dance! Which i am very excited about as it is much similar to disco/freestyle which is the dance style i feel most comfortable in. We started with learning a dance choreographed by Miss Dolan and i am thoroughly enjoying it. Whilst half way through that we moved onto our individual choreography tasks, we had to split into groups one of which will choreograph a contemporary jazz routine, another a street jazz routine and lastly one will choreograph a Rock'n'Roll jazz routine. We will later teach these dances to the rest of the class. I am in the group that is choreographing the rock'n'roll routine. I really enjoy rock'n'roll and i am extremely pleased that i am in this group. We picked the song 'Candyman' by Christina Aquleria as this is a very upbeat and bouncy song much like rock'n'roll techniques. Although its, at the moment, not completed we are partly thorugh choreographing and only have a little bit more to do!
Secondly the other weekend i had tickets to the x-factor live shows! WOW, it was amazing, i enjoyed myself so much. All the contestants were amazing and so were the dancers. Going to the x-factor really gave me an insight to the performing arts industry, i got to see all the dancers preparing themselves, make up touch ups, the wy the cameras worked and timings for television. The layout of the studio was incredible! seeing all the dancers up on stage makes me what to be a west end dancer so much more. A dancer more than a singer because i am not comfortable with singing and need to work on my vocals a lot more! I had an amazing day and evening! i also got to meet John Wilding and Luke Lucas contestants that didnt make it to the live shows and they were so kind and lovely!

Finally, I danced at watford football club on halloween weekend! I am part of the 'Watford trust awareness dancers' every so often we perform dances we have worked on before the match and at half time. Although it is slightly embarressing when you spot people in the audience you know because you are so close to them and in character. However i wore a mask as it was halloween and nobody could tell who i was! I love dancing at watford because you get to see the audience's reaction immediately and the adrenaline rush is incredible. Although at this performance the footballers were practise shooting behind us and one ball did nearly hit my head, rather scary!
Overall i have thoroughly enjoyed the past couple of weeks and it has made me realise my love for the industry! even if i have realised i need to work on my singing!

The Past Two Weeks..

These past two weeks we have been working on our hairspray routine. We performed it last Sunday. Although we have worked incredibly hard on the routine and had to work out the dynamics and we discovered that the singers couldn't dance and sing at the same time so although they had to do the dance moves they didn't do them as energetically as the rest of the group.

When we got to the event (MSH got talent)  on Sunday the 2nd October 2011. We rehearsed and supported the other rehearsing acts, all the singers rehearsed with the head mics. They were around £2000 each, which scared some of the singers i think! Allthough we felt very professional and it was amazing experience we saw that the stage was much deeper than expected! So before we did our technical rehearsal we walked through the routine and worked out the position's.

We did our technical rehearsal and we all thought that we did well and we really enjoyed dancing it! In the evening we went back and got ready! We did all our hair and make up and got into our costumes. Here are some pictures of us!

We performed 5th, we were all incredibly pleased with the performance and the audience's reaction was amazing! We were all buzzing with adrenaline from the performance. However we soon all clicked back into reality when we got some harsh comments from some of the judges! Overall we were scored 26 out of 40, which i am sure all the girls will say, we were pretty disappointed with that as we thought we had performed really well. In my opinion i thought it was the best we had ever danced it! During the interval we all had individual audience members come up to us and say that we had been judged wrongly and that they really enjoyed the performance. Unfortunately, our day was somewhat ruined by the comments of the judges. Although i am still incredibly pleased with our performance and with all the girls.

Overall it had been a brilliant 2 weeks and performing for MSH got talent really gave the girls and i an insider to the performing arts industry. It gave us a chance to experience things that they use in the industry such as the equipment. We were exposed to some criticism and when in the performance industry you have to be able to accept that and work on the comments. Bounce back from any unreasonable comments and carry on performing, which we have been doing.

i have thoroughly enjoyed these two weeks! Its sad to think that these two years could be coming to an end soon.

Taking a break..

