Creating a new Jazz routine and Strengths and Weaknesses (Devising/Jazz Technique) - 01/10/15

Creating a new routine:

In todays Jazz lesson, we were taught a short motif. This short motif is going to be in the part of the show where Luke creates a poison which will be put in the Witches soup. After we had learnt it, we were then asked to get into groups of five and create a short routine which used parts of the motif we had learnt. It was to include movements which would be used if we were making a real potion. Some examples of these were: Mixing, Sniffing, Pouring, Grabbing and Laughing. Our dance teacher had not selected a piece of music, so we had no set limit of how long our routine needed to be. She gave us a demonstration with a couple of other girls in our class (one of which was in my group) of what we could do in our routines. This was really helpful as I then thought of ideas we could add into our routine.

In my group was: Indea, Nina, Camay, Poppy and myself. At first we could hardly think of anything which would make our routine interesting or different, but after a while we came up with a lot of ideas. In our routine, we included a couple of lifts, levels and some of the actions which we were told to include. Once we had created seventeen counts of eight, Julia came over and watched our routine. She said she liked our movement and concept, however she wanted us to create more choreography. For example, in one part of our dance, we passed ingredients down the line to Indea and she throws it into the potion. Julia told us to include more choreography when passing it down the line to make it look more interested and like a dance. Also, at another point of our motif, we run away from the potion because it smells weird. Julia told us instead of running, we should use levels (for example, sliding on the floor, leaps, lifts etc).
We then did took the improvements on board and changed our motif. Overall, it looked really good and I liked it. We performed it to the class later on in the lesson, and they liked it. Although we did not do lots of tricks like flips in our routine, our motif looked just as good. This is because we worked as a team and showed off each persons individual style, unlike some groups where they only focused on one persons chosen style. Also, we told a story through our movements. Overall, I thought everyones looked really good, however I personally liked ours most.

I enjoyed this task as it meant that we could work in a group to create a piece for part of our show. It also meant that we could include our own ideas and choose our own style of dance (either Urban or Jazz) rather then having to stick to one specific style of dance.


Strengths and Weaknesses:

During todays Jazz lesson, we did not focus much on technique in Jazz. Instead, we mainly focused on choreographing the routine. Because of this I do not have many strengths and weaknesses to talk about. Instead of talking about a lot in very little detail, I will talk about one main strength and one main weakness from todays lesson.

Strength:

• The main strength which I noticed in todays lesson which I've never noticed in Jazz before is my performance skill. This is because I used facial expressions to tell the story and the character I was playing. I also performed the routine like I would if I was on stage. This is a strength of todays lesson as it meant that the routine was more believable. Because of this, it meant that my confidence also improved. I am very happy that these two things have become part of my strengths. This is because at the beginning of year 10 I didn't feel confident enough to perform in front of the class with facial expressions, however now I feel confident enough to do so. To continue to have this as a strength, I will improve my confidence skills and practicing performing during rehearsals.

Weakness:

• The one main weakness which I found during this class was my choreographic skills. This is because I found that I tended to repeat the same or similar moves more then once in a routine. This is an issue as I need to incorporate new and different moves instead of the ones I already know. I also need to experiment more with things such as levels and pair work (e.g. lifts etc). To improve this, I will create more routines. This will enhance my choreographic skills, broaden my dance movement/vocabulary and overall make me a better dancer/choreographer. Also, I can also work with other people/go to more classes to learn new moves which I can then incorporate into my routines.