pictures for evidence of final performance

Proof of what we wore in Annie.

Shows the layout of the stage for 'Maybe' and 'Hard knock life'

 shows the layout of the stage when we danced 'Hard kncok Life'.

Tis shows the perofrmance George and Gabriel did from Blood Brothers.

Above is katies street dance crew and to the right is rehearsal on stage for 'dont stop me now'

this shows the saxophone solo's Alfie Whitbread'.

This shows the performance of WWRY dont stop me now.

Above is the performance of somebody to love and to the right is the opening possition of 'All that jazz'.

This is the all that jazz performance.

this shows the final song that we performed with Jack Dent.

Evaluation for our end of year show 'Aspirations and Dreams'

To complete our btec gcse we had to organize an end of year show! We chose it to be a variety show because if it was constantly us then we would have no time for costume changes or breathing for that fact and the quality of the performances wouldnt have been as high as we'd of expected of ourselves let alone what others thought. This as a whole was quite different to previous assignments we'd done during our two years of performing arts as we had to organize everything ourselves! This included title, theme, program, tickets, venue, colour scheme, costumes and guest acts because of the 'variety Performance'. We completed this all individually(as a group) without any major guidance from teachers or supervisors. To begin with it took us a while to come up with an overall theme for the show that would flow and easily include all our guest acts. We initially thought of an oscar seremony themed evening but then we realized that we'd constantly have to have someone commentating which would prolongue the evening more which would make our audience restless and bored. Our second idea was to do an interpretation of the musical 'Annie' using the idea of the orphans beingus and then branching off into the orphans dreams and hopes for the future. We thought this was a suitable idea considering it is all of our last year in compulsory education. We finally came up with a name for our show which was 'Aspirations and Dreams'. So that our theme would beclear to our audience we all individually wrote a small bio to go in the program. The colour scheme we came up with was purple and silver as we agreed that this fitted the 'dream' idea and it was also professional and sophisticated. The decorations of the venue followed the colour scheme tightly. The tables were covered in a purple table cloths, purple flowers, purple and silver balloons, silver glitter/confetti and tea lights in jars. We were thoroughly pleased with the way we'd set out the school hall. The seating was not the normal lines of chairs it was tables of 8 as we wanted it to be quite relaxed and different. Much like us some would say!! Making the ticket took a while as we couldn't decide on layout and/or pictures! But eventually we used a picture of two of the performing arts girls at rock challenge as it is a big part in all of our lives and part of the course. The same happened with the program as the picture we wanted to use didnt have one of our girls on so we had to change it, it also was changed and reprinted many times because we couldnt get the layout right. We decided that we would use previous performances that we'd done throughout the two years to show progression from our first show! We chose the performances that we'd performed to audiences before and got a good response! The dance we had in mind was 'All That Jazz' from Cabaret be aide the reaction from the audience was brilliant! We also agreed that this was our best performance! We infused this with numbers from Annie that opened the show and numbers from We Will Rock You so that we could pass a costume construction assignment in which we made costumes suitable for a WWRY production. The songs we chose from Annie were 'maybe' and 'hard knock life' as this showed the innocence of the orphans and reflected the vunerabity of ourselves! The songs we chose from WWRY were 'don't stop me now' which had very energetic dance moves and then 'somebody to love' the solo being sung by Chloe Stockman and the rest of the group being backing singers/dancers. In this number we kept the dancing simple so that the attention was not taken from Chloe's spectacular voice. As it was a variety show we invited many different acts all of which where in school. Some of the students were A level drama students, GCSE music and drama pieces and others were Katie Burrows street dance crew of which she teaches and choreographed herself. We'd heard that some students were extremely talented and can really perform so we asked them if they would like to partcipate, unfortunately we had a couple of no's due to people being unavailable wh ich was very disheartening for us. The show date was ever getting closer and we performed all acts that were in the btec group to each other in class to boost our confidence before the final technical