Here comes the show part - Dance Saturday
Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post,
This week, I performed in my school's production called Come Alive. As I've mentioned before, over the past two months or so, I've been rehearsing the IB dance rock 'n' roll number as well as the musical theatre Come Alive performance school piece for the show and this week, I was finally able to show my work. Due to the current Covid-19 situation, the show had to be spread out across three nights so that we didn't have too many people in the audience at once. As a result, we all performed on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings, and my performances were largely a success. I really liked dancing in front of a real life audience as, with the pandemic, I wasn't able to do that. It's been nearly two years since I've done a show so to be able to dance in front of people again, was really refreshing. I know that this aspect of the performance world really suffered during the pandemic, so I think it was a nice thing for everyone at the school to have the opportunity to get involved, even if we had to adapt certain aspects here and there. I also really liked all the routines that I did because I think that they were fun, positive, and energetic and I feel like for once, I actually wasn't afraid to use my face. My parents came to watch me on the first night and they even commented on how much more I used my face, in comparison to other performances I've done in the past, which is a big improvement for me!😀💜
On the other hand, the production was a bit precarious at times. One of my friends who was partnering me for the rock 'n' roll number, had hurt her ankle during rehearsal and she continued to dance on it despite it feeling uncomfortable at times. Ideally, I didn't really want her to do the show because one time when we were practising one of the lifts in class and when we came out of it, she landed on her foot weirdly and fell on the floor. She was adamant that she was still going to dance but from then on, I was just imagining us doing the routine on stage in front of everyone and her seriously injuring herself. Luckily, she wore her ankle brace on stage and we managed to survive all three nights and execute our lifts fairly well. She is a great dancer to be fair and I probably wouldn't have been able to do the show without her, so I guess I should be thankful for small mercies. 😂💜
However, although the teachers put a lot of time and effort into bringing the whole show together, at times, the show did feel a little bit rushed. When I went in for the dress/tech rehearsal on Monday, I noticed that some of the routines looked a bit random and out of place. The big theme of the show was Come Alive and some of the routines became quite political and negative, and didn't fit cohesively with the theme. Not to discredit all the work that all the dancers and performers put in because everyone did amazing and everyone really nailed everything that they did but personally for me, it was more so the organisation and the way that the show was put together that looked a bit out of place. There was too much of a contrast between the different routines and performances that were in the show and considering that this is a sixth form that is known across Cambridge for its performance school, this aspect could have been improved I think.
Nevertheless, it was a good night and most of the audience seemed to enjoy the show, which is the main thing. Over online learning, we lost out on a lot of practical so these past few months has included us trying to catch up on the practical side of the course, which may have had an impact on the quality of the show. We were very fortunate to be a part of this production considering the fact that we're still in the midst of a pandemic. With track and trace, it must have been a headache to organise so I'm extremely thankful for the efforts of the teachers to put this all together. I love to dance so being able perform properly for the first time in a long while, in my first ever sixth form show, was an incredible experience.
Well done to everyone who made this production happen. You all did amazingly well.x
Here were some of the songs we danced to in case you're interested. 😀
Comments
Post a Comment
Thanks for leaving your comments! I really enjoy reading your positive and constructive messages. They really make my day! 💜