1. Showcase Final Evaluation (Year 12)
On February the 15th we performed our BTEC Showcase ‘A night at the musicals’ consisting
of various performances from a range of musicals including Grease, Bring It On and
Hamilton. For year 12 we were tasked with performing a piece of repertoire from ‘Bring It
On’.
The process of learning and improving our repertoire for the 2013 Tony Awards
performance of Bring It On – It’s All Happening, has been incredibly interesting and
satisfying from the first workshop/rehearsal to performing it finally on stage. I am confident
in my personal development throughout the process, but entering this routine was very
intimidating as combining and mastering the three arts forms together; acting, singing and
dance, was an ambitious goal to reach. Previously I had only experience in acting which
hasn’t required me to consider characterisation whilst moving and staying in key. However
getting help from various different tutors helped my performance capability.
Firstly Miss Sweeney a dance specialist taught us the original routine, I had to focus a lot in
order to remember the sequence of movements. I remembered my target I had set at the
start of the year that I was going to focus on dancing make sure I improve my skills within in
it and become a quicker learner. I believe I did this with our workshop with Miss Sweeney,
she was a fantastic tutor too helping me anytime I asked a question and she really broke
down each movement in detail making sure it was all in in time and polished between
myself and my peers.
A workshop that helped me consider characterisation when we did some off text
improvisation in character. Mrs Parkin put some urban music on in the dance studio and
asked all of us to interact with one and other. This helped us all find our characters and how
we portray ourselves through our attitude and body stance which ultimately boosted our
performance within the rehearsal due to us feeling more in character. We then recorded the
routine and this really emphasised the fact the dance has got such an urban style to it,
telling us to do it again but ‘pop’ and ‘lock’ our movements I asked what this meant and Mrs
Parkin showed me how by adding ‘pops’ and ‘locks’ to my movements I am making it
sharper and explosive only contributing more to the street/urban style of the dance, which
only increased my understanding in street dance.
Mr Sluman then helped us through multiplying our energy by recording us performing the
routine then broke each one of us down after dissecting our interactions with one and other
and our overall enthusiasm shown. This really benefited me as I immediately became aware
of my silly habits I had whilst dancing, I seemed to subtly nod my head to the beat of the
song which completely ruined my cool stance I was trying to maintain.
We knew we needed to work on how it sounded and make sure we retained good vocals
whilst dancing so we benefited having the help of Miss Wilkinson in a particular lesson who
is one of our teachers but also a music expert. She found one particular part of the routine
where the crescendo was lost vocally, so she stopped us and got us to sing it first without
moving, once we did this multiple times successfully she then told us to sing and dance, by
2. the second try we nailed it as we weren’t worrying so much about the vocals whilst doing
the routine. Then we did a workshop with our singing specialist Mrs Guy, and taught me
many techniques to help my vocals strengthen. One specific technique was fixing body
posture, despite being loose in character I still needed to maintain a strong body position
standing tall and as straight as I can this would loosen up me up making me feel more
relaxed and completely clearing my passage of air, allowing me to project better and deliver
notes correctly in key.
We had to make changes to benefit the performance, examples of this was originally Jack
and I were required to hold a piece of rope from three of the girls holding it for the other
two dancers to symbolise a cat walk, however it didn’t look precise or clean and meant Jack
and I had to rush the next movement quickly travelling across the stage to reach our female
partners that were already in position. After multiple rehearsals Mrs Parkin and Mr Sluman
stated it looked odd and messy, so we as a collective decided to completely get rid of it.
Another particular change was formations Jack and I switched partners near the start of the
process as it looked better height wise, also once the set was put into the theatre we had to
alter our spacing and blocking this was quickly sorted proving we could adapt our piece
depending on how the stage is. Overall I believe as an ensemble we worked extremely well
together, we saw the bigger picture helping one and other and making sure we performed
to the highest degree. Professionally we brought out the best in one and other as we all had
strengths and weaknesses many of my female peers helped me when struggling to polish a
particular dance move by taking me to the side and step by step showing me where to place
each body part and I always helped them try to heighten their characteristics dramatically
by impersonating how I would play it to them. This only reiterates to me how much of a
team effort this process was.