rehearsal on stage. I was most scared about performing my singing duet with Shannon because singing is not the area I am m I am most confident in! However I knew I had to do it to boost my grade in musical theatre to a distinction. We also asked our very talented friend mr Jack Dent if he would play the guitar for us in our last number which we sang. It was Pixie Lotts version of 'Use Somebody'. We organised rehearsals with him to make sure we were all confident and happy. Soon it was the technical rehearsal which I have previously written a blog on, we eventually got into our roles and the rehearsal ran smoothly! Which was the outcome we wanted! For the remainder of our performing arts lessons we repeatedly rehearsed anything that was to do with the show whether it be dances duets solos singing magic tricks or flips! We made sure that everyone was confident and we made sure that we'd done everything on the checklist that I composed for everyone! We eventually decided of costumes to wear for group performances and individual acts sorted their own costumes! Show day It came to Friday the 27th of April and throughout the day we all got progressively more and more nervous! We'd all brought huge bags which had all our costumes and make up in so that we could stay after school to help set up! Once everything presentation wise had been sorted I stuck up the running orders lighting cues curtain cues and timings around dressing rooms and backstage that I had previously printed! Once this was done we re did mic checks for individual pieces do that backstage were also confident. We asked guest acts to arrive at 6:15pm do that we were confident they were here! If acts had been away on the rehearsal date we allowed them 5 minutes to rehearse on stage and then we began to get ready! It was fake tab and eyelashes on tights and leotards and the ready and action!!! We opened the show with maybe which led into hard kick life! These are both very difficult songs to sing so before curtains up we had a group vocal warm up to prevent straining or damage of vocal chords! It would also help with diction! It was a group performance and we all got into our characters of 'orphans' and this was noted by the audience! If I could improve I would have made sure I could get up with ease before the show as I had a slight costume malfunction and wad unable to get it, although slightly panicked I stayed in character! After our two Annie performances the show really got underway! It was George and Gabriel up next who performed a duologue from blood brothers! I'd watched it in rehearsals and was captivated by their performance and was gutted that I didn't see it in the show but the audience loved it and the boys of year 10 even managed to pull off a convincing Liverpudlian accent! Then was Katie's street dance crew who were incredible street dancers of which the audience loved, I know Katie was nervous although she had no need! After this followed a GCSE music student who is part of the Royal College Of Music, Alfie Whitbreaf who performed a saxophone solo after a previous act dropped out last minute! Before we knew it we were back on stage again! WWRY this time! There was a slight glitch at the begining of this ad the music was started before Alice and Katie were on stage and it was too quiet but like professionals we carried on in character! The dance and singing went well and nothing went terribly wrong apart from the curtains not opening to allow us on stage but the show must go on, as they say! Then the interval, a rest you'd think! No, don't be silly we were running around like headless chickens trying to get changed! Next was our favourite performance all that jazz, all was going brilliantly until the music began to jump! But again we carried on and didn't let this bother us! There were a few more solos including a couple of songs from our favourie duet Alfie and Jack! Before I knew it it was time to get up and sing my duet! Because backstage was do frantic I didn't have much time to think about nerves until I got on stage and by then it was too late to turn bsck! However much I don't like singing in front of people I enjoyed singing up on stage as people didn't expect me to do it and I love proving others and myself wrong! Everything went brilliantly and me and Shan got fantastic feedback! No time to reflect though had to get changed for our final song! However I'm majorly gutted I missed Alice and Katie's duet of 'popular' which was by far one of my favourite acts and that was only rehearsal! We waited backstage for the final song and we all loved it very mmuch! However I did get emotional at the end as it was like the end of a relationship with my sisters who have grown to become my favourite people in the world! Also we're loosing our belovid teacher Miss Dolan! Of whom we will miss tremendously! The overall feedback for the show was amazing and I have enjoyed every single second of performing arts and I don't regret taking it one bit! As its been the best time of my life!