This week in performing arts we have been focusing on creating choreography for a competition our group will be competeing in. We are dancing and singing to the hairspray song 'you cant stop the beat', i have enjoyed this as this is really the style of dance i do best! cheesey ott dancing! I've previously done dance routines to this song so i have merged them together and created some choreography that i have taught the group. Although very tiring i love this dance! It makes me happy and bubbly which is what dancing is mean to do!

In costume design we have been focusing on bringing the work already done together and placing it on boards to create topical mood boards for this topic. We have finished some costume designs and completed all research, we have begun to present our boards and have attacked fabric swatches.

Also this week i took part in a national ISTD qulifying competition. In these competitions you compete against other girls and boys in your age and medal catagory for a place at the national finals which will take place on the 9th of october. At this competition i danced rock'n'roll with my partner because i have qualified in set dance at a previous event. When we danced rock'n'roll they played the music for a long time, and considering rock'n'roll is a very technical yet uobeat dance this made us very tired and we lost engergy. I didnt think we'd get a call back for the next round but we did! and we danced much better! round after round we got through and we even got into the final! Nand although we didnt qualifie for the nationals i am proud to say that we came 4th out of about 25 couples! it was a successful day of dancing!                                                                                                                         

This shows my partner and i when we collected our medals for 4th place.

First Week back in performing arts!

Well, although we didnt have performing arts much this week because we just got back off of the summer holidays and had a half week, we've already cracked on and done an assessment! how good are we!

Over the summer we had to memorise and learn our own individual monologues! The monologue that i was given to perform was called 'And turning, stay'. It was an argument between lovers who had broken up. I've never really been in this position before so to get a real idea of how you'd feel in a situation i spoke to my mum! she told me that if you've just broken up with someone you really love then of course you're going to feel hurt upset and sad. One other thing that she said some people feel is, insecure and vunerable. As  this was my first performance of something like this i decided that i would use the 'vunerability' idea. I knew i would be nervous, even though i wouldnt be performing to a live audience, so i decided that i'd use my nerves and turn it into the vunerable character who is feeling very insecure! I performed it, it was filmed and fingers crossed i did ok?!!!
One other thing we did this week was get our observation sheets back, one thing i forgot to do was do some research on the kit kat grils from Caberet, so expect to see that on here soon guys!

We had costume construction this week too, we tried to finalize our initial costume designs as we will be needing them soon to start making them! how exciting!
speak during the week!

Summer Holidays!

Wow, back to work already after a nice relaxing but fun filled holiday! I've done a few things that will correspond with performing arts!

One being that I danced at watford football clubs open day with their dance troop! We performed 3 times and met all the players! This gave me an insight to the performing industry because the audience were relatively close, and you have express facial expressions so that the audience don't think you're bored up there dancing! Therefore it makes you thing about the audiences view on the performance! I really enjoyed this because like rock challenge it gives you an adrenaline rush!

Linking to rock challenge I also took part in a radio interview on behalf of rock challenge for radio one on underage drinking! This gave me an insight to the performing arts industry because it made you think of how you had to speak clearly! You had to think carefully before you spoke and when you spoke it had to be clear because the audience might not understand what you say! Especially as they can't see you! This also makes it more difficult because you have to think about the tone, expression and emotion of your voice so that the audience can really get the message across because again they can't see you!

I've also been doing work on my costume design, learning monologues and creating dance routines for our musical theatre project! I haven't worked much on finishing assignment 3 but have done a little bit! I just need to add more so that I can get my grade up to a distinction!

Speak soon about my week back at performing arts!

Musical theatre and a busy two weeks...

WOW, these two weeks have been veeeeeeeeery busy.

In musical theatre we have worked on our group performance 'All that jazz' we worked on who was singing what parts of the song and the choreography for the song. I'm really starting to enjoy all that jazz and i feel as a person I'm not as bervous bout singing infront of people. We also spent a lesson on working on our 'We Will Rock You' peice, so that we can wearour we will rock you costumes we have made in costume construction. Although i may find areas of the song challenging i will definitly tackle it head on. In musical theatre we have been working on our own musical ensambles too. I am in a group with Shannon and shauna and we are singing 'Caberet' we'd previously worked out who was singing what and this week we have focused on some inventive choreography to go with the singing.We showed it to our teacher Miss Dolan enjoyed the choreography and she said that more of that style would be brilliant for the song.

