Performance Evaluation - Christmas Term 2015

 

Evaluation of working process:

Our rehearsal period began on 9th November, 2015. For this performance we were working with Lucy Palmer, who is also our course lecturer. As we have worked with her before, we were more prepared in terms of the rehearsal process and how it is going to be.

 

I was not present during the first week of rehearsal period and therefore, I was not placed in the piece anywhere. From the second week, one of the other students who was given the opportunity to choreograph a short piece that was going to be included in the final began their choreography. Also at the same time our choreographer, Lucy continued working on her piece. She structured the piece further and has almost completed the making process. Once the student completed choreographing her piece, she had the chance to choose the dancers who were to perform her choreography. As I missed the first week of performance period, my main priority was to learn the sections of dance that I had not been able and also to be available for my choreographer in order for her to place me in the piece.

 

By the end of the third week on performance period, we had completed choreographing the entire piece and the last two days of the week, we got the  opportunity to rehearse in the theatre, where we were performing. This helped us in understanding the time it takes to travel across the back and also to use the big space to position our dance. One of the challenges we faced in the rehearsal process this term was that of space. The studios that we were using were quite small to fit 30 dancers and therefore, we found it difficult to rehearse in such small space. However, being in the theatre for the third and fourth week made a difference in our performing skills as well as our energy.

 

In the fourth week, we were in the theatre throughout, polishing our piece either by adding or subtracting sections or people who did not do justice to the piece. Our main theme in the final rehearsals was to perform and show the conviction on our faces to present it to the audience. The main thing said was to work on the focus, bring the conviction in our eyes and keep chin up so the audience can see our faces and another very important thing we were told was to believe in the concept and to show it effectively through our performance.

Personally, I thought the group worked very well together in order to smoothen the rehearsal process and also in helping each other. 

 

Strengths/Challenges:

This term I was very pleased with the rehearsal period as it ran through very smoothly and there was very little stress from the dancers about their availability and also with the fact that things were very calm backstage before the show.

Although, I was not present in the first week, I did learn the choreography sections fairly quickly and I was rather impressed by that as I could grasp movements much faster and could be placed in the piece.

During the technical rehearsals, as well as the show I was able to build a connection with the audience and could effectively focus and present the concept behind our choreography well as the audience mentioned that the thought of arrival and departure was seen through the piece clearly.

The main challenge in the rehearsal process was that the group was far too big and the space was not enough for so many people to dance in. We would definitely like to have a change of rehearsal process for such a big group or a bigger space to rehearse in as there are so many students.

 

Areas of Improvement:

My main target for next performance period is to improve my flexibility and floor work skills as I am scared of doing floor work. I am scared of doing floor work as I feel that I may hurt myself so badly that I may not be able to dance again and this only because I have gotten hurt once before and injured my hip which till today hurts. Also, I think a dancer needs to be flexible in terms of their body and feel that I lack flexibility and therefore, plan to learn new exercises that will help me improve my flexibility. Similarly, I would like to learn the correct technique of performing floor work in order to face my fear and perform floor work with grace and ease.