Variety Show rehearsal

On Tuesday the 24th of April we held our rehearsal for our variety show which will be taking place on the 27th of April. After having a few incidents of acts cancelling on us last minute we managed to find replacement acts in time and informed them all of the rehearsal and said if there were any problems then to let us know! All acts said they were able to come and the rehearsal ran smoothly.

To begin with we were unsure of what to do because we arent used to being in charge but eventually we got the hang of things and it ran pretty well. We made sure we did all the guest dance acts first so that we could get the miks set up. Then we did our group acts and made sure with spacing and positions.
By this point the mics were set up and we ran through every guest singer or soloist and then ran through pur solo.

I did a duet with Shannon and this was the first time i'd got up on stage and sung a solo infront of people so i was very nervous! Once i'd done it i was okay but it was very scary!

We took notes on spacings of guest acts, mics used and movement to make sure the lighting and sound was correct for the act.

We also took note of whether the act needed to have curtains open or shut, however we had organised the running order so that it would wor with one act infront one behind one infront one behind. This managed to work well.

At the end of the rehearsal we told the actsq what time to be at school on friday for the performance and throughout the rehearsal we made sure someone went round and made sure all the costumes that acts were wearing were appropriate.

The rehearsal seemed to go pretty quick and it was over within a flash. We felt that we had done enough, however to improve i think we could have been slightly more organised and more confident with the performers at the begining and with bossing people about.

Overall the rehearsal went well and think we all felt that we were prepared for friday.

Caberet evidence

http://klsperformingarts.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/and-all-that-jazz-assignment-4-evidence.html?showComment=1334436393834&m=1

For video and photographic evidence

Cabernet Performance Evaluation

See performance on the kings Langley school performing arts blog!
When watching the performance back I think we all did extremely well! Not just talent in dancing wise but we all stayed in character and kept to formations that we'd arranged after researching the show. We'd all agreed that we needed to smile so that we could show that 'show girl' element of the performance! It is clear on the video that we all execute this well! After watching the final performance and the rehearsal there are certain elements of the show we could improve on one being shapes however this was slightly out thrown due to one of the girls being ill in hospital, this can be easily corrected when we perform this price again in our end of year show! The other thing we could improve on would be confidence when using props! I think it is clear that some of us on tape but we knew in ourselves that dancing on the chairs was a challenge! For me this was due ti the overall height of the stage and then the chairs! But that's a personal fear of my own!

One thing that I think we all found difficult to begin with was the sassy sexy feel to the performance, we were fine in rehearsals and were slightly apprehensive when doing the rehearsal in front of the rest of the show members! But we all got into that 'musical theatre' performance mind and I think everyone stayed in complete character even if things went slightly pear shaped in choreography and mistakes!

One other thing I think we pulled off well was the whole look of the performance our outfits were simply leotards hot pants fish nets and jazz shoes all of which we had! We made sure the look of the dance fitted the theme and so did our hair and make up and this helped u's all get into character and feel the performance.

Overall I think there were some slight glitches but it was very well perceived by the audience we performed to and this gives an impression of how well we did! We will be performing this again at our end of year show! With singing as well possibly!
Following post containing link to video and pictures

