Dance.

DANCE
Dorling Kindersley
First published 1998 by Dorling Kindersley Limited.

We had a task to read a book about an art form, and then quote it in our blog. As you can see, I chose a Dance book because I'm very interested in dance.

'Every human society practises dance, either solo, in couples, or in groups. People around the world use dance to express their bodies. In this way, dance can be a celebration of the emotional, mental or physical human self.'

I like this because I think it pretty much sums up what dance is about. Many cultures do use it for celebration. Some dances have been lost as new dances took place, and when we are happy we often feel a small need to dance. Some religions such as hindu use dance as a way of worship.

'We all have a sense of ourselves and of other people through space and time. In dancers, this sense is highly developed.'

This small statement reminded me of the exercise the did the other week with Mr Truscott. We all knew when to go, even with our eyes closed.

I always liked dance because it contains almost all the art forms. You dance to music, you perform, and you choreograph. All art forms are used in each other. But the next quote almost seperates it from drama and theatre.

'Dance does not always simple tell a story. It may be used to bring people together, by reinforcing their shared beliefs about their place in the world and their relationship.'
I love my majorettes, because I met many of my best friends there. Most of us share similar intrests, but even if we don't we all have at least one intrest, and that's our dancing. We also spend alot of time together at competitions and training. So this statement means alot to me.

But on the next page, it goes from saying not all of them don't, to alot of them do. It lists ways such as facial expressions, miming, and movements that have specific meanings, similar to drama.

A part I found really interesting was the make-up and costume design. Did you know that in Kathakali, a special seed called the chundapoo is washed, cut and inserted into the eye to make it go red just for costume?

'Dance costumes enhance the performance in a wide variety of ways. For example, in traditions where there are no stage sets, costumes help the audience make sense of what is going on.'
Some dancers use masks, even though a dancers face is the most expressive part of the body. Apparently, this is so performers can let go of their own identity and devote themselves completely to their dance.

Music Lessons

February 1st

We had to get up infront of the class one after the other and improvise on the keybord. Mr Truscott had set up a backing track and we had to improvise a rhythm using only black notes. We all did it successfully and were very suprised they all sounded decent. This was because we were using a pentatonic scale and whatever order you played them in, they would all work together.

We got into pairs and I was working with Imogen. We both gave pentatonic improvising a go, but Imogen decided she would do that so i was left to play the cords. We added a backing track, which failed when it came to performing so we had to choose a random one.

 

February 8^th,  

 

We looked at various pictures on the board and had to quickly come up with a piece of mood music.
One was a sunrise. The pieces were happy, and note were generally higher.
Another was a man in the shadows. Mood music for this was sinister and contained lower notes.
For homework, we had to find a piece of existing music to fit them.

February 14^th,

We all chose a percussion instrument from the trolley, such as maracas, tambourines and even triangles.
We were told to close our eyes, and only play the instrument when we felt it was best.
Some people automatically became the main rhythm to follow and others added to it. Olly and his cowbell stood out the most, and everyone just followed that beat. We thought it was great that we could make something like that so naturally.

We tried again. This time, some people swapped instruments and we started again. Mr Truscott told Olly that he had to try not to lead the piece this time. It didn't work so well. We thought this was because we over thought it and tried to make it better than the one before.
We tried a third time, and Abi took the lead with a hand drum. We still couldn't match the first time!

The next exercise was the think of a 4 note tune on either a xylophone or glockenspiel and we did the same again. It was very random, because the two instruments had different pitches and some people prefered the low notes to high and vise versa. There were mixed opinions on this piece. I thought it was pretty good, but other people didn't like the mixed notes.

Next, we had to write a graphic score with an instrument of our choice. I did a few 4 note tunes on an xylophone. Then we chose our best idea and made a graphic score with it. We had to experiment with it. Make it get louder or quieter. Add another sound at the same time (I TRIED to play a cymbol at the same time by hitting it on the table. That didn't work very well!). Make it get faster or slower. We added these to the graphic score. Mr Truscott then asked people to show it to the class. First he played someones, but he couldn't quite get it how it was supposed to be. He said graphic scores arn't always accurate.

