Tuesday, 29 November 2016

I Want It All & Radio Ga Ga

This lesson was our first time singing for We Will Rock You, we sang through I want It All first, although this is not a full ensemble song, we all sang it together. As I'm playing Brit, I sing this song anyway, so I got to practise my lines. At first I found it difficult to show determination instead of anger when singing, I wasn't very confident on the lyrics which stopped my focus a lot. For the chorus, we were struggling to develop our emotion in our voices so we sang to each other in two lines, being able to react and interact with the opposite person. This was really helpful because I felt less awkward when I could act on someone else's energy and bounce off it. For my final performances, I will think of this when I need to show these expressions by trying to bounce off of anyone else in the cast I can, or making eye contact with the audience, involving them more.
When singing through Radio Ga Ga, We worked on some harmonies, to enhance the robotic style of singing to fit the movement and meaning of the song.

Ensemble Skills

This lesson was all about working as an ensemble. We began by all writing on the board, words or terms that we feel are vital in a successful team or ensemble.
On the list is-
- Teamwork
- Respecting each other
- Love
- Have fun
- Self discipline
- Be understanding
- Timing
- Open mindedness
- Creativity
- Punctuality
- Compassion
- Learning lines/songs
- Support
- Enthusiasm
- Positivity
- Determination
- Variety
- Equality
- Everyone has a say
- Passion
- Patience
- Take risks
- Commitment
- Tolerance
- Believe in and encourage each other
- Organisation


We then discussed what elements we excel at, and which ones we need to improve on. I found that one thing I am good at is being determined, this made me think of the show Rent last year, I had my first ever main port and I was determined to succeed. I learnt all of my songs before the deadlines and was prepared and ready with creative ideas every lesson, which allowed me to feel more relaxed bout the final shows. My creativity is definitely something I am proud of, thinking up new and contrasting ideas and suggestions for the group to bring  new style of perspective to a piece, making it much more interesting.
However, I often need to work on my patience, I tend to get flustered if something isn't going quite right and I let that get in the way of what's important in that rehearsal, which is unprofessional.




  • If, in a musical ensemble, we didn't have everyone having a say then the piece could become boring, repetitive, and not everyone will be engaged in rehearsals or performances. It is important to have everyone's input into the piece as it sparks creativity and when you re contributing ides you are actively thinking and when a part that you helped with comes up, it allows you to take a leadership role and learn how to voice your ideas well. All of which are really important skills when it comes to performing arts.


  • A lack of organisation in a musical ensemble can cause a lot of issues, without  being organised schedules aren't made, people don't know their lines and people may not end up being punctual. This means the rehears process will take much longer than necessary.


  • Not Respecting each other can lead to many negative issues, if there is a lack of respect, someone putting themselves out of their comfort zone could feel insecure and not confident enough to perform to their best abilities. Or, in a worse circumstance, no one would take risks and put themselves out there to try things out.



Monday, 28 November 2016

Working Actor Wisdom Company

Working Actor Wisdom ( http://www.workingactorwisdom.com/ ) is a one to one support service from people that have had first hand experience in the field


This site is for...
  • Actors who lack in the skills they need to develop their career, such as social media, business and audition skills.
  • Actors who want to boost their chances of getting lead, recurring and series regular parts from supporting or guest star level.
  • Actors who are new to working in areas such as New York and Los Angeles, who need help to settle in and get to know how to work in that environment.
How the site helps...
  • To give upcoming actors more confidence in there career and how to get to where you want to go.
  • To encourage actors to feel comfortable and confident in the audition room and know how to work with the camera, audience and script.
  • To give the actr an equal amount of confidence in marketing, auditions and self promotion as they do in acting.


What Makes A Successful Ensemble (Spice Girls)

Members-

Baby Spice

Emma Bunton, born 21 January 1976, is known as a singer/songwriter, presenter and actor. She got her nickname of 'baby', as she is the youngest member of the group. These nicknames massively helped their popularity as this was a new way of presenting themselves, and girls all over the country could relate to at least one of the girls. At 4 years old she was begging her mother for dance lessons which would be funded by her modelling work. She then gained a scholarship to London's Sylvia Young Theatre School and continued to train, taking a BTEC in performing arts at a college in Barnet.  Following her studies, she landed small rolls in 'The Bill' and 'Eastenders', getting to the last 6 for the role of Bianca, which ended up going to Patsy Palmer. Just two weeks later she got the call from her agent, about the Spice Girls Auditions. Emma Bunton joined the group due to a former member, Michelle Stephenson having a lack of commitment, and was replaced by Abigail Kis, until they finally found Bunton and felt she fit the part best.