In Costume construction we have had a deadline on our bodice construction. We have evaluated what we have done and how we planned to use it in later projects. I have really enjoyed costume construction in we will rock you and am very happy with my  finished product.

In the past two weeks myself and the school have taken part in two major dance events the first being our premier league debut. We were very excited but very nervous. We were worried that we werent strong enough. But we rehearsed and performed and we came 4th out of twelve. In premier league i am very pleased with that. Doing rock challenge makes my school life better and i enjoy performing on stage and with people i enjoy working with.  Another dance event i took part in was i-dance's PlatformONE. Our gifted and talented dance crew took part and we did a mini version of rock challenge.  we all really enjoyed ourselves and it was really good to see other street and contemporary crew perform. It was really good to see how other people percieve dance and how it is presented. I loved just being able to watch other dancers dance and actually enjoy themselves.

Overall its been a busy few weeks has been busy but brilliant. i am becoming more confident with musical theatre day by day....

Another week in performing arts, MUSICAL THEATRE!

Dance/Musical Theatre
This week in the dance side of performing arts we have been developing our 'All that Jazz' routine. Its a massive group performance that we will do as our finalle dance at our end of term show. This monday we are finding out which song we will be singing in a duet or solo for our assesment. I am slightly bervous because i'm still unsure of where i stand with musical theatre.
We had parents evening and Miss Dolan said that i have nothing to worry about and that i just need to get my confidence up because I can sing I'm just not confident. It will take a bit of time but fingers crossed I'll get there, but so far I'm surprised at how much I'm enjoying musical theatre.

Costume Construction.
This week has been a very jam packed week in costume construction and we have been told that our deadline is the 6th of June, which is sacrily close. I've had to catch up a few bits this week because i missed a few mood boards when i was off with chicken pox:( but i'm getting closer to finishing. This week i have sewn my corset together and shaped it properly, measured it around me and a manakin to make sure it looks right, hemmed the edges of my corset so it has a nice finish and i have completed one mood board and am half way thorugh another, all i will have left to do is the decoration.

This shows my corset after i had sewn it together with the sewing machine. It proves i have constructed the garment.

This shows me measuring my corset around a manakin. This proves i have measured it correctly.

 This shows me measuring the corset around the manikin to see how much elastic i will need for the back of my corset, for it to fit properly and it to be suitable to dance in.

These pictures show the process of me hemming the edges of my corset from the begining product to the final peice. It hasno decorations yet, but i can say i am very proud of it!

A welcoming to musical theatre...

This past few weeks we have been focusing on musical theatre. We are working on a small performance of 'All that Jazz' from Chicago. We have all taken part in many workshops to do with singing and dancing taught by our teacher Ms Dolan.

I was very wary when we started musical theatre because I am without a doubt more confident in dancing. And i've never sung infront of an audience before, i mean obviously singing round the house and in the bath but thats completely different.  Compared to some of the singers in my group I'm not amazing but I like to think that I'm okay. I get very nervous about singing obviously because I'm not confident about it.

However, although I have been nervous and slightly apprehensive i have enjoyed the first couple of weeks to musical theatre. I have enjoyed learning the routine most because thats where I feel most confident but hopefully the singing will come in time.

Looking at our task on our blue sheets and seeing that we have to create an audition peice does make me slightly worried but I am hoping that will all be okay by the time of performance.

Overall i have really enjoyed musical theatre, mainly because you have to think about the words and they type of beats and choreograph as Fossee would have.

I look forward to the up and coming weeks in musical theatre.

Costume Construction.

What we've been doing!
Lately in costume construction we have been working on our bodices for our costume that is themed around We Will Rock You.

To begin with I lay a paper pattern onto the denim trips and pined it together.

Then i cut the denim to match the shape of the template.

I then Pinned the pices of material together to form the bodice.

Photographic evidence.

Before the perfomance.

Photographic evidence.

In Rehearsals.

Bhangra- Week 5!

