Dance that means something show

Last firday we showed our friends and  family all the routines we have been working on this term aswell as our costume construction work. The show went really welll everyone danced amazingly and the performances ran really smoothly. The audience seemed to enjoy themsleves and the feed back from my family was really posative.

we organised the whole show ourselves and the KLSA served refreshments and all together it was a very sucessful evening.

although there was no cost to come and watch we asked our audience for donations and we managed to raise £95.42. half the money is going towards the CRY charitey and the other half will go into our performing arts fund.

I think all the performers enjoyed themseleves, i know i did. I was very nerveous to start with but after the first dance i was fine and had a lovely evening.

Majorettes

Our troup a few years ago.

I have decided to write about majorettes and what it involves because its a huge part of my life.

The majorette troup i belong to is called Blue Angel Majorettes. we are based in Hemel and practise at hemel school. you can start at age three and stay untill your 18 when you can go on to teach and help out if you want to. Our troup is one of the only troups you will find that does not compete, we are purely a performance troup and thats the way i like it as its far more relaxed and theres never any real pressure. We dont have to wear uniform to practises the only real rule is no jeans and we call our teachers by their first names , there more like friends than teachers. I have some amazing friends there and in January 2011 i will have been going for eleven and a half years.

at the start of every year we learn a series of routines that make up our show. Your age and ability depend on what dance your in however our finale includes everyone. we will do the same show all year at at various fates and fields all over the place. The shows are almost always at the weekends and at any time. We also participate in carnivals and the same principle applies, we learn one routine that we do all year. However i enjoy carnivals a lot more as we aslso do party dances like YMCA, superman, the finger song and some seriously wierd ones i didnt even know existed,i think i must look really stupid but its a good laugh. This year alone we have done over 17different shows and carnivals, its not much really but it does take up a lot of your day, and were not finished yet i have a carnival later today and im just hoping it doesnt snow.

every other year we put on a huge pantomime at christmas and everyone loves it as its something completely different to what we useually do. The year when we dont do a pantomime we do an exam. And very soon we are having our christmas party which is exciting.

perfomring arts week begining 22nd November.

this week we continued to work on our performances for our show ' dance that means something'. we focused mainly on our group dances and duets. The group dance i am in is basically finished and from now on we will be working on polishing it so it looks amazing. for my duet dance im actually in a group of three. We have very nearly finished this dance aswell but there are some bits were not happy with as we think we can put in more technical moves which will properly be our main focus for the next week.

Aswell as the performance side of the show the planning and organization is coming along quite well. I am in charge of invites and so far ive written out what i would like them to say and on either monday or tuesday next week i will try and get some help from art or graphics to make them look really posh and nice. We decided as a group we would have a sort of a loose christmas theme with mince pies for snacks. IM really looking forward to it :)

last week...

laast week in perforing arts we were working on all the dances we will be showing in a production in early December. every dance we have learnt so far this year will be featured in the show and most of the routines are Dv8 based work. As well as that we are including our 'heartbeat' dance and a new one we recently learnt called 'ramalama' which everyone really loves! And the group dance that my group were struggerling with a few weeks ago is now almost finished and looking pretty good.  People are also doing dances from out of school im doing majorettes for instance. Also at the show all the work we have done in costume will be presented to anyone that comes along in a gallery sort of format. Im really looking forward to showing my parents what I've been up to and i think there looking forward to seeing what BTEC performing arts is all about. it should be great fun!

In costume we have been working on our fashion drawings again and everyones are just about finished now and they all look very impressive. were getting the materials we need to start properly making our costumes for next week so thats very exciting.

here is a picture of each of my fashion drawing boards. one is based on tartan the other denim.

                                                                      

lasst week in performing arts

last week most of our lessons were costume construction. We had to research denim and tartan for our homework so we fully understood the materials, as they are the main masterials we will be using in our final design. We also started doing fashion drawings. we had to draw a model ( or trace one) then draw our designs onto the model. we then had to detail the drawing so it looked like a real person and finally paint in the colours and textures. i found this really fun but it took me quite a while to make mine look like an actual person, once i had it looked pretty good. Everyone has two different drawings now and i think were completing them next week and adding some writting to the work.

