Unit 25 - Dance improvisation

Wednesday 15^th March

Today we were working on the duet that Angel and I have been learning over the past couple of weeks.

To start the lesson we carried out a warmup consisting of stretches, bounces and dips. After this we moved onto looking at the duet.

To recap, we went through the routine without the music so we were able to ask any questions if we were unsure of the moves before we danced it through with the music. At the moment, we are having a few problems with the timing of the moves. We are both going at different times and this then makes the routine look untidy.

We ran through the routine a few times with the music to practice over the moves and the timing. For this duet, my main target is to build up and show emotion throughout the piece. I have been struggling with this so we spoke about ways in which I could show my emotion in the piece. As this duet is about a fight between me and Angel, I need to be able to show anger so that the audience know that we are fighting. We then carried out some improvised movements which will help us to build up the anger in the routine. We worked together to use movements from the routine and put emotion into them. By focusing on these movements and using improvisation we will then be able to apply these to the duet so that we can convey the emotion of anger. 

Once we had run through the duet a few times and we were feeling more confident about it, I practiced through my solo. Before I started the solo, I did a few extra warmup exercises just to make sure that my feet were warm enough to be able to dance en pointe. I danced through my solo a few times en pointe. However, the more I rehearse and practice in my pointe shoes, the more my feet get tired and I am unable to perform the routine as well, the more times I do it.

My target is to carry on strengthening my feet so that I am able to dance to the best of my ability. I also need to carry on building up emotion in both of these routines which I have practiced today. I am currently finding this quite difficult but as I have more practice of it, I will begin to find this easier.