Monday 14th March 2011
On monday we decided that we were going to aim to develop motifs and develop the dance and choreography within the storyline. We worked really hard on emotion and what our character would be thinking at every point in the story. My character would mostly be upset because she wouldnt want her son to marry a woman form another religion. We also worked hard on interacting with one enother within the dance because we were constantly dancing as a solo artist without recognising that there were other people around us. Also in this lesson we managed to work particularky hard on the end scene where the couple would be split up and we would dance seperately. As an outcome of this lesson we fully completed the routine and added emotion and story alothough we did decide that this could use some more work. We also thought that we could keep going over the choreography so that everybody was absolutly certain about what they were doing.

Tuesday 15th March 2011
Tuesday was our double lesson. As a group we decided that we needed a lunch rehearsa. Overall our total lesson aim was to develop motifs, finish the routine and to develop emotion and character. In the first lesson we finished all the choreography for our overall performance and we made sure all memebers of our group understood where they were dancing in each scene, where they would be moving to and how. In our lunch rehearsal we changed a little bit of the routine because, when we danced it to the music all the way thorugh we found that this part of the dance, in particular, didn't really work. Everybody in the group were struggling with this part. We had a small break at the end of lunch because it is important that you have time to recover, relax and to re-hydrate. In the final lesson of the day we continually re-ran our routine and fitted it in place with the other group. This was because we were performing at caberet and had to all dance as one. In the next lessons that would keep practising  the routine, remeber changes and to rememeber the other groups routine if people needed to. As an outcome we polished the routine and made sure everyone remembered teh routine.

Wednesday 16th March 2011
We said that in this lesson we needed to re-polish teh routine and finalise it with the routine. We practised most of the parts that were needed for the other group. We as a whole 'btec performing arts group' worked on the end possitions. We also had our rehearsal for caberet which allowed us to work out possitions on the stage. We said that in the following lessons before caberet we would practise everything that we were unsure about in the rehearsal.

Thursday 17th March 2011
We continually ran the whole routine and made sure everyone understood what they were doing. In this lesson we performed it to younger students and asked for their opinion. They thought it was brilliant. We said we should work on the end positions for timings.

Friday 18th March 2011
We worked out the timings and the other groups lift. We put everything together and made sure it was brilliant. In caberet we had to make sure we were OTT and smiled alot!
Caberet.
Caberet was amazing, I really enjoyed myself. we all put huge amounts of energy and i had some people tell me we made it look effortless. The stories came togther and this was shown in the audience's feedback. There was an amzing atmosphere and i really enjoyed myself.

Research on Bhangra.

After re_reading my feedback sheet i have discovered that i have to do a review on a Hrithik Roshan dance instead of jai ho. I will do the review on the dance that Hrithink did at a TV show.

Hrithik is an inspirational bhangra/western style dancer because he uses both styles and combines them together in genius choreography. He does a lot of popping and locking and then does a few counts that are really bouncy and more traditional style bhangra. He also twists the traditional moves of bhangra, for example he uses isolations of the legs and ribs followed by head and neck and entwines a western street feel into them. He also uses a few more contemporary/ballet moves and then uses the tradition move of; twisting the lightbulb’. However, through the dance he keeps a steady constant beat which is extremely clever.  I think the thing that make Hrithik so cutting edge in bhangra is that he is unique and he has almost completely broken away from the traditional elements of bhangra and moved over to street. In my opinion he has modernized bhangra and has brought it into a new era, in other words he has almost created a new dance style had has given bhangra a good name. He is well liked by many women and children in India because although he is unique and has a very strong street dance style he interprets some tradition bhangra moves in and moves its so slick and quick that its not noticeable as being different.

Bhangra- Week 4!

