Unit 25 - Dance improvisation

Thursday 8^th June

Today we were in rehearsals from 1:30pm in preparation for the dance show which we will be performing tonight at 7:30pm.

When we arrived at the rehearsal, Laura our dance lecturer ran through the assignment brief for our unit. We had a group discussion about what the rehearsal was going to consist of. We then started getting ready for a dress and tech rehearsal which we were going to start at 2pm. I got changed into my costume and placed all of my other costumes and props backstage in the correct places ready for my quick changes. The aim of the rehearsal time was to fit in 3 full runs of the show. The first one would be quite relaxed and just getting into costumes and making sure that everyone was in the right place at the right time. This run through also gave the tech team the chance to remember what they were doing for the lighting and sound and they could ask any questions if they had any. The second run through was a more fluent run-through as during the first run we had to stop several times as sometimes the tech team had to ask a question. This was the first time that I got an idea of how long I had to change from one costume to another. The third and final dress and tech run was a full out run-through. We treated this as if it was the real performance in terms of performing the dances. We timed each performance to gain an idea of approximately how long the show would run for.

I think that the first run-through went quite well. However, we did have to stop quite a few times as the tech team had to remember what cues they had and we had to change a few of the transitions. One of the transitions in particular that we had to change slightly was after my solo ‘Another suitcase in another hall’ and before ‘Turn around’. This was because originally I did not have enough time to change from one outfit to another so the new transition gave me more time.

The second run-through also went well overall. However, I did not think my solo went very well as I was unable to perform it to my best because I didn’t want to tire out my feet just before the performance. Also, after the solo, I was unable to get my skirt off in time and had to go on stage with it on for ‘Turn around’ which was the next dance.

The third and final rehearsal of the show went the best out of all of the rehearsals. All of the group dances went very well as we were all in time and both of my duets went well. I know this, as I was given feedback from my lecturer after each run-through. However, my solo did not go as well as I was struggling to stay up on pointe and kept losing my balance. After the run-through, I tried not to panic as I knew that I have done it well before and I need to try my best for the performance tonight. Also for this rehearsal, we had a small audience that could not make it to the show tonight. This gave us an opportunity to get a feeling of what it is going to be like to perform to an audience tonight.

In between each of the run-throughs, we had notes given from our lecturer. Some of the notes that she gave me were that she could see the anger in the duet with Angel (Shape of you) and the sadness in my solo (Another suitcase in another hall). Me and Callum executed our duet very well.

We finished the last run-through and notes at around 6:15pm. We then had just over an hour to get ready for the show which started at 7:30pm.
Here are a few pictures from the dress rehearsal:

 The three daughters in Madame Brewster's barn. 

 The three daughters and Callum in the barn. 

 Madame Brewster and her three daughters. 

The whole cast with our lecturer Laura.