Skills I have to offer!

In Miss.Wolfendens lesson, she suddenly told us to get in a line at the front of the class and quickly think what we'd have to offer if we were in a real T.I.E team. We had to imagine we were on the Apprentice kind of. I panicked slightly, especially after Beth delivered an excellent performance. I wasn't sure wether we had to make a little performance, or just say.

I decided to just say what I thought I had to offer. I thought of these from past experiences and also from the past 5 minutes!

Here's what I got:

• Good researching skills, as I'm often on the computer/laptop.
• Varied stimulus search as I surf through music, watch plenty of films, and read books.
• I get along in the group. If I'm told to do something, I'll just do it.

It's not much, but it was different to everyone else's in the group. I immediately ruled out improvising. Though that's a skill i'm working on.

Hot Seating!

Hotseating is a character building technique. Someone is put under a spotlight or 'hotseated' and they have to answer questions from the audience as though they are the character. It helps them find out more about their character and how they would act in certain situations.

In the lesson, Mrs. Wolfenden and Tomas were hotseated. They then told us how the felt about what had happened and gave each other feedback. Afterwards, we added to the feedback and told us what we thought as an audience.
We discussed that quick thinking and good improvising was needed in the activity, that little bits of costume or props helped people get into character and that these interviews should be slightly uncomfortable as that shows the actors are needing to think about their characters and perhaps think ahead to what may be asked next.

10 Hotseating Questions+Answers for my character.

(8 year old girl)

1. Do you care about your body image?
   Not really. When some girls talk about it, I think for a little bit, but mum always said I was too young to worry about silly stuff like that. I think I'm normal. I think...

2. What do you know about dieting?
    Not alot. We're told about healthy diets at school and told not to eat too much chocolate and eat more fruit. And my sister complains about them cutting down on unhealthy stuff in school sometimes. Are they making us diet?

3. What do you think of celebrities?
    I think they're pretty. And skinny. But they probably have someone to tell them more about healthy dieting. Everyone likes celebrities, because they're pretty and they've got money I guess. I wish I could be a good singer like Miley Cyrus and be as pretty as her too.

4. Do you read magazines?
   Sometimes. I read some of my sisters. They have alot of clothes and gossip about celebrities that my sister doesn't like. Mums has weightless stuff in, sometimes I can read them. I'm not really bothered.

5. What do your friends think?
    My friends don't care, like me. Or, they've never said anything atleast. We all like different celebrities. Chloe complains thats some are too skinny or too pretty. Mandy tells us we look like certain celebrities or we would if we were taller or skinnier. I don't care.

6. What do you think about boys?
    My sister tells me they have germs but I only think they do if they've been playing too much football or playing in mud. Boys are nicer to me than girls, but my sister says they're the cause of everything bad.

7. How often do you exercise?
In P.E at school, obviously. And I go on bike rides and I walk to school. But that's pretty much it.
 

15th February.

What could I bring to the group?
I think I could bring research and stimulae to the group because I spend alot of my time on the computer, listening to new music or watching films. I have some experience of performing but not in drama. I danced in my majorettes troupe in competitions for two years. I think it's the not knowing that holds me back from performing drama.

Which skills could I improve?

I know I definately need to improve my improvisation skills and acting. I wouldn't be a good director either as I can't be very bossy but I don't think I should try to improve too many things at once. I'm too shy, and maybe this performance will help me to be less shy. I hope so anyway. In this unit, I hope to improve my performance and improvisation skills.

Overview.

Dec 7th
We were told what our new unit was going to be about, Theatre In Education companies (T.I.E), and we searched for companies in Yorkshire, and mainly Leeds. We created a profile/fact file each for a different company. It was difficult because we kept finding touring companies based in London and a lot of companies did plays aimed at younger children in primary school or below. We found a select few, and these were helpful as we weren't sure what they did. Now we know they create pieces of theatre to inform people about a particular issue.

