FINAL PERFORMANCE

Over all our end of year performance was a massive success, an enjoyable memorable event and an emotion day for all of us. Us BTEC Performing Arts girls made sure we had the time of our lives knowing this was going to be the last performance we ever did together as a group. The 2 years we have spent together will be 2 years I won't forget. We've laughed together, cried together, stressed out to the max together and most of all enjoyed every moment together.



All the BTEC PA girls on stage at the end

Over the 2 years we've put together pieces and learnt new techniques which all came together to form our end of year performance. We repeated and improved our favourite pieces and created new ones bearing in mind what we had learnt over the two years.

We held a technical rehearsal on Tuesday evening to pull the whole show together using the technical equipment and staging. We started off by setting the staging blocks and deciding how we were going to piece them. We had to think about all the dances and which ones we needed the blocks for. We needed to make sure it gave enough room for the dancers to dance in our We Will Rock You pieces. We also thought about the singers and where they were going to stand for their solos. We added to higher blocks to the stage to add levels and also giving us a way of getting onto the stage. We the staging was set the caretaker came and helped us position the light. This meant we could have the lighting we needed for each piece in the right place. This then meant Chris who was in charge of lighting could see what lights he needed to use for each piece. For solos mainly the spotlight was used and for our group pieces we used the coloured lights to reflect the mood of the piece. We also sorted all the microphones deciding who needed which one for which piece and whereabouts they needed to be on the stage. We decided that for the drama pieces they weren't going to use the head mics due to the fact you couldn't see their facial expressions.

When we had all the technical side sorted we started running the acts in order, this gave us a chance to look at everything deciding what we needed to improve and if we needed to change anything. The only thing that needed improvement was our WWRY performances. We were all singing with out mics so the volume needed to be loud enough for people to hear at the back. We then had to practise this in our last few lessons to make sure it was loud enough for our actual performance. At the end of the rehearsal we all came together and agreed our rehearsal was very successful. We then had our lessons in the week to practise and make it perfect.

The day of our show arrived and we were all panicking through our day wanting our school day to be over. We sang through all our songs in our btec performing arts lesson and looking forward to the night ahead. At the end of our school day we rushed into the hall and started to set up. This included setting up the staging, microphones and seating area. We chose the colour theme of purple and silver and set up the room according to these colours. We set up the table and covered them in a purple table cloth. We then purchased silver and purple helium balloons, purple flowers and confetti to decorate the tables. We were really pleased with the layout and how the hall looked. Our aim was to make it look professional and we achieved this. Comments were made when the audience arrived about how we'd transferred the school hall into a professional theatre space.

Getting the Hall ready for performances

Our first performance was our two pieces from Annie. Annie was our original idea for the theme of our show and this is where we got the theme of dreams and aspirations from. Our first piece we performed was Maybe which is a meaningful song about orphans 'dreaming' about their parents. This gave us the idea of basing our show on our own hopes and dreams for the future. In our rehearsal process we found this difficult to hit the right notes but we eventually got there and gave a strong vocal performance. The only thing that I would of   improved was to set some movements to give the performance a bit more life. Although for the opening piece I thought it looked affective as we did it. Our costumes look good and very effective on stage; they fit the part of our characters perfectly. It was a strong opening to the show; it gave us the opportunity to show everyone the singing talents that we have. This led on to our next piece which was also an Annie song; 'Hard Knock Life'. This gave us a chance to show our skills we have learnt in musical theatre. This performance was a mixture of singing, dancing and acting. If this piece was not acted properly it wouldn't of given the performance any justice. Getting across our characters to the audience is crucial so we had to put our self in an orphan’s position and think what they would have been feeling while singing this song. Happy? Sad? Angry? From the lyrics and the storyline of Annie we know the orphans are fed up and want someone to love them and care for them. We had to put this emotion across to the audience through our dancing and singing as well. Our dance was simple but very effective; it represented us as orphans perfectly. I think these two performances were the strongest group pieces we had. We all really got into character and we also enjoyed doing it putting everything into it.

                                                     On stage for our Annie performances 

I sang a solo of Out Here On My Own from Fame that has have sung in a previous singing exam and got very good marks. This is a song I feel confident singing and each time I sing it I seem to improve. I feel I gave a strong performance and I was given many compliments after the performance. If I wanted to go that one step further and improved my performance even more I could have done some character research and acted out the song. This is something I will think about when doing my next performance in the future.

                                                    Singing my solo 'Out Here On My Own'

I feel that are two weakest performances were our We Will Rock You (WWRY) songs. We had to do these two pieces as part of our costume construction to wear the costumes we had made. Obviously our costumes weren’t up to ‘West End Standards’ but considering they had been made in school they met a very high standard. They met the criteria and looked great on the stage for the piece we were doing. This performance was the one we were least confident with but we went on stage and gave it our best. There was a few technique problems but we overcame these. For example I and Katie had a duet at the beginning of Don’t Stop Me Now but the music started as we were still walking on the stage. We covered this up by coming in on a different line but doing it with confidence. We then had a problem with the curtains and be able to get onto the stage. This cut off the beginning of the dance number but we all managed to come in and save ourselves. To improve our performance we needed to up the volume of our singing. We found this difficult because the song is very low and it’s difficult to project your voice when at such a low note. We also had to dance at the same time with lots of energy. This made us out of breathe making it even more difficult to project our voices.

