Unit 26 - Choreographing dance

Friday 17^th November

Today was the last time that we were going into the primary school until nearer the time to the show. We were spending the lesson today going over all of the choreography that both Eve and Toby have learnt over the past few weeks.

We started the session with a full warmup which I led. After this we then started to look at the routine.

The first time that we went through the routine, the children didn’t have to perform it to their best ability because this was just a case of remembering what we did last week because they both learnt the choreography really quickly so we just needed to make sure that they were retaining the moves too.

After we had run the dance through a few times and when Eve and Toby were comfortable with the routine, we were able to start working on areas which needed improving. The main element that I spotted when they were rehearsing was their timing. The timing for this dance piece is quite slow as a whole and it’s very important to keep that timing right all the way through the piece. When I was watching the rehearsal, I noticed that Eve and Toby were rushing some of the moves slightly so then consequently had an effect on some of the moves later on in the piece. Because I have choreographed some of the moves in this routine which correspond to the lyrics, it is really important that they get the timing right because if the moves aren’t carried out to the corresponding line, this could look off and could have a knock on effect to the rest of the routine. I walked through the whole of the choreography with both Eve and Toby so that they could see where they needed to slow down or speed up. I also danced through the routine so that Eve and Toby could watch me and see the timings of the moves. This also gave them a chance to watch the moves as well because we also needed to work a bit on executing the moves to their fullest.

When I was watching the routine, I noticed that some of the moves could have been a bit bolder and exaggerated more. Moves such as bending down on one knee and pushing the arms out to the side. At the moment the move is quite quick, however it needs to be quite slow and more resistance in the arms when pushing outwards. Another part which we worked on was the set of moves when Eve and Toby are both holding hands. There needed to be more fluidity in this but this came the more and more they practiced it. After we had worked on some of the different moves the routine looked so much better.

The last thing that we worked on today was the staging. Laura and I explained to Eve and Toby what the stage is like. We are going to be performing this piece as part of the end of year showcase in May in our performance studio at college. The children are already aware of where they enter and exit the stage because I put this into the choreography and made sure that this was correct when I was teaching them the routine. The main thing that I had to explain was that Eve will already be on stage before she starts her solo part because she will be stood behind a screen – unable to be seen by the audience. Then, as her piece starts, she will then walk out from the screen. When she finishes he piece with Toby, she will run back behind the screen and Toby will run off to stage left.

To finish off the session, we went through the dance a few times just to make sure that everything that we had covered today had been taken into consideration. We even had a small audience for the children to perform to which was a great benefit to them as this will prepare them for performing in front of a larger audience later in the academic year. We then just had a quick cool down to cool down our muscles.