Monday 7th March 2011

On Monday we decided as a group that our aim would be to develop our motifs and to develop our routines. On Monday we also decided about new tracks. Over the weekend most of our group had been researching different types of music we could use for our performance to make it unique and yet bouncy. This was one of the things we wanted to do from reflection last lesson so i think this was great team work. We found a few different songs and this was good because when we tried to do one of our dances to 'Jai ho' by the pussycat dolls it didn't go because it was too rushed, but when we danced it to a new song we found called 'Lover mera hit hit by bilu barber' it went perfectly. Why dont you take a listen: 

Tuesday 8th March 2011

On Tuesday we tried to finish the routine. Unfortunately we were unable to because everyones music is on one ipod so its very hard to share it equally! This is our aim for the next lesson. In Tuesday's lesson we also gave miss most of our timings so that she could put them into a mini soundtrack so that we can perform in caberet on friday! Our main element in this lesson was to see if our choreography portrayed the storyline 'forbidden love'. In the following lessons we aim to work on emotion and depth in our performance.

Wednesday 9th March 2011

Wednesday was a costume construction lesson. Unfortunately we were in the TC's so we were unable to get much work done, although we were able to paint our costume designs for our corsets. Some of us even manged to add detail in with our coloured pencils. We didnt have enough time to fully finish it all, so our homework is to finish this!

This weeks been extremely hecktick but very fun! Tonight i will blog about the dance jai ho, this is to do with my research side of the assignment!

Bhangra- Week 3!

Monday 28th FebruaryIn Mondays lesson we learnt a dance that would develop the western feel into our bhangra. It was not a bhnagra dance it was more contemporary but the dance we learnt had a very touching story behind it so it gave us a chance to really act our stories so that we would be able to do it for our bhangra stories. Throughout the lesson we learnt the dance in sections and made sure we knew the dance perfectly so that we could just dance it and be able to add the emotion in naturally. In the dance we learnt the story was domestic violence, because we chose this many of the moves were hand isolations and movements because in such cases where there was/is rape or domestic violence the victims tend to remeber the hands of people because they do not want to see the evil faces of the attcker. By the end of the lesson we had all enjoyed learning the dance and were very moved by each others performances. As some action points for the next lesson we thought it would be better to get back into the bollywood feel. As a class, after the lesson we felt we had achieved a fantastic outcome. We just needed to learn to use western dance and add feeling and emotion into our bhangra choreography.

Tuesday 1st March
Tuesday was our double lesson and our aim was to interpret bollywood themes from stimuli. We had to create in our groups a bhangra story, but being aware of certain elements we had to choose one of the following stories:

• Love
• Passion
• Forbidden Love
• Chase
• Family
• Disapproval

We chose forbidden love. Our story was that we would have a girl as a christian and a boy as hindu and they would fall in love. But as soon as their families found out they were forbidden to be together. The christian family would interpret a more contemporary style into their bhangra and the hindu family would be more traditional but include elements of street. We disscussed some crutial things we thought should be in our performance, we said that there should be lots of reaching and ,as every bhangra fil/story has, a comedy element. Our comedy element would be the proposal. And although it is forbidden love there has to be a happy ending as this is one of a few bhangra/bollywood rules. I was in a group with Katie, Laura, Ellie, Chloe and Kelly. We felt that in our next lesson we should develop our story further and pt it into a dance. Our rehearsal outcome was that we had brainstormed a stroy to do with forbidden love.

Wednesday 2nd March
On Wednesday we had to develop our motifs through choreography. We, as a group, decided that we should start as families, come together as a group and dance, go into a line and do some effects, katie and kelly break off. We only managed to choreograph 7 counts of eigth but atleast everyone knows what they're doing at the begining of our performance. This was where we got to put the simple moves we learnt on the 25th January into practise. In the next lesson we decided we needed to work on finishing our story and make sure that it is clear to our audience.

Thursday 3rd March
On Thursday we again had to develop our motifs. We choreographed our fight scene. This is where the families find out that the couple are in love and they are dancing together/fighting/arguing. We made sure that we mixed the contemporary and street dancers. The notes from this lesson would be to polish thee scene and to add more feeling and story to it. Over the weekend we were told to look at different bhangra music we could use in our performance. An outcome of the rehearsal would be that we created new choreography for our peice.

Friday 4th March
Friday was a great lesson. We watched a current bhnagra movie from India. Although we could not understand it, it gave us a great concept of the story and made us really think about how we can get our story across through dance. It also gave us some brilliant idea's of unique moves we could include in our performance!

