This blog post will cover all different skills and what I did and how I improved them through November.
November has been a month for rehearsals rehearsals and you guessed it more rehearsals; In college we are working towards putting on a Christmas showcase, we have been working on some main pieces but have also had the chance to audition solo pieces, another big thing for this month was the musical auditions.
The main stuff was:
Dancin’ Fool
A Town Called Malice
Haqnd Jive
and Audition prep
Dancin fool,
for this piece I really had to work on my characterisation and facial expression throughout the performance. One point I improved was thinking about who am I in this scene, and I decided that I am a cool show dancer there to entertain guests, that is why now in the dance I am very smiley and very very energetic. A big part of this show is the choreography set by Grover Dale, he took inspiration from a pioneer for dance, especially within musical theatre, the great Robert Louis Fosse. Sadly he died aged 60 in 1987, when Fosse was younger he had visions of becoming the next Fred Astaire… this was however short lived as he was told he would never dance due to problems with his legs. His first marriage was to his dance partner Mary Ann Niles, this didn’t last as he had a total of three marriages under his belt by the time he passed over.
Below is a picture of him performing his iconic dance style, this picture is almost a direct reflection of the iconic king of pops’ ‘smooth criminal’. People have said that, “None of his moves where his own and even his style his hats and his glove, it was all Fosse” – Karma.
If so and MJ truly has taken his style from Bobs style of dance, we should firstly give him the credit he deserves but also thank him for enabling the phenomenon of MJ.
Image – Copacabana (1994 Original London Cast) – 4. Dancin’ Fool
A Town Called Malice,
This dance is very chilled and all about the hardships of life, as a performer it is really important to tell the story that is why a lot of the time during this dance our hands are in our pockets, it is also very reliant of face expression as this is where my emotion and character will come from a lot of the time it is also important as the audience connect with faces and if your face is not telling the story they will not fully believe the story. I had to spend a lot of time working on and rehearsing the second line section as I kept of doing the wrong foot work, however I’ve now learnt the correct footwork and am able to confidently perform it. Paul Weller has said that it was written about his hometown Woking, and also the experiences of teenage life there. The song is also said to be a play on the title of a 1950 novel called A town Like Alice, however Paul Weller denies having read it at the time. The song itself was a hit released as the first single from an album on 29 January 1982, it entered the chart at number one on the British music charts, staying at the top for three weeks, preventing the stranglers from taking the number one spot. The song has also made quite an impact on TV and film, following taken from Wiki – “Town Called Malice” was featured prominently in the 1985 comedy film National Lampoon’s European Vacation, provided the soundtrack for a key scene in the 2000 drama Billy Elliot,[12] and was the opening track to the 2005 film The Matador.[13] It also appeared in the opening sequence of the third episode of the seventh season of The Walking Dead. In the Elementary series Sherlock rehearsed it in 18th episode of the sixth season. It is played before every Millwall F.C. home game and is also played before the second half of Woking F.C. games when they play at their home ground Kingfield Stadium.[citation needed]. The song was used in the opening scene of a season six episode of the CBS series Elementary” titled “The Visions of Norman P. Horowitz”.
Hand Jive,
This is a dance based on high energy, big characters and loud costumes. For this dance my biggest challenge was learning to do the dance without a partner 90% of the time, this was hard as there is a lot of partner work withing it and then a whole duets section, however I choreographed the section for me and my partner and taught it to her when I could. This dance also has something called ‘The drill’ in it and this was a challenge for me to learn as it is a rather quick movement. Taken from Wiki – The hand jive is also featured prominently in the Broadway musical Grease (1971) through the song “Born to Hand Jive“; in the movie adaptation of the musical, the song is performed by Sha Na Na. On a DVD audio commentary for the movie, choreographer Patricia Birch mentions that the dance also went by the much more risque name “hand job“, but the title was changed as Grease was aimed at a family audience. Jazz fusion guitarist John Scofield’s 1993 album is called by [Hand Jive (album)] The long-running Walt Disney World musical Festival of the Lion King (1997) uses this[clarification needed] during the song “Hakuna Matata,” and the performers and audience do it while singing the song. The audience is taught the hand jive some time before the show begins. The 2005 album “Midnight Boom” by the band The Kills features the hand-jive rhythm in the song “Sour Cherry.” The band’s goal while writing the album was to write rhythms inspired by old-school school-yard hand claps.
We also spent a lot of time carrying out audition prep for the Addams family, this consisted f learning a monologue, a song and an accent. The males had to learn script for Gomez, this was fun as he is a different character to one in most plays so playing around with it was interesting, the song was Morticia, a musical number about his wife denying him cheeky fun time.
My actual audition however I flunked due to nerves, I stumbled on lines and songs, however it was a good experience as it was carried out like a professional audition. I got cast as Mal the american Father of Wednesdays boyfriend.
Harrison's Performing arts blog 