My process of my solo piece ‘My Shot’ from Hamilton was insightful, originally at the very
beginning when deciding to place ‘My Shot’ I had already learnt it as I performed it for a rep
piece I did. Miss Parkin was happy with my ability to deliver the rap/song and informed me
that I could perform this as my solo piece within the showcase, I jumped at the chance as I
felt I could perform it to a high standard. Whilst I sang the ensemble would dance the
repertoire to the song, it wasn’t an easy routine at all which meant they rehearsed it a lot,
this only benefitted me more and more as every time I would perform the song again
alongside them. I performed my solo in front of so many different people which lead to
there being no nerves when being put on the spot to perform it, it also meant I received
different feedback from various people. One example was when MADD came into school
and two representatives came in to do a workshop with us, then after the workshop Mrs
Parkin put us on the spot and told us to perform ‘My Shot’ to them. We all immediately
agreed and started performing and after they said to me that I needed to break down the
lyrics and truly understand them which will help my delivery, they also mentioned it needed
progress more from the start to the end. I took this on board and worked on my solo even
more and the feedback benefitted me when a week later I performed it to my class and they
all stated it had improved a lot. They stated that it seemed I understood the lyrics more and
that through my vocally delivery I was now telling more a story, some mentioned that due
3. to this it heightened my characteristics with my facial expressions communicating the
memories and foreshadows I am playing in my head.
During the process I believe a strength of mine was always attempting to multiple the
energy within the rehearsal/workshop. After research for my Learning Aim A presentation it
became clear to me what the professional attitude is within the industry so I told myself to
replicate it by leaving every emotion I had outside the rehearsal space and when inside only
being happy and excited. This definitely improved the moods of my peers and brought out
the best in them which only multiplied me as I wanted to match and exceed them. I also
would always task myself to learn my lines and lyrics by the next day one example of this
was I got told in the morning workshop that we were going perform ‘Yorktown (The World
Turned Upside Down)’ for the finale of Hamilton and start rehearsing it at lunch, we got
given scripts of what segment we were doing. I had a free hour before lunch so I learnt all
my lines so that I wasn’t fiddling with my script in the rehearsal. I realise these are the
standard expectations within the musical theatre industry so I feel confident that I have met
these expectations and found some strengths that can be applied to the future to always
maintain a high level of professionalism. A weakness of mine during the process was
comparing myself amongst others and bringing myself down particularly with dancing.
Despite the fact I would play a façade and laugh about it and brush it off there were
workshops where I majorly struggled with dancing particular routines and learning new
moves especially when nearly all my class did dancing outside of school and were excellent
at learning new moves rapidly. Towards the end of the process I found a way to fix this
weakness, by just very simply focusing on myself and knowing what standard I wanted to
reach and achieve. Near the show we implement a brief finale dance to the song ‘The
Greatest Show’ from the motion picture musical The Greatest Showman. Within this
workshop I ignored everyone else and focused on my particular way in learning, I asked for
help of others and received it, I then recorded myself and went home and improved it so by
the time I entered the rehearsal space again I had it perfected it, I must continue this
method so this weakness doesn’t keep creeping up on me.
After reflection of the showcase I am overall confident in my performance in ‘Bring It On’
and my solo piece ‘My Shot’. When previously researching into the ‘Life of a Performer’ I
had discovered just how much work was put into these performances this meant I entered
the process appreciating every moment and not moaning once at any aspect, knowing
people do this as an occupation is something I aspire to and am willing to chase particularly
with all these fantastic skills and attributes learnt. I feel a sense of relief when looking at the
future knowing how much my mind-set has changed compared to when I started this
process. Days before the showcase I was showing flu symptoms and the day of the
showcase was told I had the ‘Aussie Flu’ which inevitably effected my energy, throat and
body. Despite this fact I threw everything I had into the performances and applied every
movement, vocal and characterisation skill I had learnt and was happy to know that no big
mistake was made, I adapted to this illness, didn’t let it make me suffer and truly felt like a
professional (after all the show must go on).
