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.