Week 5

Monday 11th Feb In today’s lesson we watched and self-evaluated our practice run of "The School Song", that we filmed in the previous lesson. After watching my groups performance, I thought we were successful in a few things. I believe that I hold good characterisation throughout the performance which was a focus to me as my long-term target was to make sure that I was not losing facial expressions and character during the blocks sequence. I also think I had a clear and good diction throughout. Diction is a key factor in this song, and I think I was successful in making sure I was projecting during the song. As a group, I felt that we were relatively successful in keeping in union with each other. All the movements happened on the correct beats and I believed that we looked like a good team whilst watching. We all had good extension in our arms during the lines "So innocent, I asked a thousand questions", and the timing was correct which was tricky as we did the movement in cannon. We also had things that we needed to improve.

Personally, I believe that I need to work on my stamina in order to make sure that I can get all the words out clearly and without losing my breath. I will improve this by making sure I use specific stamina building warm-ups before each performance in order to improve this. I also think that my stance would be more childlike and how I move about the stage. I will improve this by exaggerating all movements that I do, and make sure I only move with purpose. Tuesday 12^th February

Due to this being the final lesson before the half term, we mainly focused on the school song as this will be our assessed piece that we will perform on the 5^th of March. Our class sang through the song once as our only warm up, as we needed to fit a lot into this lesson. We then ran through the block sequence, once with the blocks and once without as there is only one set and there are two different groups. This was a challenge as we needed to remember our cues and block placements without having the blocks to hand. Whilst going through the choreography without blocks, however, it allowed us to see that, when we weren’t throwing or placing a block, our choreography became weak and we didn’t look polished as sometimes we just stood there. In order to improve this, we added the movement of placing and “L” on our forehead during the line “This living hell”. I was holding a block during this part, so I didn’t partake in this new element. We then ran it with the blocks and our feedback was that it looked a lot more polished, now that we had focused on our background movement.

 During the half term, my target is to go over the song at home and make sure that I project during the higher parts in order for me to be heard. I will also go through the choreography to the best of my ability without having the use of the blocks. This will be useful as it means I will not need to rely on my group to help me get through the performance.

We then proceeded to go over other songs that would be included in our showcase on the 5^th, including Wilkomen and Seasons of Love. We only went through Wilkomen once as most of would not be taking part in the performance but the run through made me realise that I am good at remembering previous songs and choreography, which will benefit me greatly in the future. We then also sang through Seasons of love and created a basic staging. We all stood in a shallow semi-circle shape in order for all of us to be seen by the audience, and also as an ode to the stage productions of “Rent”. 

Our feedback was that it lacked energy and that we needed to add some basic movement. We decided to add a step touch whilst clicking in order for it to look more visually exciting.