22/9/14 Dance Lesson

Akrahm Khan: Rush

What do we know about Rush so far?

Choreographic Devices used: Repetition, Stillness, Change of Tempo

Stimulus: Free-falling, Paragliding - This is shown by the sharp use of extreme speed of falling and rolling side to side on the stage to show the freedom of falling.

Dance Styles: Ballet, Contemporary, Kathak - An Indian style of dance which is from Khan's culture and heritage 

Khan was interested in exploring what happens to the 5 sense (Sight, Smell, Touch, Hearing, Taste) during free-fall so researched parachute jumpers

Khan was interested in the contrast between speed and stillness and therefore played with different speeds and tempos in Rush

Rush explores both spatial restriction and spatial freedom associated with the unpredictable journey of freefalling

The use of repetition is also evident in Rush, this highlights key movements such as the fast arm circle and movements of near stillness

Key Words

1. Improvisation: The act of spontaneously creating work on the spot
2. Transitions: The linking between two parts of dance together

Improvisation was a key feature used in the choreographing process of Rush as Khan and dancers improvised around the idea of free-falling as a starting point to rush to create motif's and choreography. 

Lesson Plan

In the lesson we recapped what we did in the previous lesson where we developed our original motif that Kat taught us in our groups. In today's lesson we were given pictures as a visual stimulus of people free-falling creating different positions and shapes whilst they are falling. We chose 4 pictures in a our group and we created a different movement for each picture replicating the different shapes that the pictures were showing. After we created 4 movements/positions for each picture we were then asked to write at least 2-3 actions on a piece of paper which is seen in Rush and put them face down in a pile with everyone else's from the class and randomly select some. The reason behind doing this was to then  put them in between each picture to create actions and movements which act as transitions to each position created to replicate each picture. 

Which looks something like this:

Once we chose the actions randomly selected we then made a motif that used the pictures that we created a movement for along with the action transitions in between. We had a member of our group missing this lesson, however this didn't stop us from creating our motif and didn't cause too much of an issue as we have videoed our further developed motif and it will be easy to add Sax and teach her the development. I feel as a group that we worked well together to create this development as we got on with the task independently and were able to come up with positions and movement for the pictures and then further develop by including the actions. 

Here is evidence of our dance, this is only rough as there were a few minor mistakes as one member of the dance forgot some movements and it is only a draft of our piece, however you can still see our structure and see the development that we have done since the previous lesson. 

What Is Costume?

What is costume?

• Costume can be used as the representation of someones character
• Can portray era's and different periods in time
• It can be purely representational
• Helps distinguish between realistic and naturalistic characters in a play/show
• Helps define social status
• Helps audiences distinguish and understand characters 

In today's lesson we were put into 3 groups and were given one item of clothing/costume to use in a short improvised scene. The first item we were given in our group was a wig that that looked like a wig that a barrister or a judge in a court room would wear. As this was our first initial thought of what the piece of costume reminded us of, we then improvised a short scene with Magic wearing the wig being the judge, Niamh as the barrister, myself as the defender and Ellie as prosecutor. We did a short brief scene where it was set in a court room and the judge was wearing the wig. The second item of clothing we were given was a long skirt, we then used this item of costume as skirt that a teacher of primary school would wear. Niamh was the teacher and Ellie, Magic and myself sat on the floor listening to Niamh talking to us in a primary school setting. The last item of costume we were given were 2 red bow ties, this reminded us of costumes from Seussical so we did a very short snippet of 'Oh the thinks you can think' from the show. 

The reason why we did this exercise was to give us an understanding that costume plays a very big part in any production and can create understand to an audience to visually see costume that is relevant and represents what is being shown in the scene. By doing this exercise it is going to help further in development of costume as when we later start to design costumes for shows we can take whatever the show or play is and look at what the show is about and look in depth about what characters are representing for example their status or if they are a hero or a villain. Also we will be able to look at designing costumes literally for example if someone was playing a character of a cat would you have them dressed head to toe in fur or would you make their costume representational and only have them wear cat ears. All of these ideas and the use of the exercise we did will come into handy so we can create costume that is relevant to the show we are designing for and creates the appropriate theme to where the play is set and to reinforce characterisation and aid audience understanding. I feel it was a good idea to do the improvisation task as it put into context how important costume is and it also have us a better understanding of how to create costume and its purpose in a production.

Mini Costume Design Project

Mini costume design project

Over the next 2 weeks...

• Understand the basic process of text/story interpretation, design and presentation of a costume to the director and actor
• Design an appropriate piece of costume for a children's theatre production
• Communicate/present your designs to the group
• evaluate the process, contribution and the costume

What should you consider in the design process?

Appropraiteness of costume design for Children's Theatre!

