In this week's lessons and after school rehearsals we focussed entirely on Born to Handjive, specifically: complex formations, intense parter routines, cannons , and accumulation. When doing this I tried to focus on my facial expressions and posture to still represent my character throughout the dance. This means that I was working towards both of my targets at once as I was improving my Jazz Dance Technique and improving non-verbal communication skills at the same time.
In our first lesson of the week we started with some light stretching ahead of what was going to be a non-stop lesson. We stretched out each muscle group that we would be using, starting with our necks, then backs, hips, groins , glutes, hamstrings, and finally calves. Once fully warmed up we began to run what we could remember from last week. As we didn't have our specific parters with us for the routine, we decided to continue to focus our attention on at first polishing the dancing we did last week making all of our hand movements and footwork crisp and perfectly in time with the music. Last week i struggled with the fast-paced movements, however this week i started to find them easier which allowed me to add character to my dancing through facial expression.
Our next rehearsal was with the entire cast so we were able to add the complex formations and changes that we had wanted to do previously. Due to Danny being the lead of the show and a key dancer in this song, I was placed centre for the majority of this dance piece meaning it was vital to look confident in my dancing. This also included being at the front of many cannons for the whole chorus to follow - this was quite challenging because i really had to concentrate on counting the counts of 8 in my head. At first I really struggled with this because I couldn't remember which movement I was supposed to turn on in the cannon, however after repeating this section of the dance quite a few times, I managed to memorise the exact moment I would turn based on the timing of the music. As we had the entire cast, it also allowed us to start creating and learning our partner sections - as Danny and Cha Cha are supposed to win this dance contest, our dance has to be the most complicated and extravagant; this includes many lifts, fast hand movements and precise footwork. My partner taught me the first 6 counts of 8 that we would be using for a smaller performance in the next week meaning this had to be slick and precisely in time with the music. some examples of the lifts are: one where my partner would jump and wrap her legs around my hips, I would then swing down and then up with power and push her up from the waist with it - to maximise height and power with this, we realised I needed to swing low and fast to create momentum and push up from my waist on the way back up; another lift is the 'around the world' variation where my partner jumps up into my arms, and then whilst only holding onto my neck, swings back and around the back of my body and then back again and up into my arms. I noticed that all of these lifts required a lot of upper body strength but also core strength to remained balanced and so to help me improve with this I will work on my core strength outside of school.
Finally, we ran through the scenes we had looked at last week and continued to add further characterisation. As we only did tis very briefly, I decided to focus on the feedback I received last week which was to show more of a contrast in pitch and posture on the arrival of Sandy. I feel like I did this well as I went higher pitch very suddenly and also bouncy on posture to emulate an over-excited child: this completely contrasted the cool and calm character of Danny that had been portrayed previously. I had also decided to do some research in terms of watching some more performances and interpretations of my character and noticed that in every portrayal of Danny, he had specific handshakes/greetings with each member of the Tbirds and so I started to integrate this into my own performance when Danny sees his boys in Act 1 Scene 2.
Next week we will try to catch up more on my scenes and so will focus on Act 1 Scene 7, and Act 2 scene 2. I will also continue to practice my dances at home and work on my core strength to help improve my balance.
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