I really really enjoyed this week and am really enjoying bhangra!

Rock Challenge Stevenage 2011

ROCK CHALLENGE!
Well we went to Stevenage on the 15th February to showcase our performance as we are premier league now. Even though we were showcasing everything had to be perfect because we could get excellence awards. The more awards we got the more points we take with us to Portsmouth when we compete. The more points we take with us the better chance we have of winning! The day was amazing the feeling is incredible, the adrenalin rush when your on stage, showing the other schools why we're premier league. I enjoyed the production meetings as it gives you a chance to bond as a school but you also get to know the other schools that are there. I also liked watching the other schools rehearsal on stage as it gives you ideas and it lets you see other peoples talents. Overall the day is great and i cant wait to get to Portsmouth!

a busy few weeks...

Well i haven't blogged in a while! the past few weeks we've taken a break from bhangra and because rock challenge was close we helped paint the set. I really enjoyed doing this because it gave us an insight to the other side of the performing arts industry! I also enjoyed it because i love rock challenge! When painting the set we had to concentrate very hard because, this was going on stage and could get us awards. And awards help our over all score when we get to Portsmouth to compete against all the other premier league schools. We've had lots of rehearsals and a few dress rehearsals. I think rock challenge has helped me in terms of the performing arts course because you get a chance to perform on stage to a live audience, you have to have acting skills to portray your character and also you watch the other schools so you can watch them to help improve your own performance.

Bhangra- Week 2!

This week was kind of a summary week! We polished everything and it looks really good and really professional. We have really worked hard on the issolation section and that looks really good. I am really enjoying bhangra. For part of our homework we were told that we had to research Bhangra. I am really liking finding out the details of Bhangra! Its so interesting!

In costume design we continued working on our skirts, I made a few rosettes and made sure they were stuck together properly and they were durable.
Although this week hasnt been much, it has definitley improved my perseption on Bhangra, cant wait to continue as its so different from all the usual things and styles i usually do!

Bhangra- Week 1!

Monday 24th January 2011
On Monday we had our first lesson of Bhangra. We watched two examples of up and coming Bhangra stars in India. We had a few technical issues at frist but we got them sorted and we enjoyed watching them. I enjoyed watching the bhangra videos becuase they were very up beat and the music was very catchy. I couldnt stop singing it all day! We made our way back to the TC's and Miss Dolan taught us some basic moves. From these moves who routines are choreographed. The moves are simple yet very effective.

Tuesday 25th January 2011
Lesson One!
In lesson one we were told we had to choreograph a simple bhangra routine using the moves we were taught yesterday. I was in a group with Shauna and Laura-Ann. We had to include things like :
- A lot of facing each  other.
- Interaction with each other.
- Different directions.
Although we have been told that bhangra doesnt use many cannons we tried to encorporate some 'bhangra style' ones. We started with different hights and then went from a line into a circle into a line. From there, all the other groups performed their dances after us.

Lesson Two!In this lesson we were told to add some western feel into the dance. In other words we added street in that was also in a 'bhangra style'. We tried choreographing in our little groups but some members of the group werent street orientated and were stuck. So we had an idea that once the last group had performed we weould all come together and do the street section together. There are 3 of us in the performing arts group that would be classed as 'street orientated' we came up with a couple of counts of eight that were simple street move that were 'bhangra' and 'simple yet effective' if performed in unison. Once we'd choreographed the dance we just kept going over and over it so that we were all okay with it and remebered it.

Wednesday 26th January 2011On Wednesday all we did was keep going over the dance and added a little bit more street. I enjoyed this lesson because i prefer street and i also enjoy bhangra! In my third lesson i am really really enjoying bhangra!

Thursday 27th January 2011
Thursday we had a costume design lesson. It was a kind of finishing/ begining lesson. I had finished all of my 'We Will Rock You' so I boarded up my corset research and my evaluation. I had lots of space on my big board so i added a sample of joining and sticking.

