In Class: Goals: Figure out definitive rehearsal time for this week/ learn some formal ballet lingo.
I found this, it's a video that shows a combinations of ballet moves and shows the ballerina in slow motion performing each move, while the ballerina performs each move there is text on the screen that tells you what move she is executing. I think I want to include a phrase in the show that is kind of inspired off of that combo of moves. I have two rehearsals scheduled for this week, but I haven't had any feedback on whether or not people can make those.

Out of Class: Goals: work on choreography
So I spent about an hour in the black box, I was trying to take some of the moves from the video and create my own dance, I kind of got a little something, but it wasn't much of anything. One of my friends ended up interrupting me while I was choreographing and started playing "Pursuit of Happiness" by Kid Cudi and she asked me to choreograph something to it, so after about 20 minutes I finally had about a 45 second dance to the song which I ended up REALLY liking, I think I'm going to try to incorporate it into my show.

(I'm doing a double log for both days that we had presentations in class)

In Class: Goals: Nothing
In class for the past few days we have been presenting what we have done so far with our project.

Out of Class: Goals: Remember/Practice dancing
I ended up reading a little more in that book that I found and practiced some warm-ups out of the book. I learned how to do a pas de bourree and worked on my developpe. I also spent about an hour watching videos on ballet technique and watching how dancers perform some of these moves. I'm currently working on trying to do a petit allegro so that I can incorporate that into my choreography, however it's proving to be pretty tricky.

In Class: Goals: Read a little about dance technique.
Reality: I actually found a really awesome book about technique! Its filled with ballet exercises and other dance shenanigans. I spent about 30 minutes reading this book and trying out some of the exercises out of class. It was pretty helpful and I kind of want to go out and buy it now, but it took some of the warm-ups we already do in V1 but brought them a little further, it put a little extra challenge into something I already know.

Out of class: Work on presentation
I spent about three to four hours on tuesday and weds fine tuning some choreography and teaching it to other people. I put together a little video showing a little bit of choreography that I taught two dancers.
DANCEEEE

In Class: Goal: Further analyze poetry.
I spent about 20 minutes reviewing poetry and then spent about another 20 taking notes of things that I want or don't to do with the performance, sort of like brainstorming ideas for costumes (I know, it's a little early) thinking about how I want poetry read, and thinking a little about movement. Small problem however, since there is a dance class during B block I'm running out of things to do during class, right now my main concern is choreography, which I need a hell of a lot more of.

Out of Class: Goal: CHOREOGRAPH!
I spent about 30 minutes reviewing choreography and trying new things, I'm having a lot of trouble with one song that I'm trying to choreograph that has a really fast tempo. It's so frustrating because every time I choreograph something the movement is too complicated for such a fast tempo. I decided I would go out and find someone to help me choreograph, which is what I will be doing wednesday evening.

In Class:
Goals: I hoped to break down poetry and analyze it to make choreography a little more meaningful.
I spent about five minutes figuring out if the black box was being used during my english block only to find that it is being used. Then I spent the rest of the block analyzing poetry and figuring out whether or not I will need another dancer, which I think I do.

Out of Class:
Goals: Find a new dancer, create more material.
I recruited my (hopefully) last dancer and I spent about 30 minutes choreographing this weekend.

In Class:
Goals: I hoped to have get a rough idea of how the performance would look, the playlist and what would come when.
I spent a few minutes e-mailing my cast to tell them the rehearsal schedule for next week, most of them got back to me within the day, and it seems that we will only be rehearsing once. After that I spent about 30 minutes listening to two or three songs and picking my final choice for songs (it will probably change, I don't doubt it) and then creating a finalized play list. I then made a set list and put songs and read poetry in order and created a rough opening and ending in my head. I also kicked out on piece of poetry from my performance "Black Girl White Girl" will no longer be in my performance.

Outside of Class:
Goals: I hoped to have had finished choreographing one of the songs.
I spent a little over an hour working on choreography, I keep on cutting things and I never did get to finish that song, my creativity went in a different direction and I choreographed about 6 stanzas of the poem "999 Smiles". I have about 3-ish minutes of choreography so far, and I want there to be at least 15 by the performance day. However, everyone knows, a dance performance is never finished until one minute before you are on the stage.