The Personality of the character- reflected in the colour, size, shape, creativeness of the costume etc...what social status does your character have?

Actor's measurements

The physical movement of the character and therefore the impact on the costume

Suitable materials/fabric for the type and style of costume

What period is your story set?


We were divided into 3 groups of around 3-4 and given a character. The character that my group was given was 'An Angry Viking'. We then as a group had to create a backstory for our character and the questions we should consider when creating our character. The things we should ask to ourself and questions when creating our character are:

• Age
• Name
• Gender
• Social Status
• Ethnicity
• Main Character/Background role
• Hero/Villian

Here are our ideas for 'The Angry Viking






'
Once we completed our background story for our given character we were told that I would be a hat that we would be designing and making for the costume of our character. We then had to measure another person's head who isn't in our group to be able to design and make a hat for. We measured Josh's head and his measurements came to: 22.6 inches/57.4 cm. For next week we will need to have our materials for our hat to be able to create and make for next Monday.

Initial design ideas:

Possible design ideas would be a typical horn helmet that we would associated with what a viking looks like. Something like the following pictures are a starting point to something that we could create for this task:





 Catrina searched and found a link which shows us a simple way of creating a Viking hat similar to the pictures above of initial design ideas. Here is the link and instructions on how to create the helmet:
 http://www.instructables.com/id/Cardboard-and-Duct-Tape-Viking-Helmet/ 

The Materials that we need are :

Here is what our helmet should look like
once completed.

• Balloon
• Measuring tape
• Newspaper
• Normal tape
• Scissors
•  Hot glue
• Grey duct tape
• Light brown duct tape
• Dark brown duct tape
• Cardboard

I said I would be in charge of getting the coloured duct tape and between the 4 of us we would then split the cost of it. I have managed to get the duct tape and Catrina said she has a hot glue gun and a balloon and we will look in the workshop at college to find cardboard and newspaper.

The way in which this design for our costume is appropriate to our task is that it is purely representational to what people would instantly associate a viking with. Historically Vikings would not actually go into battle with horns on their helmet but a child would recognize and understand that our character was a viking when seeing the horns as it it what we associate viking's with, and as our design is for childrens theatre it would be appropriate to their learning and understanding. We are making our helmet with duct tape which isn't what historically a viking helmet would be made out of, but because we do not have lots of money to make a metal hat it is again representational to our design and purpose and audience. Our brief was to  make a hat for an angry viking, our character is what makes our character seem angry, however the hat is quite fearsome looking so this would contribute to our brief of an angry viking.  

As a group I feel we responded to the task really well, all of us focused and did research of finding correct background information and story for our character which was representative of the period that our character is from. As a whole we focused well and in my opinion I feel we responded to task in the correct way and did it well as by the end of the lesson we had created a detailed background story for our Viking, we had measurements for our person we are creating the hat for and we had an idea of what and how we are going to make the hat. 

What Is Choreography?

What is choreography?

• The movement that makes up a dance piece
• The act of designing a dance
• The use of dynamics - How you perform a motif
• Expressions and gestures
• Themes
• Stimulus/stimuli
• Choreographic devices
• Motif- A series of movements linked together and often repeated in a dance
• Actions - What you do in a dance - jumps, rolls, rotations, stillness
• Space- formations, placement of dancers, levels, US DS, near, far, small, large
• Relationships - Solo, duet, trios, group, props and set, audience, body parts

Choreographic devices: 'a specific way of manipulating movement to develop dance choreography'

• Speed/tempo
• Retrograde
• Canon
• Unison
• Repetition
• Embellishment
• Fragmentation
• Inversion

'Rush' by Akram Khan

After looking at what choreography is and what choreographic devices are, we looked at a professional piece of work by Akram Khan called 'Rush'. 

'Rush' - Akram Khan Video Clip

We were asked to take notes whilst watching the clip and write down anything about the dance, any choreographic devices, use of space, relationships dynamics and actions.
Whilst watching, it made me think of wind or breeze as there was a particular moment where the dancers were stood standing with their both their arms up vertically at a 90 degree angle moving very slowly as if drifting and being moved by a wind or breeze. There were actions that the dancers did which reminded me of turbines, as the dancers rotated their arms quickly in a turbine style way. Dynamically movements ranged from being sharp and slow as there were times were the movement was slow and sustained and also times where it was quick and sharp. When there were moments of stillness there was a lot of spacial restriction. Relationship wise the dance was a trio. 

After watching the video we were told the stimulus of the dance was about the feeling of free falling and paragliding. After being told the stimulus of the dance this then made sense to the points that I picked out of the drifting in the breeze movement as that reinforces the stimuli as it shows falling in the wind. The spacial restricted movements was like being in the airplane and parachute and being in a confined space before jumping out of the airplane and having freedom and free falling. Another moment in the dance piece was when the 3 dancers were jumping and rolling from side to side  and using extreme speed which is in contrast to the previous section of confined space. The use of extreme speed shows the freedom of free falling.