Friday 28th January 2011
Friday we had yet another exciting bhangra lesson. In this lesson we had to develop the one element that bhangra and street share. Isolations. We first did isolations of the hands, then head and then ribs/chest. We kept going throught the dance so that we again remebered it. At the end of the lesson Miss Dolan set us a task from the assignment sheet. We have to research bhangra and its due in in two weeks. I havent yet started the task but i am looking forward to it!

Ontop of all of this we are still looking at assignment 3! At some point in the next week Miss Dolan is going to check that we are keeping ontop of it and are on track to finishing the assignment in April!

Overall i am LOVING bhangra!

Wrapping up module one in both dance and costume design...

Well the past few weeks have definitely been busy! We've been doing evaluations on our term in dance. In the evaluation we included what we enjoyed about DV8 and what we think we could improve on. Also we did an evaluation of the performance evening. Which you will be able to see on the blog. We had to check through our pink sheet thoroughly to make sure we had all of the evidence!
And at the same time we had to finish all our costume design work too. I haven't yet uploaded pictures of my finished boards but i will do this in the near future. We took our practical folders home to make sure everything was perfect. We had to have all our fabric swatches on our research boards, all annotations were on our sample boards and finally all dyed swatches were annotated and some were on our historical boards.

Overall i have enjoyed both historical costumes and DV8. I have learnt new skills and will use them in later life!

The week of the performance!!

Monday 6th December 2010

On Monday we just worked on our duo's for the performance on friday night. We were in the TC's so it was hard to move about without hurting ourselves or other students.

Tuesday 7th December 2010

In the first half of our double lesson on Tuesday we were still in the TC's and we worked on our group dance called Ramalama, Our group dance heart beat and some duo work. I found this tiring and slightly hcallenging ot perform to my full potential because there was hardly any room to dance and i didnt want to hurt myself or any others. In the second half of the lesson we worked on our group routine, i again found this slightly challenging because some members of our group couldnt remember the routine which then makes some other members of the group look weaker?
After school i worked with my friend Sophie on our Rock'N'Roll routine for friday. It was quite challenging because we had to work out the routine and one of us had to change to boy footwork.

Wednesday 8th December 2010

On Wednesday we had the hall so we did a brief run thorugh of the show on friday. this was challenging in some ways because moves that had worked in a smaller space didnt work out so well on a larger floor. So we had to change parts of our duo dance.
At lunch i constructed two of my rosettes for my costume construstion work.

Thursday 9th December 2010I part finished all four of my rosettes in my costume construction lesson. I also helped a friend in my group, i demonstrated how to use a glue gun and how to glue tartan.

Friday 10th December 2010
We again did a review of the show in the hall and had to adapt our routine.
Review of the Show.

Our show was for our practical assessment of the past term and the choreography we’d created. Most of the dances performed were inspired by DV8. We had guest dancers to break the dances up and give us a chance to recover.  In our show I performed in 3 whole group dances, 1 small group dance, 1 duo and a rock’n’roll presentation. The show was on the 10^th December and was attended by 78 friends and family members. When we started organising the event we decided that tickets would be free but programs should be brought. All money raised would be divided between C.R.Y foundation and the performing arts fund. Overall we made £95.42. We had the KLSA providing drinks and snacks in the interval. In the various meetings we had to organise our evening we were all allocated jobs, mine was to ask the KLSA to provide the catering for the interval. Within our show we had a presentation to explain the DV8 theory.  Under task three in my portfolio is examples of our advertising, the posters, tickets and programs. Here is a pictures from our evening as evidence:

 

Corset Research!

I have researched corsets and I have found out that a corset is a garment that girds the orso and shapes it according to the silhouette of the day. It is known to clinch the waist and support the breasts.

16^th to 17^th century corsets.

I have discovered that the earliest corsets were called ‘payre of bodies’, they were usually worn with a farthingale. A farthingale is a stiff cone that holds out the skirt. These early corsets turned the upper torso into a matching cone or cylinder; they had shoulder straps that ended in flaps at the waist. This corset flattened the bust and therefore pushed the breasts up. At this point the function of the corset was less too make the wait smaller but too emphasise the curve of the breasts. I have found that by the middle of the 16^th century corsets were commonly worn by women, they were made of stiffened multiple layers of linen with wooden busks or shafts that were inserted in a pocket situated at the front of the corset to keep its figure and shape. In this form, the corset survived until 1860.

