Hamilton Rehearsal Log

1. Hamilton - Introduction to character & context.
The target for our upcoming rehearsals was to
get started working on the movement for the
Hamilton Non-Stop piece. We wanted to start
being practical as soon as possible so we made
sure we put our ideas to reality very quickly.
The SMART target that I focused on in these rehearsals would be concentration and
timing. I need to make sure that I am paying attention to the music and the rest of the
class to make sure I am in time and not looking like the odd one out.
We came up with the idea of doing the piece Non-Stop because it included all the
main elements of musical theatre (dance, voice, and acting). This is good because it
means everyone gets to show their favourite style and styles that we want to improve
on and have a go at.
To get this piece moving, after assigning the characters Burr and Hamilton to Alfie
and Cerys, we came up with ideas on what to do physically that also went with the
music. We watched the video to see what we could start adding to make it seem
similar to the original but also make it more unique for our group. We knew that we
wanted to incorporate chairs from the beginning to make it easier and to show good
use of props. We came up with the idea of holding the chair above our heads and
walking in time with the beat whilst Burr and Hamilton were already sharing centre
stage. After figuring out where and how to get to our specific spaces we then wanted
to put ideas together and came up with a small bit of choreographing to do as an
ensemble. We quickly came up with the next 2 counts of 8 by counting how much
time we had and then watching the video of the professionals to see if anything they
did would fit. After this, we came up with the idea of only adding in a small amount of
movement because it was still quite early on in the piece and we knew we needed to
wait to make it more effective once we got to the main climax of the piece. These two
counts of eight involved different levels as we fanned our arms over our head and
dipped our front knee down. This was effective because we were all staying on
chairs while Burr and Hamilton stayed standing. This also showed the status of the
characters because we could see at that point in time Hamilton and Burr were the
main point of focus with the dancers backing up the mood of the piece by walking
around and making it look busy. The next two counts of 8 were divided into two
groups of four depending on where we were positioned to come up with two
separated parts of choreographing. We added them together but then made the
decision they did not work and match up, so we took elements of both and added
them together. We started with surrounding both main characters and holding a
freeze frame and then quickly coming into a circle. Within the circle, we were able to
match the movements to the words. We did a gesture to show we were ‘writing’ and

2. then swayed back and forth to show the illusion of ‘running out of time’ which not
only was effective but also looked cool from an audience's point of view.
To make the piece as effective as possible, we needed to add American accents
instead of English accents. So we made sure we went over the ensemble lines to
see how we should say it and if it sounds right altogether. To help this, we listened to
the backing track to try and match our voices with the ensemble from the original
recording.
I think I definitely improved on my target of concentration due to having to pick up the
choreography quickly because of being absent from the first rehearsal. This was
good because I showed that I was able to adapt quickly and professionally to what
everyone else was doing. I did not get to work on my timing enough to be able to
make a judgement on whether or not it has improved because we did it with the
backing vocals. Although this helped my timing, I will still need to develop it when we
remove the backing vocals.
In this photo I am showing the freeze
frame that we have to do which includes
three different levels. Cerys is the
lowest level, Indie is the middle and I
am the highest. This makes the moment
more interesting and it also means that
everyone is seen.
In this photo I am showing good spatial
awareness and symbolising the words
to the dance moves as I said in the
paragraph above.