In dance we split the whole class into two groups and we had to make up our own dance with an invisable object included in it. Our group found it very hard to get started and at first the moves we were using were very basic. But towards the end of our lesson we hadnt made up much of a dance but we had some very good ideas ready to try for our next lesson and im really looking forward to it. I think it took us a hwile to get started because everyone had different ideas but i hink we know what were going to try and do now.

legally blonde theatre trip

A few weeks ago I visited the Savoy theatre in London to see the musical legally blonde. It’s about a girl named Elle Woods who is dumped by her boyfriend for not being ‘serious’. She’s heartbroken as she thought he wanted to propose to her. Her ex boyfriend Warner (Richard Fleeshman) then gets into Harvard law school. Elle decides she’s going to follow him to try and win him back. So she stays at home and studies hard while all her friends enjoy spring break and eventually she finds she is clever enough to apply for a place. Instead of writing the required essay Elle puts on a huge production to try and win over the school and she does only to find Warner now has ‘serious’ girlfriend.

Elle finds out she is actually a very good lawyer and she enjoys it, throughout the show she realises she doesn’t need Warner and at the very end marries her best friend Emmet.

The show was amazing! The songs were all so catchy I was singing them all week and when the cast were dancing I didn’t know where to look there was so much going on. The set was very cleverly done and so much detail went into it. The lighting was pretty spectacular and really added to the effect of the whole show.

I thought who ever was in charge of costume did a very good job. There were a lot of costume changes for everyone in the cast especially the leads and a few of the changes were done flawlessly on stage! I really think the two dogs stole the show though. There were so well trained, I know a lot of time would have gone in to making them behave in the exact right way and they were so cute!

I would recommend this show to young girls mainly as it has a very girly plot. I do think boys that appreciate the theatre would enjoy this show as with all shows the amount of effort that must have gone into the production is amazing. I would definitely go again!

last week!

most of our lessons last week were costume contstruction. We have changed what costume we are going to make first. Instead of an historical costume we are going to make a punky costume much like the ones seen in the hit musical we will rock you. i am extremly excited about this mainly because ive seen we will rock you and it is by far my favourite musical, the costumes are amazing ! there really different and make a statement and i cant wait to get started.

for homework we have to research the show and find some pictures of the costumes from it. we also have to bring loadsof pairs of jeans to our next lesson as most of the skirt we will be making will be made of jean ( as well as tartan).

picture of Meat Loaf from we will rock you.

We hardly had any dance lessons this week but in the ones we did have we split into pairs except for the group i am in which is a three and were given the task of constructing a routine including some movements or motions, things like ' sink the the floor' and ' lift object without using hands' and the whole time you have to be touching your partner. its a very physical way of dancing and it took most groups a while to get started. because there are three people in our group we are finding it slightly harder to find moves that include everyone but i am having great fun experimenting with lifts and wierd rolls and i have had a few ideas im looking forward to trying next week.

Enter achilles review

i decided to write a review on one of dv8's most well known performances. this is what i thought.

Enter Achilles review
The idea behind enter Achilles was to explore male relationships. Its set mainly in a pub, a very typical place that you would expect men to be. Its starts of with a very ‘matey’ feeling between 8 men. They are drinking beer and acting in a way that society expects men to. Then one man walks into the bar and changes the music to something that we would associate with women. He begins to dance in way that doesn’t fit with the stereotype of real men. The rest of the piece explores how someone that doesn’t comply with the stereotype can be penalised. It also examines how men feel like they have to act a certain way and this can provoke insecurities as well as tension.

Enter Achilles is a very thought provoking piece with a lot of very shocking moments in it. The chorography is very spectacular and made so that the audience will instantly know what’s going on. The almost homely setting of a pub is something every audience member will be able to relate to, as well as the butch appearance of the eight men drinking beer. The interaction at the beginning is very matey between the men. With them all moving in the exact same way, representing how they feel they all have to be the same to be excepted in today’s world.

When the other man comes in and dances in a way we would associate with women. Its already clear in the audiences mind that he will not be excepted into the group of men. I think its quite shocking how everyone already knows he will be an outsider. It shows that our society is very strict in our views.

The fight scene has some very spectacular chorography in it. Lloyd Newson captures the sense of a fight perfectly however there is no punching or kicking like we would expect to see. There is a lot of contact and very creative movements. The whole group of men ganging up on just one is an injustice and the audience will automatically pity the man. However this is something we all witness in everyday life without really caring.

As the piece goes on two of the men from the group of eight also try to brake away from the stereotype by subtly flirting with each other. However they quickly stop and go back to acting how they think they have to.