18^th century corsets.

I have found that the predominant shape of the corset in the 18^th century was an inverted conical shape. They were usually worn to create contrast between the rigid corset structure and heavy, full skirt. After research the primary purpose of the corset in the 18^th century was to raise and shape the breasts, tighten the midriff, support the back, impose posture that will help women stand straight and slightly narrow the waist. However, jumps of linen were also worn instead of corsets for informal use. I have seen that 18^th century corsets were not uncomfortable to wear and did not restrict breathing; they allowed women to work although they did restrict bending at the waist.  It was thought that this protected a persons back because you lifted with the legs.

Late 18^th century and early 19^th century corsets.

I have discovered that corsets became much less restricting with the creation of the high- waisted empire style which deemphasised the natural waist.  Many women still wear some form of crop corset now a days. I have found that in contrast with the high-waisted empire style corset there were corset that intended to exert serious body-shaping force, they were long and extended way below the natural waist, they were laced at the back and stiffened with boning.

By 1800, the corset had become the common method of supporting the breasts, as the waist had been risen to just under the bust line. I have seen that although corsets were still used to slim the torso this was not their primary purpose.

Transition to the Victorian corset.

I have researched and seen that when the waist line returned to its natural position in the 1830’s, the corset was again used to support the breasts and to narrow the waist. Although, it is known to have changed its shape to the hourglass silhouette, it is considered, even now the typical shape for a corset and Victorian fashion. In this same year, the term corset was first used. I have seen that in the 1830’s artificially inflated shoulders and skirts made the waist look narrow, even with the corsets laced only moderately.

The Victorian Corset.

I have found that when the exaggerated shoulders disappeared, the waist had to be clinched tighter in order to achieve the same effect. The fashionable silhouette of the mid to late 19^th century was an hourglass figure. The corset now differed from the early designs in numerous ways; it no longer ended at the hips, but flared out at several inches below the waist. I have found that the corset was exaggeratedly curvaceous rather than funnel shaped. Spiral steel corsets curved with figure. Whilst many corsets were still sewn by hand, there was also a thriving market in cheaper mass-produced corsets.

Late 19^th century corsets.

During my research I have discovered that there were concerns about reports that tight lacing caused a movement for rational dress. It was in the late 19^th century that medical evidence became know that corsets could damage women’s health. Many doctors thought that the corset damaged women’s bone structure particularly in pregnancy and that women that laced there corset tightly were ‘condemned for vanity and excoriated from the pulpit as slaves to fashion’. In reality tight laced corsets would cause indigestion and constipation. There was a rare cause of plethora of aliments associated with tight corsetting at the time ranging from hysteria to liver failure.    

First week back in performing arts..

We came back on the wednesday and had a costume design lesson on the wedesday and the thursday. All we did this week is complete the sample board, we had to include a sticking, weaving, pleating, joining, dying and sewing. I have only got the last two to complete and i will upload a completed version of my board next week along with a copy of both my evaluation essays, along with pictures.

The week after our performance!!

Monday 13th December 2010
On Monday we were in computer rooms. We were completing rehearsal logs and comparing with our blogs to see if they matched up. As a group we created a questionnaire to give out to our audience, this would help us in our evaluation essay. We also looked over task 3 of assignment 1! I enjoyed this lesson because it was simple and i enjoyed remembering what we had done over the term.

Tuesday 14th December 2010
All we did on Tuesday was to make sure our blog was up to date and finished the blogs. I wrote in my diary everything that i had to complete over the christmas holidays.

Wednesday 15th December 2010
We had a costume design lesson today, we were not in our usual classroom so we found it difficult to do things. We wrote our assessment plan for costume design and then we had to write it in our diary's to complete over christmas.

Thursday 16th December 2010
Today in costume design finished adding samples to my research of materials boards. I also cut the remainder of the tartan so that i can finish my rosettes at home with my glue gun. I also took pictures for my assessment essay to complete at home.