Unit 7 - Theatre in education

Thursday 23^rd November

The main aim of the session this afternoon was to get the final scene devised so that we have a full storyline.

We spent most of the first part of the session devising the final scene for the performance. We had already come up with ideas and discussed what we want to happen in this scene so we now just need to improvise around these ideas. After having a small discussion to remind ourselves of what the final scene was going to include, we started to improvise around these ideas. We improvised the scene a few times and each time was slightly differently worded. I will then pick the best one when coming to transcribing. We were able to film these improvisations so that I don’t have to remember what everyone said, I can just look back at the video. I will use the videos to transcribe what was said and then add this to the rest of the script.

For the rest of the session we ran through the whole of performance up until the last scene. This is because it gave us an opportunity to go over our lines so that we are continuing to learn them. Whilst we were making our way through the script, we spotted a few things that need amending slightly and I therefore wrote on my script in pencil and I will amend this electronically later. I do this every week during the rehearsals and then I use a new clean draft every week so that I can make more amendments in pencil if I need to.

At the end of the run-through, our teacher gave us some feedback. One of the comments that she gave me was that I need to be more fairy like. I need to do this by smiling more every time I come onto stage. Also, I should use my dance technique to become more fairy like because I think this would really help due to all my ballet training. Another thing that needs to be worked on is breaking the 4^th wall. At the moment there is some audience participation but there could be more of it. We, as characters, don’t really go into the audience at any point so we thought about adding this in. We thought that a good place to put this would be during Fiona’s Fruity Kingdom song. I used this time to work on this and change the choreography that I have currently got. Instead of dancing around the stage, I now go up into the audience. I then had the idea of sprinkling some glitter on the children because I think they would really like that. This is something that we need to do some research into and consider carefully.

Unit 7 - Theatre in education

Thursday 23^rd November

Production meeting:

Last week, we arranged for there to be a production meeting to be held today. The aim of the meeting was to meet with others who may not have seen the script yet and then to talk them through the ideas for the production. It was also a chance to bring up any current issues that we are having with the piece or any other ideas that people may have to improve the performance.

Attending the meeting was me as the director and an actor, Danielle as the assistant director and an actor, Callum as the light and sound technician and Cara who is overseeing the whole project. We did also invite Paul who is the manager of The Chapel Arts Centre but he wasn’t able to make the meeting due to illness. We will be sure to catch up with him at a different time to tell him what was discussed at the meeting.

During the meeting we talked a lot about the performance and what will be going on. Here is a list of what we talked about in the meeting:

·     Reviewing the script

·     Sound and lighting cues throughout the script so far

·     Possible ideas for the rest of the script which is yet to be written

·     Assistance in improving the performance by theatre practitioners

·     Tech/dress rehearsal schedule needs to be in place

·     Any other ideas for the performance

Here is a video of the production meeting:

I think it was really good idea to have this meeting today because we were able to take Callum through the script so that he can sort out the sound and lighting cues. I will meet with Paul and let him know what was discussed in the meeting today. I also think that we should have a meeting nearer to the time to make sure that everything is going to be ready in time and then hopefully, everyone will be able to attend.

Unit 37 - Dance performance

Wednesday 22^nd November

Unfortunately, Laura was not able to make it to the session today but we were given work to get on with whilst she was away.

To start off the session, I led Molly through a full body warmup to make sure that we weren’t going to hurt any of our muscles. I also included some new stretches in the warmup this week such as half body twists and American splits exercises. After the warmup we moved on to getting some work done.

The task that we had been set was to finish off our pieces which we have been creating over the past few weeks. My dance piece is to the song ‘Proud’ by JLS and is a contemporary style dance piece. Most of the dance is made up of the 8 spot improvisation exercise. As the piece moves on it tells a story of different memories which were on my memory board which I made during the half term holiday.

So far, I have got dance material up until the end of the first chorus. I then needed to add some choreographed material on the end to finish in a good place with the music. It took me a while to think of some moves which would fit with the choreography and the style of the piece. However, after a while of thinking and improvising some moves, I decided to take some moves which I have learnt in external dance classes and incorporate these into this dance piece. Therefore, after trying a few different moves, I decided to use some contemporary style swings and jumps in the choreography because once I tried these out facing the mirror, the looked nice and fitted well.

Although I hadn’t added much choreography onto the material that I already had, I felt like this left me in a good place in the music to end the piece. However, I still do have lots of time left on the track so if I want to add any more choreography, I can.

For the rest of the session I then just went over the piece to make sure that I could remember it. I then also worked on the timing because at the moment the moves are slightly off with the music and this just needed tightening up slightly. I also helped Molly run through her piece and gave her some ideas as to what she could add to finish off her dance piece.

Next week we will be able to show Laura what we have done and then she can give us some feedback. We should then be ready to perform these for the final time.