Log #6

Yesterday in class I organized the meeting that I had. I took notes and thought about major points to bring up/ also meeting times for our group. I'm staying pretty tight with my schedule, in fact I could even say that I am ahead of schedule. After meeting with the dancers my one worry is that we wont have enough time to rehearse. I told the group that we would meet once or twice before midterms and then after that we would meet regularly Monday, Wednesdays after school and during some M/X blocks, Sundays, and Friday afternoons. Last night I spent almost all of study hall reworking movement, adding counts, and choreographing some more material to two songs that I will use, however in the upcoming weeks I will be choreographing movement that goes along with the poetry that I found.

Log #5

Blogger is being really annoying and giving me error codes and deleting my work, so lets try this again for the third time... Anyways, in class I spent my time reading poetry from an African poetry book that was given to me. I decided that I would use poetry from only this book because I like the subject matter in most of these poems (racism, genocide) and also I feel like having one book to find poetry from makes my job a little easier as finding poems. So far I have found three poems that I really like, mostly dealing with war and race, which I think would make for really interesting movement.

Outside of class I'm almost done with choreography for one song that I have picked out. This choreography process is going pretty slow, but I have a decent amount of material that I'm ready to teach my dancers.

Log #4

On friday during class I spent all of class finding poetry books and looking over poetry. One poetry book that I found particularly useful was one that was filled with African poetry. The poetry didn't only pertain to African natives but also to people of different cultures and backgrounds which I found particularly useful for this performance.

Outside of class I recruited one more dancer, the final (I think) of our dancers. I also went ahead and did a little more work with choreography.

Day #3

So, I spent most of class picking songs that I thought would work well with the performance, I noticed a trend that I'm tending to pick songs written by Amanda Palmer...I don't know if I like that or not, I'm kind of debating whether or not choreographing an entire show to one artist would be cliche. I spent a lot of that time trying to find more foreign music, songs that people our age haven't really heard, or even more ambient music. I found Je Ne Regrette Rien by Edith Piaf, I loved it and I thought it be an awesome song to choreograph to, but then I was quick to realize that that song is also know as the "Wake-Up" song from the movie Inception. In class I also sent out an email and scheduled a meeting for tuesday m/x. Outside of class I spent a lot of time in the Black Box working on technique and choreography. So far I have a few movements choreographed that I like, and have already cut one out because it didn't work with the piece.

Originally I had decided to go with asking the community for their secrets but upon further thought I realized that that may not be the best idea as far as creating a piece that satisfies myself. I really want this to be completely original and I think that you with the whole "post-secret" idea has been done too many times. I want something new, something better, and reading the online secrets, they don't satisfy me enough. So here I am still thinking about a medium, a point, but the catch is, that's too difficult to do through dance. It's not that it can't be done, but to choreograph something that tells a story without using words is a really difficult task.... I need to talk to Brian.

Tuesday 4/10

IN CLASS: I went out and got myself a directors journal in which I am sharing with my one-act. Its where I will be planning out my rehearsals and taking note of a plethora of things I come across while producing this project. I also went out to find my last of five dancers who said that she would do it. I HAVE MY CAST!!!! I started taking notes of what I want to do with my first meeting next monday, and I think I need some choreography.

OUT OF CLASS: I spent a long while in the black box today, listening to songs, attempting to dance to them and then deciding that they don't work with the vibe I want out of this performance. HOWEVER, I did find this song that I love and choreographed some movement. However, that song had me thinking, and I feel like I might stay with that artist for music for the performance, however I'm not entirely sure.

First Day

I spent most of in class figuring out my calendar and deciding the specifics of what I want to do. So what I have on my hands is a dance performance that combines Post Secret and modern dance. I know there's something more I want to do, I want to make it bigger than just a dance performance, but how? I guess that's something to discover during the process of making this. 

Outside of class I spent most of my time trying to recruit dancers, explaining what exactly I am doing and then telling them about time commitments and such. I got 4 dancers to agree to do it, and I'm going to find one more. Although I only want 3-4 dancers I know that at least one will drop out because of time and scheduling so I figured I would plan for that ahead of time.