Musical theatre performance evaluation

Watching the Musical Theatre dance performance was very interesting and I enjoyed the experience. The dancer's were all focused and told the story through movement clearly. The movement matched the music and all the dancer's were in sync and connected with each other. They used all the space of the room well and explored different thought processes through facial expressions such as stern and serious for the faster paced music and then a relaxed and collected facial expression for the slower parts of the music.

The timing's in one group were not as symmetrical as the rest of the group and this could be improved on. I feel that some of the dancer's were not grounded in the moment and the facial expressions and body language showed this as they were looking at each other for the next move. This distracted me from the rest of the dance and allowed me to miss key elements of the performance. The story portrayed was clear at points when all the dancers were in focus and had high energy levels, but there was a section in the middle of the piece where a few performers were looking around the space and not engaged with the music or each other.

From this performance, I learnt that you have got to be in character all the time once on the stage as you are watched constantly and if you loose this for even a minute you will stand out in a negative way. It shows that you are not present in the moment and have not done work before hand to centre yourself for your character. It also taught me the importance of feeling connected with the performers around you as this gives a sense of partnership and shows that you are all working together to achieve an objective.

Assessment of 'The Cherry Orchard'

Today I performed 'The Cherry Orchard' to the class and I played the part of Varya. The performance went well and I stayed in focus for the scene. I used the given circumstances by acknowledging all the information I have gathered in my script and the exercises used in class time such as imagining what had just happened to my character before entering the scene. The details in the script I used were the social environment between my character and the other two characters; Ranyevskaya and Trofimov which was a tense atmosphere in the living room.

I achieved my characters objective in the scene which was to try not to appear annoyed with the other characters, however express my feelings about my non existent relationship with Lopahin and keep my boundaries whilst disagreeing with Trofimov. I grounded myself before the scene to stay in the moment by doing some breathing exercises and reading through the scene. I also read over my notes about my characters personality traits to embody the characteristics and qualities to the best of my ability. I kept asking myself ''what would I do if I were in this situation?' to embody natural reactions to the events in the story. I used the 'Magic if' to remember a time in my life where I felt annoyed however tried to hold it back and keep my boundaries in order and remain collected. By doing this I stood up from the chair to express the line: "Don't keep. What have you got to be so proud of? All the universities you've been thrown out of?" to show my frustration to Trofimov. I started pacing around the space whilst saying "It's not that. Like that..." to express my anxieties towards the situation of Lopahin not proposing to me.

The feedback I was given was that I had a steady paced energy through out the scene and I was fully focused in the moment. I also listened to what the other characters were saying to me and to each other to react accordingly and realistically. To improve my performance I will memorise my lines from the moment I am handed the script so I feel confident in my speech and can be fully relaxed in the moment.