Unit 2 tech run

 On Friday the 6th of december we did a full que to que with a band run as well. This year we didn't get as much rehearsal with the band as we wanted due to the difficulty of the score and the high intensity of dance and scenes in this show. Myself and the actors for Callahan and Emmett did luckily have an opportunity for a few hours of band rehearsal just before the full band run, just to go over anything that could possibly slow us down in the band run with the full cast. On the Friday, to make sure that both casts had a chance to run songs and get a feel of how to work with mics and band, we decided to run Act 1 with one cast and Act 2 with the other. Working through Act 1, we quickly realised that we wouldn't be able to work through all the show's songs in that one day. The final confirmation that we would not be able to get through to the very end in just one day was when we hit 'Chip on my shoulder', working on this song was very difficult to both casts because of the amount of vamps and set changes running throughout the whole scene, all together making it a 7 minute song with 4 set changes, some of which occuring in as little as 17 seconds moving from Elle's bedroom to the classroom using the Delta-nus to move the bedroom out and the students bringing the benches in. Because of the difficulty of the score for the song and the difficulty in the different singing parts, it took the other cast 2 and half hours to work on the song from beginning to end. This caused our day to last over 8 hours with the cast i was apart of having no actual time on stage running,this really tested the maturity and patience of the cast because we knew that it would be difficult for a few of the younger cast who hadn't been part of the process before. We managed to finish off Act 1 at 3:30 so we started Act 2 after a short break for the whole cast. Act 2 was a much shorter run time with us managing to smash it out in about 2 and a half hours with no major mistakes.

Unit 2 Being a vocal performer presentation

 

Unit 2 Mid term reflection

 Reflection on each of my SMART targets-

SMART target 1-

Improving my stamina in dance specifically. In our dance session, we learnt the first minute of choreo for ' Bend and Snap', this dance is a very technical dance where we are constantly moving and doing complex choreo. It really tested my stamina because it involves jumps and complicated jazz sections. when we first ran through the dance I really struggled to keep up with some of the rest of my peers in the lesson so when everybody was having a break I made sure to ask my teacher questions about exactly what foot i was using for each section and whether our feet were turned out or in, specific questions like that to make sure i was getting the choreo right. Because,from trial and error in the past i've realised that personally if i get the choreo down i don't end up exerting so much energy throughout the whole dance. I think after the first few practices i ended up getting down the choreo pretty well so i could focus on keeping the stamina the whole dance but, i found that i was still struggling a little bit at the end of the dance. So, to keep improving, i will continue doing HIIT workouts in my dance sessions and carry on with the constant practices at home and at school

SMART target 2-

Improving my muscle memory in dance. In the first rehearsal of 'Bend and Snap', i found that i struggled to pick up the moves by just watching my teacher do the dance. So, i decided that whilst she was teaching it i would follow and copy exactly the moves she was doing so i could mirror myself off of her which i found helped my brain memorise what my body was meant to be doing and at which point in the song because I could run it in my mind of my teacher doing it to the music and my body doing the same. I also, similar to stamina, would continue to walk through it and ask if i didn't know exactly what i was doing to make sure that every bit of choreo was down in my head and i wouldn't have to be learning little details of the dance close to show week because i didn't know whether my foot was pointed out or in. I found all these different hacks very useful towards my end goal of learning choreo quickly. overall, i found that picturing things in my head and going over them multiple times helped my ability to do the choreo and i feel like I have improved my muscle memory because when i jumped into the rehearsal i was able to pick it up with little difficulty. Moving forward, I would like to see how I react to being taught the new legally blonde dances and see how quickly i can pick up the choreo with my new techniques.

SMART target 3-

Improving my characterisation in song. Overall this is the target that I haven't really been able to improve much on because we haven't really blocked any songs fully so i haven't been able to play with my characterisation in song yet. However, in one of my recent vocal sessions at the end my teacher asked whether anybody was confident enough to work on a song in front of peers, i decided that then was the perfect time to work on some legally blonde songs with an audience. I worked on the part of ' So much better' after the line ' maybe she's what you prefer'. My vocal teacher worked through a technique of me pulling back from the full singing and instead trying to sing it as the character would talk it. We tried an exercise where i spoke the lyrics as if they were dialogue instead of singing them, it really helped me understand where i needed to pull back and maybe speak it.For example, in "Take it like a man", for the dialogue i decided that i wanted to over enunciate the dialogue because i knew it would have a comedic effect on the audience, i decided to contrast this with softer singing in the first section to really emphasise the fact that shes excited to be there and wants to respect the fact that shes there with the being quiet. I realised whilst rehearsing that "pump in pure oxygen" was a comedic line so i decided to really exaggerate the line and act if there actually was pure oxygen to really hit the comedic factor of it. This was really helpful because it helped me hone into my characterisation. Moving forward, i would like to keep doing this exercise to know how i can really make the character my own. 

SMART target 4-

Improve my confidence on stage so i can project myself as a lead actress. Over the past few months, I have felt way more confident in myself because i have been able to support and work closely with a lot of the other lead principals and ensemble. This has improved my confidence because working with a group of such talented people who know exactly what they are makes me feel more comfortable to make mistakes and improve my performance. I found through the process of rehearsing and performing, that my confidence gets brought up more when I get into a safe space and i feel comfortable enough to make mistakes. This makes me confident because i then know that I have made a mistake and i can work on it.