Final Blog Post

For the past term I have been working on a dance performance. Coming into the project I didn't know exactly what I was getting into. I started out the term choreographing material that was inspired by a poem I found, 999 Smiles, and progressed by choreographing to music, which then later got cut out my performance. This performance has transformed an incredible amount of times. Although I may have finished choreographing and teaching my dancers the movement almost two weeks ago the order of the movements and the feeling of the movements have changed a number of times.

I thought it would be somewhat of a challenge to relate dance to english. However, what I found is that tying in writing or reading with this project wasn't that big of a challenge. I ended up reading The Illustrated Dance Technique of Jose Limon, which helped a lot with my technique. I noticed that my balance had become much stronger since reading the book and practicing the exercises from the book. I didn't notice that much of a change as far as my reading skills. Perhaps I may have read that book a little bit faster than other books, however that is the only change that I had noticed. As far as writing I have been writing daily in this blog and also I have produced a small artist statement for my dance piece. I did notice that my writing has become a little more fluid, I would have to say that the fluidity is coming from writing every day in my blog.

Organization was a huge part of this project. One thing that I can say is that I have improved as far as organizing my priorities during rehearsals, I have noticed that I can get a lot more done with an hour of rehearsal now than I was able to in the beginning of the term. One thing that I have learned about myself is that I cater too much to other peoples needs rather than my own. For example, if one of my dancers complains that she doesn't want to do rehearsal for a day I would probably tell them they can skip rehearsal for the day rather than telling them that they must come to rehearsal. Listening and speaking has been a challenge this term. As a director you always have to be listening to your performers and be able to tell them exactly what you want. One huge problem I had was speaking, I could never tell my dancers exactly what I wanted from them, however I have come a long way from how I explained things in the beginning of the term, I notice that my dancers are less confused by what I ask from them. I never really had a problem with listening to my performers, I always make sure I know what they want and need as to make a comfortable rehearsal environment for them, which is crucial for a good performance.

I can happily say that I am really proud of my final product. I am incredibly excited to see the performance tonight. I have worked really hard on this project with all my time making costumes, advertising, directing, and choreographing. I am really proud of my dancers and I cannot wait to perform tonight.

Costume/Image

In Class: Presentations

Out of Class: This has been an INCREDIBLY hectic week. However, now that the dance show is over we're able to crack down and finish this show. Yesterday I went out and bought a few things for the costume for the show and today I will be putting the costume together and making posters/advertisements for the show. I have a rehearsal tonight with one of my dancers who has missed a lot of the rehearsals, and then of course I have rehearsal all of tomorrow and wednesday before the show. I'm getting so excited to see the final product!!!!

In Class: Goal: Figure out who says what and when.
I took the poem and took notes on the poem that basically direct the reading of the poem. It says who says what and where.

Out of Class: Goal: Have a rehearsal.
I was able to have a rehearsal today, sunday, for about an hour and a half and we are REALLY close to have a final product. It's starting to look pretty cool and if I had to make an estimate as far as how long the dance is I would have to guess anywhere between 7-10 minutes. I'm kind of glad with where I am right now, although we didn't get to do everything I hoped we would be able to do. Also one of my dancers didn't show up today so I'll have to teach her the dances on another day this week, which is terrible.

In Class: Goal: Work on finalizing dance
During class and through m/x I went over the dances and staged the movement for the read poetry scene of my performance.

Out of Class: Goal: Meet with dancers
I met with my dancers really briefly today and did some exercises and moves I didn't have too much time to do this, but then again I also spent time during M/X working on movement. This week has been TERRIBLE as far as getting work done, and I hate to say it but I actually got more work done last week. I came down with this nasty cold and my body is gross and achy. I also have another tech week this week and had a performance today and will have one tomorrow, as far as yesterday (wednesday) went I actually had to cancel my rehearsal with my dancers because I had to do a run-through from 4 to almost 9 with Circle Mirror Transformation. Next week I will have all of my theater performances done with and I'm hoping to dedicate a lot more time with this dance, otherwise our performance may be a little shaky. ONE THING I forgot to mention. I don't know if I wrote about this before, but I'm actually cutting out the song from my performance and I have actually added vocal percussion from the dancers. The dances look really cool with the percussion, it's kind of an experimental territory and I'm hoping it goes over well.

In Class: Goal: Take notes and organize my rehearsal
I spent most of class writing in my directors journal about how I want to spend my time with rehearsal that afternoon.

Out of Class: Goal: Have a rehearsal and teach the dancers 2 more phrases
So I had a rehearsal after dance practice on Friday and taught my dancers two more phrases and than combined to old dances to make an finalized intro to the poem and how the dancers will recite their poetry. I'm starting to feel that I like them dancing to silence better than dancing to music however I don't know if I want to travel down that path yet.

In Class: Goal: Finish Reading Book
I got a little distracted in class today, I read one section about a floor exercise called "pique progression" essentially it involves the dancer to move from first position into a passe in releve. Now that I think of it, what I really needed to do was to plan out my rehearsal for tomorrow, I'm kind of disappointed in myself for getting distracted and not utilizing my time to plan during a week where time is so precious.

Out of Class: Goal: Figure out the sequence of dances.
Not even joking I had ten minutes to work so I decided to grab one of my dancers and learn the pique progression to use as a warm up exercise during rehearsal. Right now One Acts are really setting me behind and I'm really worried about my work, I can't afford to waste another class fooling around because now I'm going to have to spend a lot of my weekend working on this project. Also, I talked to Joel about lighting in the black box and he said that he didn't think it would be a problem.