Bitesize Dance, Drama & Casting 2-10-12

In dance the ones of us who had auditioned for pantomime on Friday told Meg what we found difficult about the dancing we had to do. I found the remembering of the steps after only going through them quickly difficult so Megan said that in class we would work on learning dances more quickly like we would be expected to in an audition. Other people explained what they found difficult like the terms that were used for dance steps were different to what we normally use (for example a grape vine one of the boys said was referred to as a step ball change ball change) So we decided that we would go though  some other dance terms for steps that we might come across in auditions in the future.

After that we were split into groups of three and given 8 bars of 8 to come up with a short dance in our threes. During the time we had Megan would stop us and tell us things we had to include, such as jazz slide and turn finishing in second position, so we had to stop and alter parts of the dance to fit these things in. We all decided to contribute our own bits to the dance by putting in bits of our favourite style, I added a bit of ballet, another person put in some hip-hop, and another put in modern, so that our dance varied in styles and speed. Then we were given a few pieces of music to dance the dance to and when we had to show the rest of the group what we had done Megan put on a different piece of music that we had to dance to so we had to think on the spot an count the beats in our heads so that it worked.

In drama Lisa gave us the script for the christmas play we would be doing, which was called "The Peace Egg" and is an old fashioned Mummers play. A Mummers play is a play that was performed at christmas time by a group of actors who went around peoples houses and performed for them, it was the early version of a pantomime. After we read through the script in parts (with some very dodgy Irish, Scottish, and Welsh accents!) we discussed what sort of music, songs, and effects we could add to our version of the play. We suggested for the fights some dramatic music and to show what a mummers play is about we could have someone pretending to be the person who has opened the door to watch the play performed outside. We thought that because the play is quite long the person at the door could, towards the end, get quite bored and sit down or maybe even shut the door.

In casting we talked more about auditions, the people you might come across there, and what kind of parts we would be put up for. I explained to the group what I thought of the audition and that we didn't actually do any singing or acting, that it was all dance. I also told everyone about the couple of girls that were there that came up to our group and started bragging about how they had been in that pantomime before and they trained for six hours six days a week. None of us liked them because they were overly forward and although they were good at dance they had no facial expression or performance about them like we have been taught at Bitesize. Then Linda asked a few of us to stand up at a time and gave the group the description of the type of person the casting director wanted to to play a particular role. Then as a group we decided who would fit that part best and Linda told us if we were right, she would put that person up for that audition. The group decided that I would be best for a part in a victorian film or play because of my face and hair.