PERFORMANCE:
· Describe what you did well in the performance (e.g., commitment, expression, accuracy, timing, spacing etc.)
Some of the things that I think I did very well in the performance was getting my spacing correct as in all the rehearsals I always found myself to far in front or too far back but watching the performance back I was in the perfect position most of the time. I also tried to have good expression throughout the dance but for a quite a bit of the dance I was finding it quite hard to maintain but that’s just something to improve on for next time. Overall, I am proud of myself as I did quite well/better than I expected and it’s something I can look back on and cherish.
· Reflect on how well you believe the group performed
Overall, I think the group performed very well. Looking back at the video we were very organized and put together and you could barely see any of the small mistakes we made. We also had very good spacing. I think everyone might have made a few mistakes, but they were barely noticeable. We all had such an amazing time on stage and hoped that that would come through in our dance. I reckon we would have done way better if we had had more time to rehearse as we only got to join with the other class on the day of the performance and only for 2 of the periods. Considering the time, we were given to practice with the other group we adapted very well with the other class as well as working around the common with all the trees and props etc.
· How was performing outside on the Common different from performing on a stage.
Performing on the common was different from performing on a stage because on the common there was a lot less space that we had to adapt to different things that were getting in our way making it inconvenient to our dance including trees, props, drains etc. It was also quite different as the atmosphere was a lot different like it almost for me felt less intimidating and that less people were watching me but also, we were outside which was a different feeling as in a way it was more free.
· What have you learnt from the process and performance that you can take with you for future projects (this can be in dance or in other areas of school and/or life)..
Throughout this process and the performance something I learnt that I could take with me to future project is that always try things that you haven’t done before or aren’t good at because I don’t know if you know but I didn’t do any dance prior to this project x and I joined feeling quite anxious and nervous because I thought you had to be professional. It turned out to be super fun and I really enjoyed it and learned many new skills which I probably couldn’t have been able to do before. So overall I am proud of myself for trying new things even if I was a bit nervous cause you never know if you might enjoy something.
· Describe in detail the process we went through to create the Dance routine for the Illuminate Festival.
To make this dance it was a very lengthy process. We had to keep playing around and changing bits and pieces to see what would look best. We went through a lot to get to the final product but in the end it looked amazing. Throughout the semester without even knowing it we were creating our dance. Our dance was based upon us being puppets and very controlled and how we broke free so lots of our activities that we did in class evolved around this idea in a way. One of the activities we had to do was pick a toy, any toy and we had to give it very rigid movements and turn it into a puppet, but you had to end in your first position. We had to do different counts of these rigid movements including one where you went 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and then back to original placement. This was one of the activities that actually made a big feature in our dance; it was the start. For the breaking free/freedom parts we got to get into small groups at the start of the term and make a dance about us breaking free which ended up being the end part to our dance. This then went into the last part of the dance where we got to be free with it and join in with everyone. This process overall was very lengthy but me personally I would say that I enjoyed every part, hanging out with friends, the making of the dance and just everything. We did many other activities to expose us to different types of dances including slow; the circles dance and fast; running square.
· Describe the structure of the dance work. It had a binary structure. Explain the 2 parts and how it relates to your schooling journey.
Throughout the dance we had 2 parts which means the dance had a binary structure. The first part was the puppet part where we were all controlled and appeared as puppets which relates to our schooling journey in the sense that we don’t have much choice in year 7 and that were still evolving and then the second part was where we broke free from the puppets and have evolved and now we have grown and are able to make our own decisions throughout school. I think this theme was such a beautiful one which symbolized us transitioning and growing up.
· Most of the choreography was created by you in small groups. This requires collaboration. Describe how you collaborated effectively and also what you could do next time to improve your collaboration skills.
During the making of this dance, we collaborated a lot through small groups. I feel that we collaborated effectively because we all listened to each other’s ideas and actually incorporated them. We also tried to do things that everyone liked and felt comfortable with. To improve my collaboration skills for next time I think that we should be given more time so that we could extend on our ideas to make them better but also since we hadn’t really discussed the topic ‘freedom’ before, so we didn’t know specifically what to adapt on. Even if your ideas weren’t always necessarily good its good to try things out and flearn.
· Describe the style of movement in the two sections. Describe how we used Body (Shape), Energy (how you performed the moves), Space and Time.
Our dance included 2 different sections with 2 different styles of movement. The first section our movements our body was very rigid and controlled and almost as if someone was holding us back from being free. In this section the movements were very sharp and precise and you had to contain yourself on the spot. The second section we finally got to let go and be loose and our energy was released and it made the way we did our dance very free and flowy throughout the whole body. The second section got me to move my body around more and not be fixated on one specific position.
Link to the video:
