24.04.15

Today we started the prologue scene which is our opening scene, which features the announcer speech and a dance we have choreographed today. Our lesson was very productive today and we completed the whole prologue, and divided it into sections so each person has a few lines to say, instead of us all reading the prologue in unison or just 1 person taking the role of the announcer.

We decided to stage the scene quite simply and using all of the space. We first begin backstage and enter the stage, running with small steps in a 1930's cabaret show girl style, and we form the shape of an arrow on the stage >

Sophie then opens the scene with the announcers speech, and we choreographed movements to link with her speech, the whole style is very 1920-1930's cabaret speak easy style. We are using music in this scene as well, we decided on these songs to be featured in the opening scene...

Louis Armstrong and his hot five- Fireworks(1928)

Gershwin plays Gershwin rhapsody in blue(1927)

And then we are going to use a sound effect of Tommy gun's which I found on youtube to be played at the same time as the second song, after we have finished the prologue and the lights have gone down. It adds to the gangster effect of the play and it adds a good atmosphere, and is quite alarming, which is what we want.

We recorded our dance after a couple of rehearsals and this will be uploaded very soon. I think for our first ever rehearsal lesson for this play, today went really well and we created a great opening scene, and the dance moves look really good, and are definitely 1920s-30's cabaret style movements, we incorporated the Charleston and leg kicks and quick foot movements. I am really happy with this scene and we all worked great together.
I feel now to make this scene stronger we just need to keep running it and making sure the dance moves are very sharp, and we are quick with our lines in the prologue.
We have all said that we will learn our lines in time for Tuesday's rehearsal so that we are able to act to our best abilities and we will become more confident with the show the earlier we know our lines.
I feel a good way to maintain the dance moves is to use this dance piece as our WARM UP every lesson! That way we will be constantly rehearsing it, it will give us energy at the start of our lessons and it is fun, I feel after we choreographed the dance I felt so much more awake and lively, because the style of the dance is very upbeat and fast.
Here is a video I found which gives a feel to the dance and look we have created..

The movement they use at 1:15 in the exact same dance step we use in our scene.

First rehearsal of OUR dance