Wednesday 22nd October 2014 - Analysing Black Hisory Month

Final Performance

Once reflecting on our black history month performance i found that the number of rehearsals that we had was no effective. This is because together as a group we made many different mistakes, these included timing and movements. Even after all of the different techniques that we used to perfect our timing it was still not good. On the other hand some movements that we did were in time, these included the first motif where we are all on our knees and the motif that included the attitude turn. This meant that some of our rehearsals were effective but not all. For my next performance i will make sure that i record all of my rehearsals so that i can watch them at the end to see what i need to work on. This will help me by being able to see what specific things i need to work on. This will make my performance better because each movement would be as good as it could be and my timing would be better than this performance.

Our staging was effective because we used both upstage and downstage, however we didn't  used much of the side of the stage. This would have made it better because we could have been more spaced out in the second half. In the first half it is effective because we are supposed to be trapped as we are portraying slaves, because we are all close together it further emphasises our theme. However in the second half we are free therefore we should have been more paced out. For my next dance performance i need to ensure that my staging reflect the theme of my performance. This is important so that every single thing that is included reminds the audience what the theme is.

Our lighting was effective as we used different types including white wash, red wash and a blackout. The blackout went well with the dance because it  symbolised that something was about to change and it clearly showed that there is a difference between being slaves and being free. If i was to do another dance that had two parts again i would consider using a blackout because i think that it looked effective.

Our sound would have been effective if it didn't cut out mid performance. We liked the contrast of the two pieces, they had completely different dynamics, one had staccato articulation whereas the other had legato articulation. This allowed us to create different movements and dynamics to portray our theme to the audience. However because the music cut out it didn't allow us to completely portray the theme. In spite of the problemas with our sound we we able to pause whitst the music had cut as we were sitting on the floor, this meant that we could carry on with the rest of the dance when the music  came back on and we would still be able to finish in time with the music. To improve on this for next time i need to make sure that there are going to be no sound issues by having a more indepth technical rehearsal and practice using the sound as it would be in the performance. 

Some of the movements that we had included in our choreography were effective to the theme of the dance for example in the first half, the initial motif that we choreographed reflected on the struggles of slavery.  As well as this in the second half the attitude turns represented that we were free as the movements became bigger. On the other hand some of our movements we just used to fill gaps in the dance. On reflection of this for my next dance choreography performance i would like to only use movements that fully represent the theme of the dance, this is so the audience is able to gain a full understanding of the subject and theme of the dance.