Scary Spice
Melanie Brown (Mel B), was born in Harehills in Leeds on May 29th 1975. Raised by her Nevisian father and English mother, she had quite a pleasant childhood growing up in Burley. She studied performing arts at high school and went on to become a songwriter, dancer, actress and author. Since The Spice Girls she has released many solo singles and presented TV shows such as The X-Factor in Australia, and a judge on America's Got Talent. She has three children, Madison Brown Belafonte, Angel Iris Murphy Brown and Phoenix Chi Gulzar, all daughters with different fathers, which she reportedly isn't proud of. However she supports herself with statements like 'We're just a modern family'.


Ginger Spice
Geri Halliwell was born in 1972, August 6th. She can speak fluent English and Spanish and studied English literature and finance, after she had left college she worked as a cage dancer in a cub in Majorca, a topless model and a presenter in a Turkish TV show. She became a member of the group in 1994 after replacing Suzanne Tinker who was unable to make the final auditions. In 1996 Top of the Pops named her Ginger spice after becoming known for outrageous outfits and her red hair. With the band she had 7 no.1 singles including 2 become 1 and wannabe. May 30th 1998 she announced that she was going to leave the group due to differences within, after this the band had to complete their tour of North America without her. She became a solo artist after leaving and had 4 no.1 singles including Look at me and its raining men. Because of this combined with the bands success she has the most no.1 songs in British Female singer history. She has written two autobiographies as well as series of children's books.

Posh Spice
Victoria Adams as born 17 April 1974. She is an English singer-songwriter, dancer, fashion designer, author, businesswoman, actress and model. She came from a wealthy background and was considered an outsider at school. She was a victim of bullying stating that "I didn't have any friends" and "Kids would pick things up from puddles and through them at me". She would ask her dad not to drop her outside of school in the Rolls Royce they owned as she'd be bullied. Victoria was inspired by the musical Fame and decided that she wanted to be famous. She enrolled at the Jason Theatre School. From there she heard about the auditions for a new girl band and was successful when auditioning. Victoria met David Beckham when the spice girls were asked to attend a match as the football team wanted to meet them.

Sporty Spice
Melanie Jayne Chisholm (Mel C) is an English singer, actress, songwriter and TV personality. She was born on 12th January 1947 in Whiston and moved to Widnes, Cheshire at a young age. After attending Fairfield High School, she studied for a diploma course in musical theatre, drama, singing and dance at Doreen Bird College of Performing Arts in Sidcup. During this time at college was when she replied to the advert in the Stage for The Spice Girls auditions. She left college just before completing her third year there, gaining a teaching qualifications in tap and modern theatre dance with the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing. After The Spice Girls, her solo career began in late 1998 when she worked with Canadian rock singer Bryan Adams on the song 'When You're Gone', following this, her solo debut album 'Northern Star' reached No.4 on the UK charts in 1999. In 2004 she started up her own record company, entitled 'Red Girl Records'.


Fan Reaction-
The video for their first hit, 'Wannabe', directed by Swedish commercial director Johan Camitz, was a huge success. It was shot in London at St.Pancras Chambers, giving it the real British feel, this was the single that made Virgin Records interested in working with them.  Initially had a trial airing on music channel 'The Box' and was an instant hit, and was aired up to 70 times a week at its peak. Once it was released, the video brought in a lot of attention, giving them their very first live TV broadcast on LWT's 'Surprise Surprise'. Their debut album Spice sold more than 31 million copies worldwide, becoming the best-selling album by a female group in history. They were the biggest British pop band since the beetles. The group became one of the most successful marketing engines ever, earning up to $75 million per year, with their global grosses estimated at $500–800 million between 1996 and 1998. After many successful interviews, appearances and performances around the country they continued to release their next UK and EU singles, in October "Say You'll Be There", remaining at the top of the charts for two weeks at number one. Their first Christmas number one, "2 Become 1" was released in December; they sold 430,000 copies in one week, making it the fastest selling single of the year. With these two tracks they topped the charts in more than 53 countries, proving their reputation of the biggest pop act, worldwide.


