Thursday 9th October 2014 - Black History Month Performance

Thursday 9th October 2014

Black History Month 


First rehearsal

In our first rehearsal we started the choreography for our black history month rehearsals. Our dance is a contemporary dance with African elements. The theme is slavery, at first we are trapped and then we become free. To show this we have a contrast in movement, music and dynamics.

My strengths in the first rehearsal were that i had good communication with the other people in my group. This was important because we needed to be able to listen to each others ideas as we were choreographing the dance ourselves rather than being given set choreography. We did this by each coming up with ideas once we heard the music and sharing them amongst each other, we tried different things out by improvising to the music that we had selected. This helped us when choreographing because we each had a different interpretation of the theme, this meant that we were able to develop and mix then together so that we had a range of different movements that we were able to use. 

Another one of my strengths was time management, this meant that we were able to get a lot of our choreography done in this first rehearsal. We wanted to do this so that we had more time at the end to polish and perfect each section of the dance rather than worry about last minute choreography. We got the majority of the first half of the dance done here, this gave us time to think about how much of a contrast we wanted for the second half.

One of my weaknesses was that my projection was not good. This meant that the movements that were supposed to be bigger, were not this made them look too small and the theme of the dance was not able to be portrayed. Projection is important so that everyone in the audience, no matter how far away they were we able to get an idea of what the choreography was about. 

Another one of my weaknesses was that the different dynamics that could have been used to show contrast between different sections we too subtle. I found this especially when we were supposed to have moments of stillness, these are supposed to be simple and effective next to the faster sharper movements of other parts. If these were better the theme would have been more easily recognised because the dynamic of each movement would vary. Dynamics are important so that the audience are kept engaged because the speed and fluidity are not the same all the way through the performance.

My targets for the next rehearsal are to concentrate on the different dynamics within the dance. I want to discuss with the others in my group because on watching it back i think that the slower movements could be even slower and dragged out, as well as this i also think think that the sharp fast movements on the floor at the beginning of the dance could be faster and sharper than they are at the moment. However i need to make sure that my extension is still to the best that it could be even though the movements are faster.

Second Rehearsal

In the second rehearsal we concentrated on choreographing the second half of the dance. This section is about when the slaves have been freed, the movements are a lot lighter and they flow more easily from one to the next.

One of my strengths was that my timing with the music and also with the other people in my group. We were all able to achieve this because we tried out different timings and communicated so that we were able to agree on when we were going to do each movement and how this would fit to the music.Timing is important so that each movement is able to flow from one to the other and fit together to create different motifs within a dance. It is important that each dancer is in time with each other so that the audience can see when different choreographic devises are being used. These devices could include unison, canon and retrograde, the audience wouldn't be able to identify these if all of the dancers were out of time with each other. This is because they would either be early or late for each movement.

Another one of my strengths was my flexibility, this allowed me to do the different jumps that we included in our choreography. These jumps included a leap and a stag among others. Flexibility i dance is important so that movements are more easily completed. Flexibility is gained by continuous stretching of the leg and back muscles, a common way of stretching is by practising doing the splits. We did this so that our leaps were as defined as they could be rather than understated, this helped us gain height in them.

One of my weaknesses was that my balance was not as good as it could have been. This was especially when we were doing the arabesque. Throughout rehearsals i found it hard to keep my balance, however i kept working on this and practising the movement to ensure that my balance got better. To improve i used the mirrors in the dance studio, i used them to see how high my leg was and at what point i was loosing my balance. Once i had found the point where i lost my balance i kept it at that height to make sure that i didn't wobble in the performance.

Another one of my weaknesses was my extension, especially in my arms. This was a drawback because i didn't extend all the way through to my fingers. Extension is important because each movement has to be completed and look finished before you can move on to the next one. I noticed this was more of an issue with my arms and not my legs, this is because i have more flexibility and co-ordination in my legs compared to my arms. This occurred especially when we were completing the attitude turn motif.

My target for the next rehearsal is to further improve my balance for the arabesque, this will also be useful in other movements within the dance including attitude turns. i will do this by practising these particular movements outside of rehearsals. Another one of my targets is to practice extending my arms, this will not just help in this dance but in other future dance that i may be involved in.

Technical Rehearsal

In the technical rehearsal we had to make different decisions based on sound, lighting staging and costume.

Sound requirements

For our sound we are merging two different pieces of music together. The first is a heartbeat, we decided to use because where it is repeated all the way through it allowed us to experiment with different timings. As well as this we thought that the heartbeat would be able to signify how repetitive a slaves life is and how freedom is not within reach. It sound very eerie and this suggests that there is also an underlying theme of being haunted and trapped. We used these ideas to help us with choreography.

In the middle of the two pieces of music we decided to have five second break of silence. This is because the moment of silence symbolises that a change is about to happen and this builds suspense for the audience.

The second piece of our music is called "now we are free" from the "Gladiator" soundtrack. We decided to use this because it sounds like a typical African song and as the slaves all originated from Africa we thought that it was important to use this so symbolise their freedom.  As well as this it contrasts with the heartbeat, this shows the audience how different the two sections are.

Lighting Plan

We decided to have a red wash at the start, this is to symbolise blood and pain. This links to the heartbeat that we have decided to use in our first piece of music. For the moment of silence we decided to use a white wash to show a big change is going to come. After this we decided to use the white wash again but have it a bit dimmer.

Costume Design

We are wearing big shapeless light coloured t-shirts, with black footless tights and black hot pants. This is to show that we are not given any nice clothes by the slave owners. We are having bare bare feet, this is mainly for safety reasons so we don't slip over during the performance. Our hair is down except for the top half which is in French plaits. This is so that our hair is kept out of our face but it still moves around with our movements when we dance.

Whilst in the technical rehearsal we encountered a problem with our spacing. We found that after the switch split jump we had to spend a couple of  counts to get into different spaces so that after the leap,when we go onto the floor we were not so squashed together but we are more spaced out. We agreed that in our next rehearsal we were going to further work on this so that it would be ready for the final performance.

Fourth Rehearsal

We decided to spend this rehearsal perfecting each movement and motif within the dance. This helped us to spot any problems that we had and allowed us to fix them. For example when we were coming up from the floor after the leap to floor we found that the original roll that we had did not fit with the music so we changed it to a jump up. We took pictures of some of the movements too see if our timing and extension was as good as it good as it could be.

This took pictures of this jump because we wanted our timing to be perfect, we used this way because we couldnt see in the mirror because we were facing the back. After seeing this picture we were happy with our timing, because we were jumpin at the same time.

We decided to use this rehearsal as a dress rehearsal, this was to see if the costumes that we had chosen went well with the movements. After a few run throughs we found that the costumes were okay to dance in and they did not stop or restrict any of our choreography.

Final Technical Rehearsal

In our final technical rehearsal we found that we the majority of the dance went well. This is because we had previously sorted out all of our lighting and sound requirements, this meant that we were able to focus on the actual content f the dance rather than worrying about timing of the lighting and the sound and whether it was going to go smoothly.

The only problem we encountered was when we had to decide whether we were going to wait for the period of silence to end and the start of the new music to start to get up or whether we were just going to get up after the heartbeat music. We decided that we were going to wait for the new music. This is because the new music represents a new start for the slaves so we thought that waiting would further exaggerate their freedom.

Choreography Ideas