Post Shows Evaluation
Looking back at the shows I personally felt that opening night wasn't such a success. I went wrong in the opening number in the choreography which then lead to everyone following me what I was doing and doing the exact same thing. This was a worrying thought as it made me feel for the whole show that everyone takes the lead from me for what they are meant to do and that kept playing on my mind that if I went wrong again people would then take the lead and copy me again. When it came to the Pekes and Pollicles song I felt I stumbled over my words a few times and I also bit my tongue which caused me to stumble. During the song I was marching backwards and I fell backwards and landed on the upper stage blocks in a sitting position, I recovered it quite well as people didn't notice and I landed in a sitting position however this was knocking my confidence for this shows performance as I felt I was letting it down due to my mistakes. In the final song ' The Ad-dressing of Cats' In my group I really felt we couldn't get the timing of the song as we had never run through it and so it appeared that we didn't know the words. I knew the words but couldn't get the timing which made it seem that we were singing under our breath to get through it when we were all trying to come in at different times in an attempt to sing a verse which really didn't sound good. The whole of the finale song wasn't too great and it was thought that we were going to cut the song for the next 3 shows. We had a run through of the song in the morning before the next two shows and I felt much more confident with what I was singing as I knew the timing and as a group we sounded so much better that we knew the timing of the song. As a personal note for myself I am unsure what happened when I forgot the choreography I think I got lost in it and just got too ahead of myself, I just needed to make sure that I was concentrating. Before the next shows I thought it would be wise to revise the words to 'Pekes and Pollicles' as I stumbled across the words a few times. It wasn't noticeable as I was able to cover it well as I asked audience members and they did not notice. I spoke to audience members after the show and out of the people I spoke to no one seemed to understand the concept as it was changed and to them it didn't make sense. An argument to that would be can you interpret and understand the original anyways however the people I spoke to were very confused as to what was going on.
Another point audience members made was that Saxona who plays Grizabella was dressed up as Macavity and playing him. Later in act 2 there is what is called 'The Macavity Fight' which we have got Macavity pretending to be a courier to get into the design house and steal designs, I then figure out who it is and I pull down the hood and Macavity is revealed. As it is Saxona who has doubled up to play that part audience members were very confused when the hood was pulled down and they thought it was Grizabella with a mask on stealing the designs. So we are now going to ask a year 12 from the classes to be Macavity at this point of the show as it was very confusing for the audience as I said they didn't understand who it was. Coming to the Thursday Matinee show we performed to an audience of St Andrew's school boys. The main things that went wrong in this show was that at the beginning of act 2 the music cut out and part way through Grace and Niamh singing and into Ellie's solo and for all of us to join in singing 'Moonlight turn your face to the moonlight, open up enter in'
The music then came back in for the next song instead as of course the people operating the sound would not have been able to have come back in with the music at the exact time so they needed to come back at an appropriate time where people would be able to pick the music back up which in this case was the beginning of the next song. The other thing which required some improvisation from myself and Magic was after the macavity fight the music was skipping the song Mr. Mistoflees and was going straight to memory. And so magic and I were on the stage improvising to waste the time and try to give the people on the music time to try and sort out the situation. I felt I worked hard in my song Pekes and Policles, I felt I managed to get all of the words in and I didn't mess up. I felt performance wise when looked at myself in choreography that I perform with confidence and carry the choreography well. It comes quite naturally to me to use extension of arms and go that extra bit with movement. When looking at choreography as a group there are times where there aren't always arms and legs with extension and haven't always got a strong and sharp dynamic. A further development if we were to do this show again as a whole on the choreography would to spend time on performance quality, the movement is all there however it's the performance element and the dynamics on the performance.
In our final performance we had another technical issue where the music cut out in the song 'Gumbie Cat' it's cut out whilst I was singing the second verse and then wasn't able to come back in until the start of the next song. We all had to carry on acapella and had to then do the tap routine without music I was very worried as of timing if everyone would Listen and watch each other and not speed up or slow down. Watching the video back I can see and hear that the tap did speed up as we were all trying to listen to each other to keep in time and as it happened it all started to speed up, we managed to keep up very well and able to push through the situation. Speaking to an audience member at the end they did not actually realise that it went wrong and thought it was some contemporary idea to dance to no music so a positive element to this was that some people didn't realise that anything went wrong meaning we managed to power through the situation in a professional manner.