Rock Challenge 2012

This amazing day started by waking up early and getting to school for 7:45am and we were all very sleepy, we left at 8 am from school and started our journey to Stevenage. When we arrived we were all very excited as this is one of the most important days on the school calender for us! Some schools were there already but we were the only premier team there. As we are a premier league school we only showcase and the other schools compete, this is a way is better for us because we can relax a bit and watch the other schools without them being our competition, however this can be a downside as some of the dancers feel that this means that they do not have to put in as much effort. They are wrong as this can mean we have to put more effort in to show the open league schools why we are a premier school. We got to be a premier school by winning numerous rounds over a period of years. When we got this amazing upgrade we were overwhelmed. This day was even more exciting as Miss Dolan our teacher was being the co-host throughout the evening!!
Once all the school had arrived it was time to start rehearsing, we watched a few schools and there were already a few that stood out from the rest, everyone had really upped their game and it shows how much people want to win and how much people love the rock challenge experience. Soon it was our turn to rehearse, so that meant hair up and shoes off, health and safety and all that.
We all got into our starting positioned got into character and performed. I did not start on stage so i guess it wasn't as pressuring but we had to crawl along the bottom of the stage at the back behind the boards so that we could create that element of surprise.
My part this year was to be part of Oberon's army from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' we marched on and as soon as we started you could feel the stage shaking. We performed and rehearsed twice and watched the rest of the schools.
It was the morning production meeting and it was very exciting, one of the rock challenge staff was Josh, and he used to come to Kings Langley and he was in fact a main part 2 years ago so this was almost like a claim to fame for us.
After this was lunch time, this gave us a chance to rehydrate and make sure that we ate so nobody passed out.
We continued watching the rest of the schools, and one school really stood out for me and thankfully this school won, this was 'Sir Henry Floyd Grammar School' I thought their drama skills and their dance skills put together were captivating and i couldn't take my eyes of some of their main parts. Their entire performance was amazing and they truly deserved to win as i don't think they could have done anything to improve as they put their heart and soul into the performance.
The last schools to perform were the 4 primary schools and every single child in every single school looked as if they were having the  time of their lives up on that stage and it really made us smile and i suppose that is really what rock challenge is about, apart from obviously the rock challenge ethos, a natural high.
Before we knew it, it was time to start getting ready. We had a few difficult decisions to make about the make up for Oberon's army, some was too simple ans some just didn't look right. In the end we just went with the traditional army camo make up. We used this as a sort of experiment as when evaluating our performance you cannot see any of the army's expressions due to the excessive make up.
However the performance went amazingly well and nothing went terribly wrong.
We got many awards including choreography and costume design which in my eyes and for me were the best awards seeing as we choreographed it and made some of the costumes.
As rock challenge is part of our btec course we had to evaluate the performance the next day in our lesson, unfortunately another teacher had the DVD so we couldn't. But instead we evaluated some formations, costumes and make up design using the pictures on the nick scott website. From this we discovered that the Athenians hair needed to be bigger and the make up needed to be more doll like, the fairies costumes needed to be more flamboyant and the makeup bigger, the army needed all boiler suits down and hair bigger yet make up to be smaller, drama skills needed working on and some timings as the camera caught a few people out (including me).

When evaluating our performance i think we did extremely well especially as we wanted to keep a few tricks up our sleeve for when we compete in portsmouth on the 9th of may! Some of the drama skills need working on and everything needs to be polished. To improve i think as a cast we need more focus but overall it was amazing!

After a very tiring but amazing day we all went to bed still buzzing with adrenaline from the spirit that flies thorugh the rock challenge day!

Musical theatre evluation

Cabaret Piece.

I was in a group with Shannon and Shauna and we were given the song ‘Cabaret’ to sing from the production Cabaret. All three of us are very shy when it came to singing, but to get a distinction we had to sing a solo so we decided that we would divide the song up so that we each got a solo and then we would sing the chorus and any other bits altogether or in twos. This was also a good idea as we had to dance at the same time, and dancing and singing confidently at the same time is difficult especially if you aren’t the most outgoing person when it comes to singing. With musical theatre you have to be very over the top and characterised so we had to do some research on the film and storyline first. We all agreed that it was definitely the singing we needed to focus on most, being so we decided to choreograph the dance routine first as we knew we could get this done quickly and we could then focus on singing techniques. (Choreography notes in folder section ‘Musical theatre’). We made sure that all the choreography was facing outwards towards the audience because if we turned our backs it would ruin the effect completely. We all found this task challenging, but our performance went well and we enjoyed it. To improve myself I think I’d just have to have more confidence in myself. I will use this confidence when singing in our end of year show.