Virgin Records (http://www.virginrecords.com/) & Why the World Needed the Spice Girls-The main reason for Virgin Records wanting a new girl group was that male pop groups were dominating the music industry at the time, and they needed a new voice, with a fresh look and relatable characters for their girl audiences, young and old. The Spice Girls fitted this brief perfectly, with their contrasting personalities and fun loving attitudes. This meant they initially worked well as an ensemble. Their differences eventually drew them apart; however the clashing personalities about them encouraged new ideas and creativity. Their contrasting backgrounds gave them a well balanced style and each girl had something different to say at interviews and something new to add. Virgin also felt that the young girls of the nation needed a new role model, meaning everyone would have a spice to relate to and look up to.Virgin Records is a British record label founded by English entrepreneur Richard Branson, Simon Draper, and Nik Powell in 1972. It was later sold to Thorn EMI in 1992. Its American operations were merged with Capitol Records in 2007 to create the Capitol Music Group Spice girls Spice Girls signed on to the record label on July 13, 1995, as they toured around recorded labels with Simon Fuller looking for record label deals. Virgin deputy managing director Ashley Newton commented on first meeting the Spice Girls: "I'll never forget the day they burst in here. They caused such a commotion, doing a mad routine in the office, all talking at once and being really funny. I called [managing director Paul] Conroy and [deputy managing director Ray] Cooper and said, 'You just have to see this'. Feeling insecure about the contract with virgin records, and the lack of direction, the girls had convinced Bob to let set up a showcase performance in front of industry writers and producers, and had performed at Nomis studios in December 1994, where they had received an overwhelming positive reaction. The Herbets quickly binded a contract with them, however they had delayed the singing contract after hearing legal advice from Victoria's father.


A Change In The Spice Girls?They began to change when people’s opinions within the group started to come out. They became honest with their dislike for each other. They also realized their opinions on music was different, starting with ‘Wanna be’ which was a song written by the company with help from the band. After this song was realist they started to write there on song which were far apart from each other and indicates that they couldn’t decide on how they should sing and be and what they should sing about. Their image was mostly about girl power and making young girls feel good and proud of themselves for being who they are. Most of the girls in the band where bullied and judged for something and they wanted to show girls that they could love themselves despite what others say.



How It All Started-In 1994 Bob and Chris Herbert held auditions which they advertised in 'the stage' for girls to form a new girl band. Their aim was to bring back girl bands as they where being over shadowed by big boy bands at the time for example East 17 and take that. It was a chance to bring the female voice back. Over 4,000 girls applied to the ad, it stated “RU 18-23, WITH THE ABILITY TO SING AND DANCE. R U STREETWISE, OUTGOING, AMBITIOUS AND DEDICATED”.The audition process was long and hard, these are some videos of their lives before this and what the auditions were like- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsOeQCIrAhshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2aPIrgEKRs From this clip we can already see their contrasting personalities with the potntial to create some really interesting and relatable material. 


Rehearsals - 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2derjrBRzM
This clip displays The group successfully working as a team, by taking turns to speak to the camera with different shots of them each performing actions, in a rehearsal circumstance.  It also shows each of their personalities separately but working together successfully in a positive light, giving them all lines each. We can see that this is in earlier days of them as a band, from their communication, and their interactions. In comparison to their later days, in which they often talk over each other and seem much less professional, they are sweet and much more organised in their dialogue and delivery. We can also see the contrast in their ideas through the video itself, they are rehearsing martial arts movements, but the song has a very different theme to it- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ro0FW9Qt-4 This shows their diversity and ability to work evenly as a group.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypTByGclicM
In this video, we can see the band members giving each other advice on things such as what to wear, showing them supporting each other in a loving way. We can also see Gerri (Ginger Spice) taking a leadership role in the group, which at this point in the bands career was a positive aspect, however in their later years, some would consider this a negative. This video is all about the behind the scenes process pf their music video for their first hit single, Wannabe, it is a fun and wild video, encompassing each of their talents, including Sporty Spice's gymnastic skills. When discussing their costumes for the video, Ginger Spice mentions that her dress was £20 from Oxfam, suggesting they don't need money, making them relatable to the general public, as they would then think that if their idols can look good without needing a lot of money, then they can too, making them relatable.



Interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-HK5BbmpZg
From the beginning of this interview, Gerri Halliwell

Reunion- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0cqbL9I6KE


Goals During & After my Studies

My goals for the next year would be-
  • To be settled on a course at drama school or university
  • Improve my technical skills in dance
My goals by the time I retire from performing would be-
  • Run my own theatre company (Directing, devising)
  • Tour with a show having a main/named part
  • Work across new writing, comedy, classical and musical pieces
How I can reach my goals after my studies-
  • Extra classes (City Lit)
  • Work as an extra
  • Get contacts
  • Create a show reel
  • Get out of education experience
  • Self promotion (Business cards etc)
  • Professional actors CV
  • Expand my skills on and off stage
  • Headshots
  • Take art in student films
  • Am-Dram
  • Keep my online presence updated (Instagram, Facebook, Website)
  • Strategic work experience for future opportunities
Creating a showreel is really important when being a freelance performer as it gives anyone interested in you a quick and easy way to see a wide variety of skills and performances. If they are professionally made, they can also demonstrate how serious you are about your career depending on how well it has been made. You can include shots from shows, gigs, and private recordings of your work. This can be linked on your website, Instagram and Facebook, which in the modern day are vital as a performer to maintain.


Volunteering as a runner on a film or TV set is a really good way to get into the industry by getting contacts through simple conversation or just showing your face around the environment. This way you can be suggested to people with other contacts that need favours in projects. Whether they are big or small, you can store up favours, and this way they can return  them when you need it. This is also a really efficient way of gaining experience behind the scenes of a set.


Am Dram is a good way to gain experience in performing arts, especially from a young age and locally, however taking part in these shows for many years can get performers into bad habits or a competitive state of mind, due to the friendliness often between directors and families or members, creating a less professional environment. It gives opportunities to perform in working theatres and create a minor reputation for yourself, and shows commitment by participating in theatre outside of education.

Sunday, 27 November 2016

Text Stimuli

For this lesson we had to find and bring an example of a piece of text that provokes a reaction out of us that can be used as a stimuli for choreography. I choose an article on how period pains effect women in the workplace, their needs and issues. I found this brought out mostly anger and frustration, and also empathy for people that are suffering similarly to me. I can personally connect with the defending statements made in the text and feel we deserve better rights on the expenses and the way it is treated.
This is a collection of ways that we can use text to create movement:

  • Imagery
  • Location
  • Positive and negative faces
  • Tone
  • Rhythm pf the text using the punctuation
  • General theme
  • The people discussed in it, their gender, status, personality
  • Key words, actions, voice, movements
This is my article, I have highlighted key words or phrases I would use to choreograph and explained this. 
 Pain- Physical and facial display of pain, grabbing abdominal area
Work- Repetition showing progress of pain
Sick- Illness gestures
Nine out of 10- Majority of pain in a group dance
Suffering in silence-Grabbing mouths, restrictive
Should be more open- One understanding individual
Terribly- Exaggerated and excessive facial expressions
Shy- Fragile/fear
Cry
Drop- Floorwork
Low- Levels
Overwhelmed- Getting crushed, arm movements
Surge- Rush of movement
Struggle- Physically struggling & facial expressions
Remove her womb- Not motherly, having something taken away

Contemporary Dance Warm-Up Phrase Development

This on-going post is a tracker of my progress in a contemporary dance warm-up. We refine and re-choreograph warm-ups with increasing difficulty in different areas such as balance, dynamic contrast, levels and travelling.

23rd September- {WARM-UP VIDEO}

In this warm-up, my extension in my arms and legs was good, meaning I was stretching well. My 'bunny hop' movement was well controlled and the transition between this and the next movement was fluid and smooth. However I need to maintain a good parallel when bringing my legs back together, my knees sometimes come together too close or they are to far apart when dropping down to the floor.