The things that I was trying to achieve in our production of cats was my voice, movement and interaction. Vocally I felt I had clear vocals and diction when speaking as part of my character I made a lot a lot announcements to the Jellicle Cats about the Jellicle leader announcing who will go to the heavy side layer. I had a lot of issues with my mic not picking me up properly and on Thursday night of the show my Mic's batteries died. This meant for my song 'Pekes and Pollicles' I really had to project when singing as it is a wordy song as it is so I need to make sure that what I was singing was heard.
Movement wise and my location on stage I wanted to be located high up in the office to show my status of being high up in the office and physically show that by being high up on the staging. My interaction with other characters was that I was always showing care for them for example when the Macavity Fight happened I was rushing about around the models making sure that they were okay and showing my care towards them. I was always involved with looking for outfits for the models by presenting them items of clothing to wear for example in the opening scene and also during Rum Tum Tugger song I presented Tugger with an item of clothing during the song. When up in the office with Elsie - Old Deuteronomy - myself and her would be discussing models be looking at the picture of head shots and also be looking through files. I would also be writing down things and taking notes as if writing a letter for Elsie.
Looking at character aims, my aims where in the Pekes and Pollicles and the Macavity fight. In the Pekes I wanted to be able to show the narration of the song and my status of explaining the story. I felt I did this by being involved with the year 12's choreography and the gestures that I included whilst singing. During the Macavity Fight my aims for my character was for the audience to understand my status in the company of fashion to show how I sorted out the situation maintaining the models. I felt I maintained momentum in this section as there was no dialogue so the movement had to be what maintained the piece and create interest to the audience, I felt I did this as I was rushing about the stage directing models to go to different places and do things and it was all quite chaotic and I felt that I managed to hold the interest.
Further Developments for Cats if we were to do it again I would want us as a group to tighten up on choreographic dynamics; for example the extensions of hands and arms and having sharp dynamics as when watching back there were times where not everyone looked the same when we were dancing in unison and as a dancer I have picked up on that instantly. Personally I would perhaps experiment with the way I sung pekes and pollicles and maybe add more of my own spin and interpretation to it, as I sung quite straight and how it was written.
As an overall conclusion I feel we managed to pull off the show as to begin with I personally was unsure about how the concept would work. As we got closer to the show it was quite late that we go the ball rolling and it started to come together and look like a show. Overall I am pleased with how I performed and come show week I started to really enjoy performing the show.
Movement wise and my location on stage I wanted to be located high up in the office to show my status of being high up in the office and physically show that by being high up on the staging. My interaction with other characters was that I was always showing care for them for example when the Macavity Fight happened I was rushing about around the models making sure that they were okay and showing my care towards them. I was always involved with looking for outfits for the models by presenting them items of clothing to wear for example in the opening scene and also during Rum Tum Tugger song I presented Tugger with an item of clothing during the song. When up in the office with Elsie - Old Deuteronomy - myself and her would be discussing models be looking at the picture of head shots and also be looking through files. I would also be writing down things and taking notes as if writing a letter for Elsie.
Looking at character aims, my aims where in the Pekes and Pollicles and the Macavity fight. In the Pekes I wanted to be able to show the narration of the song and my status of explaining the story. I felt I did this by being involved with the year 12's choreography and the gestures that I included whilst singing. During the Macavity Fight my aims for my character was for the audience to understand my status in the company of fashion to show how I sorted out the situation maintaining the models. I felt I maintained momentum in this section as there was no dialogue so the movement had to be what maintained the piece and create interest to the audience, I felt I did this as I was rushing about the stage directing models to go to different places and do things and it was all quite chaotic and I felt that I managed to hold the interest.
Further Developments for Cats if we were to do it again I would want us as a group to tighten up on choreographic dynamics; for example the extensions of hands and arms and having sharp dynamics as when watching back there were times where not everyone looked the same when we were dancing in unison and as a dancer I have picked up on that instantly. Personally I would perhaps experiment with the way I sung pekes and pollicles and maybe add more of my own spin and interpretation to it, as I sung quite straight and how it was written.
As an overall conclusion I feel we managed to pull off the show as to begin with I personally was unsure about how the concept would work. As we got closer to the show it was quite late that we go the ball rolling and it started to come together and look like a show. Overall I am pleased with how I performed and come show week I started to really enjoy performing the show.
Cats show 1 Part 1
Cats Show 1 Part 2
Cats Show 1 Part 3
Cats Show 1 Part 4
Cats Show 2 Part 1
Cats Show 2 Part 2
Cats Show 2 Part 3
Cats Show 3 Part 1
Cats Show 3 Part 2
Cats Show 3 Part 3
Cats Show 3 Part 4
Cats Show 3 Part 5
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