I think enter Achilles is truly amazing. I really admire the genius in Lloyd Newsons chorography and this piece really does make you think about how we just accept that bad things will happen to people who are different. It also highlights the fact men feel they cant express their feelings. Its extremely powerful movements and shocking story line make it hard to watch in places but I highly doubt anyone will turn it off. It grips you from the start by using an easy to understand everyday situation and characters that anyone can relate to. The dancers themselves are extremely talented and they almost force you to watch them. They have an amazing amount of skill and technical ability
I would recommend watching enter Achilles more than once if you get the chance. It really is a very powerful piece.
A SHORT CLIMP FROM THE PIECE

my dv8 essay!

all last week in our lessons we were working on learning as much as we could about dv8 and especally Llyod Newson so we could write an essay or do a presentation all about them. So here is my essay....

DV8 research project
DV8 ( dance and video 8) is a British dance group. However they will prefer to be called as physical theatre group as their type of dancing is very unique, some may even say it cannot be classed as dancing however most critics will refer to their dance style as contemporary. DV8 was originated back in 1986 and has been led ever since by a very talented chorographer names Lloyd Newson. DV8 has had a number of different performers in it and have produced many different routines all of which can be seen on their website. DV8 gets funding from the arts council England as well as Dance UK and many others.
Lloyd Newson was born in Australia. His interest in dance started whilst he was studying physiology and sociology at Melbourne university where at first he insisted he was a ‘sports person‘. He went on to study dance and later got a scholarship at the London contemporary dance school. He danced and choreographed with many dance companies including, impulse dance theatre and one extra dance theatre. He then at the age of 28 he set up his own company DV8. In an interview Lloyd said this his reasoning for setting up his own company was ‘I needed to really form my own company and do work that was much more socially conscious than most of the contemporary dance that I was doing.’

Lloyd believes in having a meaning in every routine he choreographs. He likes to take subjects that audiences would find shocking and turn them into a very physical and emotional piece of dance. From what I have watched I get the impression he doesn’t want to try and change peoples opinions about certain matters, for example gay relationships, but he wants us to see it in a different way. He kind of points out the obvious that we as humans are trained not to see. He uses dance to explore human relationships and behaviours in a very dynamic way that ensures you wont forget what you have watched.

All of Newsons pieces contain a lot of contact between two or more people. there is hardly any solo dancing in any of his work. Newson doesn’t believe in adding a move for the sake of it or to waste time but every move he puts into his work has a meaning and a right to be there. He also has a strong belief in the flow of a piece. It means that no one can stop moving unless it feels like a natural thing to do. Also every move links to the next flawlessly. For me the natural flow that runs through all of his pieces adds an odd realness to them. I think that may be his intention as this will help an audience relate to his theme or story he is trying to portray.

Newson gets some of his genius from three practitioners that inspire him
The first of which is a lady named Martha Graham. She was born in 1894 in Pennsylvania. She, like Newson, had her own dance company named ‘The Martha Graham centre of contemporary dance’. I watched a clip from a piece she choreographed named ‘ night journey’ this particular piece has a story running through it and much like Newson her dance style is contemporary with a twist. I would even say there are a few moves she includes in this particular piece that today would be classed as street.

Another person that inspires Newson is Isadora DuncanShe was born in 1877 and began teaching the children on her street how to ‘sway’ at age five. Many people will call her the creator of modern dance. She joined a theatre company in New York and instantly fell in love with the art form. She was one of the first people to test the boundaries of contemporary dance. She wanted to brake away from the precise moves involved in ballet to create a very unique type of dance. She is very inspirational to lots of modern practitioners as she wasn’t afraid to try something different. Still today many
aspiring dancers have to study Isadora in great detail

Merce Cunningham is the last of the three main people Newson admires.
Merce was born in 1919 and died only last year. Through out his whole life he had been looked on as an exceptional dancer. Much like all the practitioners that inspire Newson Merce set out to challenge how we portray contemporary dance. I watched one of the pieces he choreographed named ‘beach birds’ in this piece he uses very abstract movements that represent birds very well. The movements are quite rigid, static and sharp. This dance does have a lot a ballet related moves in it but is very different from most peoples ideas about what ballet should be.
Dv8 are known as a project based group. This means that they change their cast depending on what their next project is. Currently they are holding open auditions for their 2011 project. They are requesting middle east and Asian dancers to star in the piece which explores religion and censorship. Although the chorographer is of course very important the performers must also be very talented. All the performers involved in Dv8 have to have a very high technical dance skill as well as a lot of strength to pull of some of the moves Newson puts into his pieces. They are all also extremely good actors, an essential skill needed to make Newson pieces work. They must all be able to empathise with the characters they play as many of the performers will have very challenging emotional parts to play. the end !