After watching and analyzing the main points and choreographic ideas of the dance we then were taught a section of the piece. We then got into groups of around 4 and then developed the original dance piece by the use of choreographic devices. In our group the way that we developed our piece was using choreographic devices. We used: Canon, Unison, Speed/Tempo. By manipulating choreography and changing around choreographic can dynamically change a piece and create interest and diversity. As a group I feel we managed to follow the task set well and we managed to develop the original piece of choreography by using the use of canon, speed and tempo and use of stillness to create a different dynamic to the original piece of choreography and to develop it into a group of four of us to dance.

The developed piece of choreography that we did is shown below:

Acting CV

Acting CV

An Actor's CV is very important when it comes to auditions. In some cases it is the first thing along with your head shot that a casting director may see before seeing you in person at an audition, so your Actor's CV has to include all the essentials and requirements and be impressive to your audition panel, and casting directors.

The requirements for an Actors CV are:

• Past experience of performing
• Any skills: Piano, Swimming etc.
• Roles you have played
• Height, Hair colour, appearance
• Playing Age
• Head shot - Your head shot needs to look the same as what you look like in person - Matching hair
• Workshops 
• Teaching
• Dance exam qualifications
• Music exam qualifications
• Singing exam qualifications
• Instruments you can play
• Accents
• Confidence with animals and children
• Equity
• Spotlight
• Promotional work

These are the main requirements needed to produce a well written and impressive Actor's CV.

My Actor's CV:

Name: Sophie Shepherd

Playing Age: 13-24

Eye colour: Green

Hair colour: Blonde

Ethnicity: White British, Caucasian

Native Accent: Southern England 

Build: Slim

Weight: 10st 

Height: 5ft 5 1/2 inches
Spotlight: Yes
Equity: Yes

Qualifications/Training: Musical Theatre Diploma, RAD Ballet examinations Grade 1-8, RAD Vocational exams; Inter-Foundation, Intermediate, Advanced 1, currently doing final exam Advanced 2.

Skills: Highly trained Singer (mezzo-soprano), Acting, Trained dancer in: Ballet, Tap, Modern, Jazz, Contemporary, Commercial, Musical Theatre, National, Ballroom, Latin. Further skills Horse riding, Swimming, Netball,  Archery, Rock climbing, Abseiling, Ice skating, Roller booting/blade, gymnastics, cycling. Outstanding Guitar playing skills. high experience in lighting design and sound design.

Confident with animals

Confident with children
Highly experienced in hair styling

Highly trained and high experienced touring singer and dancer.

Highly Trained in musical theatre and dance

Public speaker

High level of speaking French

Accents: RP, Irish, Cockney, Northern, New York American, Southern American, State american, French

Experience:

2007, Annie, Pavilion Theatre, Role: Annie, Director Carolyn Bennett

2007, The King and I, Pavilion Theatre, Director: Carolyn Bennett

2008, Blitz, Pavilion Theatre, Role: Frances Locke, Director: Tony Bright

2011, Annie, The Connaught Theatre, Role: Miss Hannigan, Director: Naomi Higgins

2013, Suessical The Musical, The Sealight Theatre, Role: Horton, Director: Rachel Maddix

2014, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, The Windmill Theatre, Role: Donna, Director: Janet Webb

2014, Bad Girls the Musical, The Sealight Theatre, Role: Denny Blood, Director: Rachel Maddix

2014, National Theatre Connexions, 'The Wardrobe' Capitol Theatre, Director: Adrian Riley 

2014, Little Shop of Horrors, The Windmill Theatre, Role: Crystal, Director: Kelly Manchee

2015, Mother Goose, The Windmill Theatre, Role: Jill, Director: Christopher Blanchard- Cooper

Champion at Dance World Cup 2013, 1st place senior folklore, The Dome Theatre, Brighton

All England Dance Champion, 2013 1st place senior song and dance final, Bloomsbury Theatre London

Performance at Pineapple dance studios with Louie Spence

Self employed events singer/vocalist

Experience in doing workshops and technique classes in Ballet, Jazz and contemporary at Dance schools for children and teenagers ages 11-16. Including teaching musical theatre routines.

