Unit 13 and 14 Analysis of Progress, Development and Opportunities
Areas of Progress
Stamina
Stamina is the ability to sustain physical activity for extended periods of time without tiring. This is an aspect of dance and one of the physical skills that I feel I have improved upon a great deal throughout this year. From looking at our recordings of our rehearsals from our Jazz dance early within the year, there are moments in which we have to complete a quick amount of movements in a very small window of time before carrying on dancing; all of these movements have to be completed with the same amount of accuracy as be as controlled and smooth as possible.
However, by the time we came to doing our contemporary dance which required the same amount of stamina in order to perform quite difficult movements in a slow, calm and controlled manner and perform these movements for a sustained period of time.
(1:45) - (2:05)
Strength
Strength is the body's ability to resist a great pressure for a sustained period of time. I have improved a great deal in this skill throughout the year. Looking back earlier in the year during the SIX performance I displayed my strength through particular movements most which required a great deal of strength to perform in the controlled stylistic way that we wanted to convey through the songs.
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However, over the course of the year I feel that I have improved on this a great deal with my improvement being highlighted the most in the Kathak dance where I am holding difficult positions particularly the plié, this requires a great amount of strength to hold for the amount for the duration whilst also performing other movements to a high standard.
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Co-ordination
Co-ordination is a physical skill, it is the ability to simultaneously use one or two more body parts in succession with each other. Over the past year, this is something that I have improved upon a great deal; by looking back at my early performances, particularly our Jazz dance I can see many moments where my co-ordination is quite poor and is definitely something which I could have improved upon within the piece. This is noticeable mainly in my turns where my arms seem to be limp without any proper positioning, this lowers the quality of the piece and makes my movements seem sloppy and slow.
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However, later on in the year when we performed the Kathak dance I feel that my co-ordination was very effective and really displays how far it has developed over the past year. Kathak is a style of dance which requires incredibly good co-ordination in order to properly perform the story telling aspect that the style is so well known for. I feel that this is my best performance in terms of my co-ordination of the whole year, the section of this performance which best shows my co-ordination is within the Bols and Tatkar.
(1:50) - (2:05)
Expression
Expression is how you demonstrate or convey a particular emotion within dance through our movements or body language. This is something that I have improved upon a great deal throughout the year; when looking back early on in the year in our jazz lessons, my expression is overall non existent, my moves do not convey any emotion and there is no real character to my movements to show the audience any kind of message. I could have easily improved this by changing some of the pacing of my movements or even making some of the movements more rigid or smooth in places to show a contrast in emotions.
However, later on in the year when we were performing our contemporary dance piece called 'El Perdon', in this dance I feel that my expression through my dance has improved a great deal through this performance and I was able to express a wide range of emotions through my dance by varying my movements through changes in pace and even levels. I feel that this is best shown during the section where I perform a duet, the changes in emotion are much clearer and I feel it is much more highly engaging for the audience compared to my jazz dance earlier in the year.
(1:45) - (2:05)
Directional Focus
Directional focus is where movements are given a great amount of attention to their detail and in turn made the focus for the audience. Early in the year, this is something which I feel that I hardly ever do, again here I will reference my performance of the jazz dance; throughout almost every moment of this dance I do not hold focus on any movement. This makes the dance feel flat and quite emotionless and makes my movements feel sloppy and unengaging for the audience which in turn brings down the entire quality of the piece. This could have again been easily improved by bringing my own focus to certain movements through.
However, later on in the year my directional focus improved a great deal and this is highlighted most in our performance of a Kathak dance. This is a style that relies on drawing the audiences' focus very heavily in order to properly convey the storytelling aspect that Kathak is known for. I draw the audiences' attention by following my hands with my eyes while I perform certain gestures, by doing this is brings the audiences focus to my hands which will be performing mudras that aid in the storytelling and gives details about it. My directional focus is best shown in the Bols and Tatkar section of the piece.
(1:50) - (2:10)
Areas of Development
Posture
Posture is the alignment of particular body parts and how you hold yourself either while moving or stationary, although I do feel I have made a great deal of progress in this physical skill, I think that I still need to develop this skill a great deal. There are multiple points throughout all of my performances where I can see my posture still drop slightly, I feel that this maybe due to the fact that while concentrating on the dance and trying to remember the movements, my posture becomes one of the last things I think about and due to having naturally quite rounded shoulders because of scoliosis, my posture is almost always the most common thing that I miss. One of the best examples of this is my performance of our Kathak dance, especially in the opening greeting sequence, there are moments where my posture is very good, however over the performance this does slip with shoulders being noticeably more rounded as it progresses.