This week!

This week in performing arts, most of our lessons were costume design. Our current project is based on historical costumes and we will eventually make our own. However, we have to do a lot of research into styles, patterns and colours that will fit with the historical theme we have been given.

my neturals mood board

We choose what colours we wanted to use at the very start of the course and we have been producing painted colour charts for each of our colours (mine are gold, naturals and blue). Then at the start of this week, we had to produce another colour chart but with paper, we had cut of out magazines. I think it was quite hard trying to find all the different shades we needed but in the end, it did look very effective.

Towards the end of the week, we began to create a mood board. We will eventually have one for each of our colours but this week I only managed o complete my natural’s one that you can see in the picture. I am not very artistic but I do not think I did to badly. At the start of the course I did not think I would enjoy the costume design part very much as I am not very arty but I am having loads of fun with it now and I really look forward to the lessons, I have learnt loads already!


In Dance this week, we continued to look at DV8. We started doing workshops and the idea was we were meant to try to learn how to use natural flow, like Lloyd Newson, to travel across the room in a group. I am really starting to appreciate Newsons work and chorography as I personally found this quite hard to start with. I think this is because the natural flow idea is very new to all of us. It is a unique way of dancing that no one in our group will have tried before. It got a bit easier as we sort of just moved forward instead of trying to plan every step we wanted to do. So far, I am really enjoying learning about Dv8 and I love trying to dance/move how they do even if I am not too good at it yet. I can’t wait to carry on next week.

This is the whole of our group performing the 'heartbeat' dance we have been working on.

this week in performing arts

This week has been very good! We had our first practical on Tuesday this week and it was a double so everyone was tired at the end of the day. We were working on the contemporary dance we started the week before to the song ‘heartbeat’.

To help us with our assignment on DV8 we started looking at how we can add emotions and a story to our dance. We then split up into groups and had to think of a story that would fit the chorography and of course the song. I think most people went with a heartbreak situation as it fits in very easily with the lyrics. Then we had to make up our own ending and sort of end the story. We had to make sure that every movement we put into our chorography added to the emphasis of the story and had a real purpose in the dance.

As I mentioned we were set our next assignment. It is all about the physical theatre group DV8. We have to do a big research project into everything about them. Quite a lot of the focus in our project is the chorographer Lloyd New son. His routines always tell a story and contain lots of emotion as well as meaning. He doesn’t choreograph for the fun of it he tries very hard to get his message across with very dramatic pieces of dance. This is why we worked very hard on the emotional side of dance this week in our lessons.

In costume design this week, we started making mood boards using the colours we want to include in our final design. We cut out things from magazines (relating to our colour scheme) and arranged them on the paper to see what went well. I think we will continue this next week as nobody quite finished.

I am really looking forward to next week as we are going to try and dance like DV8 which will be fun but painful. Also, next week a few of us are helping at the rock challenge auditions which is very exciting!

Week beginning 13th September

Our first lesson this week was on Monday and we were set our first assignment! I already know it is going to be a lot of work but I am looking forward to starting on it. I also found this lesson quite useful because I could see and understand how all the assignments will work. On our next lesson, the fun really started as we began to learn a very pretty contempory dance. It was our first practical lesson and I think everyone really enjoyed it. Then for the rest of the week we carried on learning the same dance and adding bits to it.

In Costume design this week we were looking at the colours we want to have in our final design. We painted a colour pallet using the two, three or four colours we had chosen the previous week. We started of painting our colour, as light as we could then gradually got darker. I must admit I did ruin my first attempt but once I got the hang of it I managed to produce two good ones, one was in blue and the other cream/gold.

I am now starting to look forward to starting work on DV8 physical theatre group tomorrow!

10th Serptember 2010
we had our very first BTEC performing arts lesson on monday! We were basically just told about the course,how it works and what we would need to do over the next two years. Theres a lot involved in the course but it sounds like its going to be so much fun. The next day we had a double lesson. We set up our blogs and were trying to understand how to make them look lovely, i think it took everyone a while but now everyone sort of understands how they work. then in our other lesson on tuesday we were introduced to the costume design side of the course. im really looking forward to starting the design process properly. On wednesday we learnt how to mix our own soundtracks! this was my favourite lesson of the week. It was really interesting learning how its done and now i appreciate how hard it is to make mixed soundtracks. It was really exciting listening to what you had created and then completely changing it because it really didnt sound right. Next week we are starting on dance development wich I'm really looking forward to. Everythings just really exciting !