Monologue. ‘And turning stay’

Our monologues were a solo piece and we were each given a different piece to perform. We were all given a sheet with our monologue on and we were told to annotate it and learn it. This was homework so we spent no class time on it. The day we filmed it we did so in the drama studio and used the lights. I had the piece called ‘And turning Stay’ which is about a break up between a couple. I have never been in this situation so I had to link it to a time when I thought maybe a relationship of mine was close to breaking. This would help me portray the emotion in the performance. The things I found difficult in the task was probably remembering the lines but I think everyone has that difficulty, one other thing that I think maybe hindered my confidence was the nerves when you get in front of the camera, it’s almost as if your mind goes blank and you can’t remember anything, but once you conquer that its fine. To improve I would say I had to add more emotion into the performance and maybe have more confidence with it. Evidence of this is on the kls performing arts blog

Costume Construction Evaluation

I have made a costume for Rock Challenge, our school production. The theme is ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’.
I have used netting and elastic to form the basic skirt. I have added strips of different coloured satin to the waistband. My colour scheme is purple, yellow and gold. I have also added extra sparkly strips to make it look fairylike and magical. I have also added a few flowers and leaves as decoration so that the skirts fit the theme.
I have made these pieces by ripping strips of material from big parts of material. To make roses firstly you cut out a wide strip of material and fold it in half, tacking with a needle and tread all the way down the open side of the fold. Once at the end slightly scrunch up the material. Fold the edge of the material down where you finished sewing, make sure it is tight at the bottom and tack until secure. Twist the material around so that the bottom of the rose will be in a spiral shape. Every so often tack the bottom of the rose tightly. Once at the end of the material, fold the edge down as you did at the beginning and hide the open seem. tack securely and tie a knot at the end. Secondly we learnt how to make the leaves. Firstly you cut a strip of material, half the size of the material you cut for the roses, place the leaf template on top  and cut around it. Once you have many leaves cut of of material pair them up, pin them back to back. Tack round the edge leaving a small gap at the end. Turn the leave inside out using the hole left. Finally tack neatly along the open edge. Your leaf is complete.
The costume will be work with light pink tights and a dark pink leotard with matching coloured ballet shoes. The leotards will have roses and leaves on too. I have ensured that the costume is well made and fits correctly. It will have lights underneath to add effect on stage. This will improve the overall appearance of the costume and make it have a more magical feel.
I will also help to make the main character costumes such as Titania, Cobweb, Mustardseed and Peaseblossom by adding roses to the costume and spraying the costume base (leotard) a different colour.

jazz evaluation

Workshops I was in.

When we originally found out that we have to lead a workshop I was apprehensive but as soon as we started choreographing I found that the leadership skills almost came naturally. Whilst in the workshops I explained basic steps alongside more technical steps. Throughout the workshop I helped my fellow team members and ensured that the other members of the class understood what they were doing. Each section was broken down into individual sections and these where performed to the music once half completed and fully completed. When each section was put together it was also put to music then too. Overall I enjoyed leading the workshop that I did because it boosted my confidence and I enjoyed teaching members of the class a new style. I think our workshop went well.

Workshops I took part in.

The two workshops I was in were the lyrical jazz and the street jazz. Out of the two I would say I found the lyrical jazz more difficult because I have not been trained in that area of dance whereas I have been for street. During the workshops any steps that I or any other member of the class found difficult was explained and/or repeated again. However in the lyrical jazz workshop I did enjoy it because it gave me a chance to learn a dance or style that I dint usually dance out of choice. It gave me an insight to the style and I would definitely dance it again. Although some moves were difficult I found both the workshops easy to handle and nothing was too challenging, the only difficulty if any was the space we had to dance in.

Overall.