Work as front of house at The Windmill theatre - selling programmes, tickets sales, ushering to seats

Auditioning: Attendance, Attitude, Appearance

Auditioning: Attendance, Attitude, Appearance

When it comes to your attitude towards an audition your manor should be solely focused on what is the best for you and to work hard to get where you want to be. You should think of it as a business and like it is a job. 
Your approach to yourself as a business is that you should have a good head shot. This can sometimes be the first thing that a casting call, or drama school audition or producers first see of you and you want to have a good head shot to give a first good impression even before they have met you. Essentially you should think of your head shot as a check board - you should have a plain background of either black or white. Depending on your hair colour, a black background would be more suited for people with light hair to show up on camera and also then have a contrasting coloured top to the background so in this example a white top. This way this gives the best effect and highlights your features and nothing gets lost in the focus of the photo. When coming to your approach and manor you should have an amazing performance CV. This should include your appearance features, your skills, any grades you have achieved in relevant performing skills, any jobs that you have done that is relevant to the industry. Again a performance CV may be the only thing that a casting director or production team sees before they see yourself in person, you therefor need to market yourself and have an amazing CV that promotes yourself correctly and shows off everything that you have done that will impress people to employ you or take you on for training. 
A show reel is another aspect to think about on showcasing your previous experience. An actor's show reel is a short piece of video or film footage showcasing an actor's previous work.  Actors who have a show reel are more likely to get work as it becomes much easier for them to promote themselves to acting agents and casting directors. This is an essential factor of you promoting yourself to get you the best offers of work if directors and agents are able to see your level of work and to see your capabilities and potential. 

An important attitude to have is  'Work creates Work' simply meaning that you may have to start at the bottom of the chain to work your way up in the industry to get where you want to be. So by having a determined attitude of working hard on a low salary in a not so thrilling jobs can open up opportunities for you. For example working backstage volunteering to move set can then lead to further opportunities by then having the possibility to work as crew and then further to stage manager. All work leads to more work so having the correct attitude and be prepared to take on any task will get you far in where you want to go.

Appearance is very important when it comes to an audition. Presenting yourself in the correct manor and looking your best will give off a good example to yourself to casting directors and acting agencies. When going to an audition, ladies should have neutral/natural makeup- a little bit of mascara and lip gloss/stick. You want to look presentable but not too over the top. Your hair should be versatile and be easily adapted and should be a neutral block standard colour (not bright red or green or half one colour and half another) preferably ladies hair should be long so that enables more ability to do different styles with the hair come what ever it may be that needs to be done to it. The ground rule for your hair style and colour is that is should always match your head shot! For men, hair should be a natural style and not have a giant Mahican  that stands out and is too much of a statement. You should essentially have no stand out piercings or tattoos, because again this gives too big of a statement where you should really have a natural and neutral look about you. 
When it comes to auditioning you should wear the correct clothing and shoes. Your shoes should be appropriate to the tasks and activities that you will be doing. For example you should not turn up to an audition in high stiletto heels if you are about to take part in a jazz class. Shoes should be comfortable for whatever activities that you may do and also should be appropriate for any sort of dance class that you may be taking part in e.g ballet shoes for a ballet class, jazz shoes/trainers for a jazz class etc. 
You should try to stand out at an audition to be recognised, however you should have a balance. You should try to stand out in a subtle way by wearing a coloured hairband or a coloured leotard or coloured socks, these are subtle ways of standing out from a group without giving a massive statement and being distracting. 

The rule to auditions is to never be late. To be late gives you a bad reputation and affects you as an auditionee. If an audition is in London for instance it takes 2-3 minutes on the tube from station to station, so you should always double the minimum time its needed to get to your audition plus another half an hour. Organisation is a key factor when auditioning, it again is not a good name against you if you are unorganised and forget anything when it comes to your audition. When auditioning for drama schools or open auditions the essentials that you need for these auditions will be:

• Any monologues needed (more than one if required) including spare copies
• Sheet music for song auditions (more than one song if required) in a folder or taped together in the right order for the pianist.
• Dance shoes: be prepared for all classes e.g ballet, jazz shoes/trainers, character shoes 
• Comfortable plain respectable dance wear 
• Plenty of food and drink
• Blanket/Warm Coat - especially for open auditions if you will be waiting outside for a few hours - make sure you bring layer up to layer down clothes so you are not too hot or cold.
• Small suitcase to carry everything around in
• Umbrella
• Try to make a friend in a cue so if you need the toilet, they can hold your place for you.

Attendance, attitude and appearance are extremely important when it comes to any sort of audition as you want to make a good impression but don't overstate yourself to be distracting and too over the top when it comes to appearance. Attendance and organisation wise you need to be sure to have plenty of time to get to places and have time for any delays, and you need to double check you have everything you need for an audition. You may not always need everything you pack, but it is always best to prepare and pack for all eventualities and then not have anything. Last of all on a whole your attitude should be professional and committed to what you do and try to give the best impression you can give and be prepared for all eventualities and be sure to have the correct approach and manor to directors and agents at any audition you may have in your career.