                Performing in our costumes we made in Costume Construction to 'Don't Stop Me Now'

Our performance of Somebody to Love was a good performance but I feel there was room for a lot of improvement. The dance was simple but effective and we didn’t want to take away from Chloe’s singing. The dancing could of been a lot slicker but it was still a strong performance. This is also a piece we had fun doing and performing. This is what is important, as long as we enjoyed ourselves.

            Performing in our costumes we made in Costume Construction to 'Somebody To Leave'

AND ALL THAT JAZZ.... This HAS to be the best dance I have ever done in my life! I loved every minute of doing it. This means the rehearsal process and performing it. We did have a slight problem with the music skipping towards the end of the dance making us a little bit late but we picked this up and carried on. The performance was strong, slick and full of life. We really took on the characters well and it suited the style perfectly. (This was a repeat of the dance, see earlier blog for more evaluation)

                                                            Performing 'All That Jazz'

My favourite performance I gave was my performance of Popular with Katie. We are both very interested in Musical Theatre and both know the song well. We thought it would be the perfect piece to do and add our own twist to it. It is normally performed as a solo with someone sitting on stage to act with. We decided to change it to a duet and make the person normally sitting on the stage the audience. This gave us a chance to involve the audience and interact with them. We divided the lines equally and decided how to perform it as a duet. It’s quite a humorous song so we decided to be a double act with Katie being the geeky one messing about and not taking life too seriously and me being the serious one loving herself and always wanting to be in the spot light. Our performance went down a treat and the audience loved it. Katie and I work really well together and we always enjoy ourselves and have a laugh together. I would love to work with Katie again in the future and I’m sure we’ll have great fun doing our A Levels together. If we did the performance again I would have loved to have actually gone into the audience but this would have been difficult with the technical equipment we have in school.

                                               With Katie on stage performing 'Popular'                                            

Our ending performance was a very emotional performance as it was an end of an era. We’ve worked so hard together for the last two years and I will miss all the girls as a group. It was a lovely performance of us singing Someone Like You with Jack Dent playing the guitar. With all the upset a few of us did come in at the wrong place and sing the wrong words but we just carried on enjoying our last performance all together.

             

                              Performing for the last time together singing 'Someone Like You' 

Jazz Evaluation

Overall I really enjoyed the Jazz section of BTEC Performing Arts. It is a style that I have never really taken much part in and I enjoyed exploring further. One of my favourite musicals is Chicago so I really enjoyed doing the style that is key in this musical.

We first started by exploring the different types of the style 'jazz'. It is a very diverse genre. We look at lyrical jazz, street jazz and rock n roll jazz. These are all individual styles but have an element of jazz in them. We did this by splitting into groups and each choreographing a dance to the set style we were given. My group was given lyrical jazz and we all enjoyed choreographing this dance. We are all strong at lyrical but we had to use the jazz style in this as well. This meant remembering to be slick and using loads of sharp movements such as with your hands and head.

Our end product turned out really well showing the clear difference between lyrical jazz, just jazz and just lyrical. We still used elegant movements but then went through the whole dance adding hand and head movements to fit the criteria. Our end product showed a strong lyrical jazz piece of choreography.

We then went on to teach each of our group the choreography we had made up. By doing this it gave us a better understanding of how jazz can be interpreted in many different ways.  It clearly showed the differences in the styles but how they all have an element of jazz in them.  We all enjoyed this because it gave us a chance to explore styles that we have never done before.  I particularly enjoyed doing rock n roll as this is a style I have never done before.  I didn't find this style particularly easy but when I got into it I found it easier and it became more of a routine than just steps. 

My favourite part of the jazz assignment was doing our Chicago dance.  We created this piece to perform in our school's annual Cabaret show.  This dance was extremely Fosse inspired and ticked all the boxes of being a pure jazz piece.  The choreography was made up of sharp, slick movements.  While rehearsing the piece we didn't realise how slick out movements needed to be until we watched ourselves back. This showed us that every little movement had to be perfect and in place.  If one slight hand movement wasn't in time or in place it affected the whole dance. 

In our final rehearsal we went through every tiny little thing we could to make it spot on.  We recorded ourselves and watched ourselves back, then went over each part to perfect the parts that needed improving.  We had a group discussion to go through all the things we needed to do for the evening performance.

Overall we gave a fantastic performance with lots of positive feedback from the audience.  The Fosse style was obvious as Mr Lewis mentioned this when talking to Mrs Norris after the performance.  The performance started on a difficult note because there was a slight mix up with the music meaning that we were left on stage with the wrong music playing.  We all stayed in character waiting for our right music to come on. 

I made a slight mistake at the beginning of the performance but I was able to cover this up and carry on to give a good performance.  Apart from this mistake I feel I gave a good, slick performance showing off everything I have learnt about jazz in Btec Performing Arts.

Watching back the performance I feel we all gave a strong performance in real Fosse style.  I think some of the most simple moves we did were some of the most effective, such as sharp hand flicks in the air.  I am really looking forward to repeating the performance in our end of year show where we will have improved it further.