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Flexibility
Flexibility is the range of unrestricted and painless movement at a joint or a series of joints. This is something I have been working on throughout the year and is something that I am proud of with how much I have achieved with it with it all culminating to our final performance of the year the Kathak dance at the end of the year. However, I do feel that I could develop my flexibility a great deal in the Kathak dance, especially during the greeting sequence, where I would want to achieve being able to turn out and bend down even lower, much more consistently in order to portray an even more of a sharp angle within my legs that is very prominent and a very big feature of the Kathak dance style. To do this, I would give myself exercises to practice that over time would allow to have a wider range of movement at my joints.
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Jazz Style
Jazz dance is a theatrical style of dance that is often performed to jazz or popular music. This was one of the first styles of dances that we looked at and as a result I feel that it was one of the styles that I feel I require the most development on. Looking back at my rehearsals and final performance of the piece, it is clear now that my knowledge on the style has grown a great deal and is something that I would like to improve upon further. I feel that at the time I lacked confidence and experience in dance to properly perform the piece effectively, however now I would be able to take many of the conventions of which I have learned of more traditional dance genres and apply them to my dance. I was very new to dance as a whole and I wasn't experienced in how uniform and clean the style has to be and as a result I find my performance now quite sloppy and unengaging with no real attempt to hold my form with a straight posture and extended limbs, instead looking very tired and lack luster. To improve on this style, I would like to work slower while rehearsing it in order to ensure that I have achieved all of the conventions within it.
Projection
Projection is the energy that the dancer uses to both connect and draw in the audience. I feel that again I have improved a great deal on this as the year has gone on however I do feel that I could still make a great deal of development on this in dance overall and in all of the genres that we have looked at over the past year. I think both my amount of progress and how I could develop further can be seen within our Kathak performance, especially in the storytelling section. I feel that there are moments in which my movements, particularly my mudras or gestures may not have been as clear to the audience as they could have been in order to convey the story that we were hoping to tell, I feel like this is due to me trying to focus on remembering the movements and being confident in them and in turn causes my sharpness of the movements to falter slightly in their execution. If I were to improve on this further I would rehearse the peace at a slower pace in order to ensure my movements are as large as they could be to convey the message of the story as best as they can, I would then get a fellow classmate to watch me rehearse the piece so then can then give me further feedback on what to improve upon.
(3:20) - (4:10)
Expression
Expression is the way you demonstrate or convey a particular emotion within dance through our movements or body language. Although I feel that this is one of the biggest things that I have made progress on, I do think that I could still develop this much further and this is best shown in our final performance of the year: our dance in the style of Kathak and especially during the moments of storytelling. I feel that there were moments throughout this dance where my expression could have been improved a great deal in order to develop the story telling aspect of this dance that is vital for the style. I think this may be a challenge for me as I am trying to focus on many different aspects of the dance at the same time and I feel that this is one of the aspects which I often leave or forget about due to it not being something which I feel I have spent enough time developing in the past. In order to improve on this in the future, I will beginning by marking out points within the music of the song where I feel the emotion changes, after identifying this emotion I will then find characteristics which I can add to the movement to express the emotion further and convey it to the audience in a clearer way.
(6:45) - (7:46)
Opportunities
Firstly, one of the greatest opportunities I have had is developing my physical skills so much in such a short period of time. For me personally, I felt that after high school I would have much exposure to things that would keep my level of fitness up, however dance has really helped me to do this and through developing these physical skills better it given me a great deal more confidence in myself and my ability to perform things which I never thought I would be able to. This also has helped me to improve my overall physical health and has given me the drive to go and improve this further at the gym.
Another thing which I am incredibly grateful for is the amount of feedback we get, this is something that I never really got during the performing arts subjects at high school and the fact that we get regular, constructive feedback that actually goes into detail about our performance on both the things we did well and things we could improve on has really gone a long way to build my confidence in the subject and has made it something that I have found a great deal of passion for as a result as I actually feel as if I am achieving something that can be seen.
I have absolutely loved learning some many new dance styles too, as someone who has never really done dance before this course it is something I have really enjoyed and is something that has given me inspiration to further look into certain styles. It has also helped me discover some styles which I absolutely love and is something I would like to take further in my performing arts career. I have also found elements of dance styles that I would like to take to other disciplines of the performing arts such as physical theatre which I have a real passion for.
Finally, through developing the techniques within these dance styles it has made me feel incredibly comfortable and confident in doing things which I have never attempted before and through having an understanding of the style and the techniques that are used in them; I have a boosted my amount of confidence as I don't feel as if I am doing something that I have no experience in previously as it is something that we develop and learn about over time.
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