Unit 25 - Dance improvisation

Friday 26^th May

Today we had another dance rehearsal. This rehearsal was not on the original list of rehearsals that we had planned and agreed as a group however, because myself and others in the group have missed rehearsals due to being in exams, we decided that we needed to fit in another rehearsal before we went home for half term. The only person that wasn’t able to attend the rehearsal today was Danielle because she had already travelled home.

So far up to this point we all know which dances we are in and know most of the routines for the show. The main aim of today’s rehearsal was to learn the choreography to the last group dance. This group dance was originally going to be to the song ‘Cell block tango’ from Chicago but due to storyline of the show changing, this now doesn’t fit with the story. Therefore the song and choreography has now been changed to ‘Turn around’ by Connor Maynard.

We learnt the choreography at the start of the rehearsal. I learnt this choreography quite quickly. I then helped others in the group to learn the choreography to.

After learning this choreography we had a quick recap of the group dance ‘America’ which we learnt at the last rehearsal. We went over this a few times to make sure everyone in the group could remember it.

Once we had finished learning and going over choreography, we started at the beginning of the show and carried out the dances in the order of which they will come in the show. This helped us to start to get a feel for the running order of the show and to then start thinking about the transitions in between the dances. These transitions are going to be very important because they will help to tell the story as well as the dances. Although we managed to complete a run through of the show, we were unable to time it as we stopped and started a lot due to practicing the transitions. I think that this run through of the show went quite well because I remembered all of my choreography.

Last week on Saturday, Callum and I went into the performance studio to practice our duet. This enabled us to practice the lifts as the more we practice them, the better they will become. I also practiced my solo in this time.

Over half term I need to keep practicing my solo, duets and group dances. I will not be able to practice these fully but practice them just so they stay fresh in my head. In class we have recorded the dances a few times so I can watch the videos back to remind myself of the moves. My main priority will be to keep looking at the ‘Turn around’ dance as we have only learnt this dance today and I need to know it well in time for the show.

Over half term I also need to think about costumes and what I am going to be wearing for each dance.