What I did.
During workshops I directed class members on how to do technical moves and execute them correctly. I helped other members of my group when/if they got stuck and I helped any member of the class that didn’t understand something. When taking part in a workshop I listened and participated, I questioned if I found difficulty and I learnt fantastic routines of different styles within jazz.
What style I preferred.
Out of the two workshops I participated in I would say that I preferred the street jazz to the lyrical jazz. Most probably because I have been trained in that dance area. However I did enjoy participation in the lyrical jazz as I loved the choreography and the way the space we had was used. I enjoyed the Rock’n’Roll jazz workshop that I partly led because I am also trained in that area of dance too.
What was involved?
The things we had to do were lead a workshop in a dance that we had choreographed in a group to the rest of the group, we also had to take part in workshops and it had to be filmed as evidence.
How could I improve?
If I were to re-do this task I would probably do a few things to improve these would be:
-Be more confident in speaking
-Go round and ensure each member of the class understood and perform one-to-one help if needed
-Face the class so that it was easier for them to see and understand
-Teach the class in better surroundings.

Organising our end of year varity show!

In the past couple of weeks we have been working on choreographing some routines for our end of year productions. It took us a while to decide what sort of theme we wanted to do, and we have to have a theme so that we dont stray. Originially we decided on an Oscar award ceremony and that all the nominees will have their performance as their clip shown before the winner was announced. We then decided that this would cause the evening to be too static and it would be reliant on a compare and we wouldnt have this. Because this would be difficult we had to change the theme. We decided on a more story based theme. Eventually after about 2 hours of discussion we decided that we'd use the story Annie, although we'd do an adaptation of the film and not use the whole film. We decided that we'd use the idea of each orphan having a dream and that dream would be a performance. We've also decided that we will have guest performances from people we knew.

SO far we have decided on 4 performances and have mainly choreographed all of them. The first two are directly linked to Annie because they are from Annie. We begin with 'Maybe' with all of us sitting on the stage, this will then lead into 'Hard knock life' with us being the orphans. The other two performances we have decided on are from the production 'we will rock you' this will be evidence for making our costumes that they are durable on stage. The songs we have choreographed to are 'Dont stop me now' and 'somebody to love' So far we have all contributed to choreography although trying to choreograph at he end of the song 'dont stop me now' got difficult so we have, moment, left that and have continued choreograph 'somebody to love' with our main sing Chloe Stockman.

So far i am enjoying putting together our variety show, even it is the beginning of the end of an amazing two years in performing arts.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Basic Overview.

The play is set in Italy and it starts with two young lovers, Lysander and Hermia, escaping to the forest to escape the strict instructions of Hermia’s father. Hermia’s father says that she is promised to Demetrius, he is another young man that loves her. Demetrius follows Hermia and Lysander into the forest because a girl called Helena told him, Helena is in love with Demetrius. Once they are all in the forest the wander into the fairy world which is ruled by King Oberon(a god) and Queen Titania (a goddess). Oberon and his servant Puck cause absolute mayhem amongst the young lovers with a magic potion that causes both Lysander and Demetrius to fall in love with Helena. This causes a rift between the characters which eventually causes a brawl/wrestling match, in mud! Meanwhile Oberon uses the same potion on Titania which causes her to fall in love with the local weaver and actor, Nick Bottom. Puck has previously furnished him with the head of an ass. Titania woos bottom in her boudoir in the woods, all the fairies attend. Oberon soon tires of the whole situation and rights all the wrongs he’s performed. He pairs Lysander back with Hermia and Demetrius with Helena and reconciles with his own queen, Titania. In the final part of the film, Bottom and his troupe of ‘rude mechanicals’ perform their amateur play, which is based on the tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe, before Duke Theseus and his wife Hippolyta and the rest of the court. This unintentionally produces a comedy.

The Characters.

Titania- Titania is the queen of the fairies and she is married to the king of the fairies, Oberon. She is a very proud character. She resists the temptation of the Indian prince that her husband gives her.  She temporarily falls in love with Nick Bottom whom head has been transformed into an ass’ head.

