Jerome Robbins was an influential American choreographer, director, dancer and theatre producer best known for his work on Broadway musicals like West Side Story. The workshop focused on learning choreography from the opening of West Side Story in character as the Jets gang. Participants warmed up with unusual exercises mimicking flying kites and crowded elevators to get into character. After watching a clip of the opening, the group learned the choreography where the Jets proudly walk and jump through the streets. While the student picked up the choreography quickly due to dance experience, maintaining the character was a weakness, though they aimed to improve by further studying performances with strong character-driven dance.

1. West Side Story
Focus: The focus in today's workshop is to explore the stylistic features of Jerome Robbins, focusing on character, through learning a section of
repertoire from the opening of West Side Story. Therefore, my target for this workshop is to attempt the West Side Story routine in character.
Warmup: In the workshop, we discussed how Jerome Robbins wanted his dancers to act and dance. Our warm up consisted of an exercise
Jerome Robbins did in his auditions. Robbins asked his dancers to pretend they were flying a kite but let go of it and are trying to catch it. Also,
he asked them to pretend they were in an elevator that had was full of people and insects were crawling everywhere. These were our warm up
and I found them hard, because it wasn’t something I was used to.
West side Story: After we watch the opening to West Side Story, to see how the dancers playing the jets danced. We discussed how they were
proud of where they were dancing. We learnt the choreography where they were jumping, clicking ad walking as a group through the streets of
New York. As they did this they stayed tight as a group and stood up proudly throughout the whole section. We did the routine several times to
get into character of the jets.
This is me doing the start of the West Side Story opening dance. During this movement, we had to look at
how elevation was done correctly and how the Jets did the actions. To do an elevation correctly you should
use land through the feet and use the knees to cushion the landing, also to get the best elevation I had to
use my knee to elevate more. My peers suggested that I push through my knees and feet to get more
elevation when doing this movement.
Strengths: My strength during was learning the choreography because due to my dance experience I am used
to picking up choreography quickly. Also, due to my dance experience I understood Jazz technique quite well
and this meant it was easier for me to pick up the choreography. I feel this will help me in the industry because I understand Jazz technique well,
so when auditions for a performance with Jazz elements I will be able to learn the choreography well and quickly.
Weakness: However, my weakness was keeping in character of the jet during the routine.
From my target at the beginning, I have achieved learning the choreography not need to work on staying in character during the dance. I
videoed my work so I can watch it and make it better by learning from my mistakes. To further my improvement, I will practice and research
other performances where the dance is in character like Hairspray, or grease.

2. Jerome Robbins
 Born on the 11th October 1918 and died on the 29th July 1998.
 He was an American choreographer, director, dancer and theatre producer.
 He created the triple theatre performer, where a performer can act, sing and dance.
 Created numerous stage productions, for example, The king and I, West side story, & Fiddler on the roof.
 He followed his sister’s steps of being a professional dancer.
 He began studying in high school.1938 – Joined the company of Senya Gluck Sandor, took ballet with Ella Daganova, also studied Spanish
dance with Helen Veola, Asian dancing with Yeich Nimura, dance composition with Bessie Schonberg.
 He made his stage debut with Yiddish Art Theatre. 1940 – became a member of the Chrops at American Ballet Theatre. 1944 - created
Fancey Free, a ballet, jazz and other. Composer Lenard Bersin. The choreography was about making characters dance and make it
believable.
 1947 – Created High Button shoes, first Tony for best choreography.
 1951 – Stage of King and I and filmed in 1956.
 1954 – Directed & choreographed Peter Pan, co-directed with George Abbit on The Pajama Game.
 1957 – West Side Story, also remade Romeo & Juliet. Dancers had to sing dance and act.