Dance
Performance Self Evaluation – Group Performance
Our group
performance was a physical theatre based piece, Physical theatre is a cross
between drama and dance using physical movements to convey expression or an
object. Our pieces theme is Gangs and was influenced by a physical theatre
piece called Faultline, Faultline uses gestures and
footwork from Bharatanatyam (style of Indian dance) which is influenced by
martial arts, contemporary dance. We did this routine within a dance show held
at our college, in which we performed to a large audience which consisted of
teachers, dancers and parents.
In
this dance we had a lot of key movements, Symbolism was a big thing for our
piece therefore the majority of movements were gestures, as that is a key thing
used within gangs and is also included in Faultline, a lot of gestures we
incorporated in our piece were linked with a word, for example we had a
movement in which we lifted our hoods to represent how gangs are known for
their clothing, which also links with another movement we did where we covered
out lower half of our face like a handkerchief to symbolize brand identity
which is another key factor of Gangs in these times.
Another technique we used
was unison, unison is where all dancers do the same movements as the same time,
we used this as firstly it represents unity which was another one of our words
linked with our theme, however we also used it because it gives the dance more
dynamic so that it isn’t too crazy the whole dance there are moments where we
are all together and slow.
Lastly characterization was big in our piece as it
helped us convey our theme and the small story line within our piece it, a lot
of the characterization elements were helped by the use of dynamics in which
added to certain movements within the dance to reflect what our characters were
feeling.
I
think that one of my strengths within the performance was facial expression I
used this to show the emotions of my character and my characters story line for
example at the end I showed that I was scared to help the audience understand
that something bad was going to happen to my character, I think this is one of
my strengths as it helped me get more into character, helped out the story line
and made the piece more of a performance. Another strength of mine would be
co-ordination and spatial awareness, I used co-ordination by knowing the
routine well therefore being able to focus on other aspects whilst executing
the dance, I used spatial awareness well as there are a lot of movements where
the movements get quite dramatic and people can bump into to each other for
example in the fight duets max kept bumping into Ashley therefore I made sure
that we started further down stage so this would not occur in the performance.
I
think one of my weaknesses for this performance would have been musicality I
think this is because it was quite a strange and unique piece of music and
because it didn’t really have any timing to it I couldn’t get into it,
therefore If this occurs again in a dance I need to listen to the music and put
my own timing to the music so that I can get into it more, It is is important
that you have good musicality in dance as it shows in your movements it also
adds to the atmosphere and emotions of the dance because if someone doesn’t
feel they can fit with the music they can look stiff or a bit awkward and
musicality links with timing they both come together. Another weakness was my
flexibility, lacking flexibility can really hinder your dance ability and
therefore overall performance, for example when you need to be low and need to
lunge to help portray character flexibility can help. As a result I need to
improve it so that I can dance with more fluidity and ease it also helps
improve my skills within dance.
In
conclusion, my targets for my next performance would be to improve my stamina
and strength to do this I need to start doing more cardiovascular exercises
such as running and aerobics I will try and achieve this in three weeks.
Another target it to improve my balance so that I can dance with more control
to improve this I need to improve my core control by doing exercises like sit
ups and crunches, I aim to do this a few times a week for three weeks. My last
target is to improve my flexibility so that my dance level improves to do this
I will do stretches every other fay for three weeks.