Oberon- Oberon is king of the fairies, he is married to Titania although not so sure about her at the beginning of the play. Because Titania didn’t fall into his trap of the young Indian prince, he wants revenge. Oberon causes Titania to fall in love with Puck who’s head has been transformed into an ass’.

Bottom- Nick bottom is the overconfident weaver who is chosen to play Pyramus in the craftsmen’s play for Theseus‘s marriage celebration. Bottom is full of advise and he is extremely self confident, although he usually makes silly mistakes and gets his words mixed up. When Titania temporarily falls in love with him he becomes arrogant but he is unaware that his head is that of an ass.

Puck-  Puck is Oberon’s jester and he is very mischievous. He enjoys playing pranks on people.  He causes some of the upset with the magic and he is the character that turns Bottoms head into an ass’ head. His high spirits and mischievous ways makes the atmosphere seem golden.

Peaseblossom- Peaseblossom is one of the fairies that is ordered by Queen Titania to attend to Bottom when she falls in love with him.

Mustardseed- Mustardseed is another one of the fairies that is ordered by Queen Titania to attend to Bottom when she falls in love with him.

Cobweb- Cobweb is yet another of the fairies that is ordered by Queen Titania to attend to Bottom when she falls in love with him.

Moth-  Moth is also one of the fairies that is ordered by Queen Titania to attend to bottom when she falls in love with him.

Costume Construction

A new topic

Over the past month we have started a new project in costume construction. We have to design make and document the costumes for a school production! As we are not doing a school production we have decided to make the costumes for Rock Challenge, an annual dance and drama competition that our school competes in. The theme for this years Rock challenge is A Midsummer Nights Dream. We are making the costumes for Titanias fairies. This includes building on a net tutu and decorating it as well as decorating a matching leotard and tights. Each costume is individual so each person in the group has a different dancers costume.

As these costumes are being worn on stage we have to ensure that they are produced well and are durable. This had to be done to enable ourselves to gain a distinction in this module.

To begin with we made the decoration that would go on the skirts, we firstly learn how to make roses. Firstly you cut out a wide strip of matterial and fold it in half, tacking with a needle and tread all the way down the open side of the fold. Once at the end slightly scrunch up the matterial. Fold the edge of the material down where you finished sewing, make sure it is tight at the bottom and tack until secure. Twist the matterial around so that the bottom of the rose will be in a spiral shape. Every so often tack the bottom of the rose tightly. Once at the end of the material, fold the edge down as you did at the begining and hide the open seem. tack securely and tie a knot at the end. Secondly we learnt how to make the leaves. Firstly you cut a strip of material, half the size of the material you cut for the roses, place the leaf template ontop and cut around it. Once you have many leaves cut of of material pair them up, pin them back to back. Tack round the edge leaving a small gap at the end. Turn the leave inside out using the hole left. Finally tack neatly along the open edge. Your leaf is complete.

Once we had all the decoration done we could continue with making the skirt. As we didnt have much time we used a basic net tutu as the base for our costume. We ripped many different colour strips that corresponded with our colour scheme. We then grouped the strips together and folded them in half. After this we pinned all the groups onto the skirt to ensure we had enough material satin strips. Once this was completed we tacked the grouped satin strips onto the elasticated waist band. This had to be done over and over again for each group so that they would be secure on the skirt. A way to test if the strips are securely attached was to tug lightly on them, if they came away the tacking was too loose if they didnt it was now considered secure. Once tacked tie a knot at the end of thread for safety. Once the stain strips had be securely attatched to the elasticated waist band we had to go round and cut the ends of the material into a point. This gave it a more fairy-like look which fits the theme and design criteria. After all the satin strips had been attached and cut it was now time to attach the decoration-ie the roses and leaves we made previously. We attacked the leaves first to the waistband and tacked repeatedly until secure like we did for the satin strips. To attach the roses you had to tack as before but through the centre of the rose so that the shape was still kept. Here is a picture of the finished skirt:

This is the finished skirt. My colour scheme is purple, yellows, and sparkly strips. I enjoyed making the skirt and found most of the techniques simple and easy to understand. I will continue this enjoyment when customising the leotard to go with the skirt. So that the skirt stands out on stage it will have fairy lights underneath it.