Dec 14th
We had to think about what kind of issues we were going to perform. If we were going to perform to primary school children, we would probably choose bullying or something that happens in primary school. Higher years can deal with more serious things, such as divorce and anorexia.

I chose the issue cyberbulling and suicide because of cyber bullying. This was because I saw a film around the time the homework was set and it stuck with me. Also, if we were to perform this to younger children, I could take out the suicide part and just include cyberbullying.

I learnt that bullying isn't just on the playground and not just by people you know face to face.

Jan 4th

I thought other peoples research was much better than mine. Most of mine was in the film, which no-one else had seen yet. Imogen and Beth who both did anorexia had real stories within the family so it was much more personal to them, and someone did Children in divorce where their parents had divorced when they were young.

At first, we decided what the group would study. These were; Gender Equality, Children in divorce and Anorexia. Next, Miss. Wolfenden put us into group she thought would work well together but some people weren't interested in that topic or didn't get along with someone. We did a quick shuffle round until we were happy with groups. I think the gender equality group worked well with two boys and two girls, and the divorce group all had divorced parents. Imogen and Beth in my group had researched anorexia before and Emily had researched body image so this worked. I also had an interest in anorexia so I was happy to be in this group. I wasn't bothered that my topic wasn't chosen because it was abit depressing.
I think you do need to be passionate or interested in a theme to create a decent piece of theatre because researching becomes abit more fun and interesting and more ideas will pop into your head. There's no point being involved in something you'd disagree about because you just wouldn't put your all into it!

Jan 11th

We filled in an aduit sheet with red, amber and green. Red meaning we didn't have a clue what it was, Amber meaning we'd heard of it before but we weren't sure, and Green meaning we knew what it was and could explain if needed. I realised I didn't know alot at all, and that made me feel abit stupid and behind in the group, but drama isn't my strong point and thankfully other people could explain well so I learnt alot.

 - What is a soundscape?
A sound scape is a collection of appropriate sounds which create an atmosphere for a certain scene. E.g. A rainforest soundscape would contain bird noises, rain and other animals made at different times.
 - How did we use it?
We used the above example of a rainforest. We sat in a circle and assigned certain noises to each person. In the background, we clicked for raindrops, rubbed our hands together for heavier rain, and patted our hands on our thighs for even heavier rain. This gradually got louder and quieter and inbetween this we had various animal noises being made such as birds and gorillas. We then split into two groups and made two seperate soundscapes. One group sat inside the others circle.
- What worked well + what didn't?
 It sounded really good in a circle because you felt like you were actually there and the gorillas were really really good! but it was difficult to keep up the background noise when you had to do other noises aswell.

 - What is a conscience alley?
 A conscience alley is where two different choices/ advice is given. Normally it's done in an alley formation with two lines down either side of the character with the dilema. As the character walks down, advice is given from either side. One side will give one type of idea, the other will give a different type.

 -How did we use it?
We did it from an anorexia point of view. Beth did an monologue type thing and everyone else was in two lines on either side.
One side of the line was giving her reason to eat. We chose to give each person a role. One was a friend, oe was a doctor, one was her mind, and one was her mum.
On the the other side, there was a how she saw herself in the mirror, a false friend telling her how the boy she likes won't like her unless she loses weight, and wanting to fit into a smaller dress.

Jan 18th

Devising using Forum Theatre.
We quickly created some forum theatre in our prepared groups. We already had a base story, so that was good. We just had to figure out what outcomes could possibly happen.
In forum theatre, the audience can come into the drama and make a completely new situation. Actors have to be really good at improvising incase they havn't thought of the new situation.

Some things might be too extreme to be dramatised, or dramatised to a certain audience. As a playwrite, we need to know what is too far and what could offend people. There's a chance that it will probably offend at least one person and if it does then we need a way to help this person.

I think drama does have the power to change how we see things sometimes, even if it's only for a little while. The point of TIE drama is that it hopefully will educate people about the topic. Some films have definately made an impact on me.