Cabaret

On Friday as part of our bhangra assessment we had to perform in the school’s annual cabaret. We had been working very hard all week on polishing our choreography all week and changing little bits of the dance to enhance the overall presentation. We also managed to successfully combine the two groups of dances into one piece of music. To create a huge dance routine that is visually exciting to watch.

On the night everyone was beginning to get nervous and a bit worried about performing. We all had nice big make-up and very pretty scarves to help get the impression of Indian dancing across to the audience. Once we got on stage there was some last minute worrying from everyone and making sure the scarves weren’t going to be in our way during the performance.

Our group was on in the second part of the music so we watched the first group do their bit and they looked amazing. however at the beginning the music was messed up and the people on stage had top adapt and shorten the first part of their dance in order to make sure the rest of the routine didnt collapse. Everyone had huge smiles and was putting in all their effort.  Once I started dancing I relaxed slightly and began to enjoy myself. In my opinion the whole thing looked amazing and the audience agreed. It was lively and interesting to watch it went down really well with everyone.

I think the modern twist on the traditional bhangra style dance was a huge success. It made it much more fun to learn and choreograph

Hrithik Roshan review

Review of Hrithicks performance at the 2007 filmfare award ceremony

Hrithik has been a family name in Bollywood for many years and after watching his performance I can see why he is so popular. Before he even begins to dance his entrance clearly shows a stage presence that has the power to grab an audience’s attention.

When he begins to dance it’s obvious that he has taken influence from more modern dance styles such as street and cleverly mixed it with traditional bhangra. He uses moves that involve a lot of dramatic and almost illusion foot movements and his transitions to the next move occur only on the main beat of the music, this is typical of street dance. However he incorporates traditional bhangra hand movements that are very flowing and continuous into his street style routine to create a clever and very interesting routine.

Hrithik then literally flies of stage before returning to perform a different routine. I believe this section of dance is influenced by Michael Jackson. I think this because he uses a lot of moves that are associated with Michael Jackson, such as the moon walk and he perfectly recreates Michaels amazing footwork which is technical brilliance. Yet he somehow still manages to bring in elements of dance that are pure bhangra. He performs a perfect moonwalk followed by a jumpy, cirss cross step that I would never dream of putting next to each other in a routine yet somehow it works flawlessly. Throughout the Michael Jackson inspired section I find imp wondering why no one has ever tried to put the moonwalk and bhangra in the same dance. It just shows that Hrithik has a truly brilliant choreographic mind. The fact he choose Michael Jackson to model this piece around could be considered very clever or extremely stupid, as he is so well loved that trying to impersonate him in anyway could have backfired on Hrithik. However in my opinion it worked to his benefit, opening up a whole new audience to his work.

He then ends his run of dances with a piece that is slightly more traditional bhangra. This section of his performance is my favourite as it’s extremely powerful and lively. He uses music and moves that make me watching feel as if I need to join in. The backing dances enhance his performance greatly as it gives it the traditional group feeling that bhangra is known for. His natural charm shines through well in this section as he adds I quirky moves intended to attract the audience’s attention.

I believe that Hrithik is an extremely clever and talented dancer. His powerful movements and exciting choreography grab the audience’s attention and left me wishing there was more to watch. His bravery in using iconic Michael Jackson movements should be admired. It’s easy to see just why he is so well loved in the Bollywood world. There is something charming about his confidence on stage and his technical ability when he’s dancing is mesmerizing to watch and really gripping to an audience.

X-factor tour march 5th

On Saturday I went to Wembley to see the live X-factor tour with Chloe Green. Once we had found our seats we started to get really excited! Then when the title music started everyone was screaming.

The first one to perform was Cher. I can see why some people don’t like her but personally I think she’s amazing. She can sing really well and she knows how to work an audience, she’s a true performer. Her first song had sections of the nursery rhyme ‘the clapping song’ in it. Which I think is very adventurous but it was one of my favourite songs of the show along with her version of ‘stay with me’, which gave me Goosebumps.

One direction was really fantastic as well, they had all the girls in hysterics (obviously) and they are extremely talented.  My favourite song from them was ‘forever young ‘it was truly amazing.

Rebecca was stunning. I adore her and her voice. She’s so glamorous and it’s impossible to take your eyes off her when she’s singing.

Matt was obviously amazing. He was saved till the last and had me in shivers with his voice. I love how naturally singing seems to come to him and you can really tell he loves every minute of it. He deserved to win.

I have never really been a huge fan of Paije I’m not really sure why. I know he has a stunning voice but he did perform really well and he also knew how to get the audience going. Aiden was amazing and had everyone intently focused on him the whole time and it takes someone really talented to get the full attention of that many people.

Wagner was not the best, but entertaining all the same. Katie Waissel was good but there’s just something about her that I’ve never really liked but I do appreciate that she is talented.

The set was really fascinating all the bits of stage moving everywhere was quite fun to watch. And the lights were used really effectively. I think my favourite act would have to be Cher followed by Rebecca and Matt. I really loved the tour and would recommend it to anyone!    
                                     

bhangra+Bollywood

This week we started looking into the idea of storytelling through bhangra dance. We learnt about how in Bollywood every piece of choreography tells a story generally the story is about love, forbidden love, betrayal, chasing someone/thing or family. We also found out that all bollywood/bhangra routines contain a comedy section and always have a happy ending.

In our groups of 6 we began to brainstorm ideas for our choreography. We quickly choose the theme of forbidden love and started to create a story that would fit the theme. We came up with the idea about two people falling in love but being from different religious backgrounds. We choose this because we learnt that Muslims see it as wrong to marry out of the religion.

We then thought one way to show this difference would be to use a more contemporary bhangra and a more street bhangra. We split our group into half and started creating some motifs. After 4 lessons we have successfully created a story and planned out how to tell it though our dance and we are about half way through choreographing the steps. For our music we choose the song J’ai Ho and are considering mixing it with a more traditional Bollywood song later on. So far our dance looks great but we have stuck to simple moves and not been adventurous with the choreography so our aim for next week is to add more technically challenging moves.

On our last lesson of the week we all watched the latest Bollywood release ‘dabangg’. We were watching is specially to analyse the dance sections and to understand how Bollywood uses dance to enhance its movies and story lines. In this film the dance was used to add comedy and to show a relationship developing between two characters. We all saw that you very rarely see one person dancing alone and there are always large groups of dancers performing in unison.

This week was really interesting and I’m looking forward to continuing with this next week.