We have also help construct parts such as the roses and leaves for the main parts cotumes. here are some images of them.

<-Titanias costume left

 Cobwebs costume right ->

 <-Mustard seed and Peaseblossom left

All costumes right->

The Nutcracker performed by the English National Ballet.

One of my christmas presents from my cousins was to go and see the nutcracker performed by the english national ballet.I was so excited and the performance they gave didnt let me down.

We were in the upper circle so we could see mainly everything and the show was incredible. I remember watching the movie the barbie nutcracker when i was younger, so i knew the storyline well. But the barbie nutcraker had nothing on this performance.

The dancers were enchanting, the way they were so flexible and so able and free was hypnotising. The first half went by so quickly because i was enjoying it so much. Watching almost half of the cast on stage up on point yet holding themselves and being able to balance amazed me most. Considering i find it incredible when i can stand on my tip toes with my jazz trainers on for 3 seconds. I sat there mesmorised by their magnificent dancing and not one of them made a mistake fell or came out of character whilst still putting on the most amazing dance show.

I myself am not a trained ballet dancer but watching them made me want to be. Watching them i wished that i was as flexible, as talented as them. The dancing was just incredible, and every single movement told a story, and there was feeling in every step. the whole performance was just outstanding and i would recomend it to anyone.

Watching them on stage just makes me want to be in the performing arts industry even more.
*EDITED DUE TO COMMENT UNDERNEATH*
When watching the ballet i couldnt stop watching the main ballerina.  The way they used the character and create the choreography was amazing and vise versa. She was so in character and never went out of time or mood once. She performed to her best and was amazing. The night i watched it the understudy was performimg because the main ballerina was ill, you could see thorugh her performance that even though she was in character how much she wanted to be there and how much she so wanted that performance! The character of the ballerina was partly an individual role but however was some what reliant on the nutcracker character. You could see every move she did had some sort of meaning or relevance to the story/storyline. Every breath she took on stage was totally in character, every move she made was in character! she was faultless! Throughout the performance she had solo performances although they dwindled out as the character became more dependant and had more of a relationship with the nutcracker character! seeing her on stage and how amazing her characterisation was i will definitly try to use this experiance when performing.

before christmas...

Before we even go into what happened over the Christmas holidays we need to say what happened before. We were still working on jazz and we have now completed all 3 workshops- woo! If we recap there was the first one which was lyrical jazz taught by Kelly Myriam and Alice, then there was the rock and roll jazz which was taught by Shauna, Ellie, myself, Louise and Laura-Anne, and finally there was the street jazz taught by Chloe Shannon and Katie.

We all enjoyed teaching the dances to our class mates as we all like to be bossy and in charge, and i think i can say on behalf of the class that we all enjoyed learning them, even if we don't usually dance that sort of style. I know i personally enjoyed learning the other two, mainly because i have become more confident in the more contemporary side of dancing and i do dance street myself so i enjoyed learning that. In a way learning these jazz style dances has helped us, as a group, get to know the performing arts industry because when you go to learn a dance you are expected to pick it up whether you're a dancer trained in that style or not.

Nearing the end of the term we looked back at the dances and we went over them again, off camera. Just so that we remembered them. But then we took time out from dancing and took time to organise our folders or do the jazz workbook. We also watched our performance at our school carol concert. We just performed our hairspray routine that we performed at HMS has got talent.

Although the jazz unit is not completely over, i have enjoyed learning and performing jazz and i really like the style.