Evaluation:

Evaluation of skills development:

One of the physical skills I have developed through this unit of skills
development is my stamina and strength. To improve this, I created a
training plan for me to complete outside of school some based on
cardiovascular endurance, and others created to help increase muscular
strength. The training plan to improve my stamina included circuit training
of cardio activities such as, sprint runs, burpees, bear crawls etc. And the
muscular strength training plan included things like, squats, lunges, chin
ups, push ups etc. This really helped me when dancing as it helped me
find it easier when dancing and easier to learn new skills as I had the
strength to do so and can hold myself and improve my technique in
certain aspects by doing so. The improvement in my stamina has really
helped me when performing as I have the energy to perform more and
execute my movements better which made my dancing better overall and
increased my overall impression. As at the beginning of the unit I didn't
have the best stamina so by making this improvement it has really helped
the development of my physical skill.

Another physical skill I have improved is my musicality. I set myself a

SMART target on improving my musicality as I believe it's a very
important skill in dancing to have as if you have good musicality, it
improves all your dancing majorly even though it's a slight change it can
really improve your dancing so much. To improve my musicality, I would
watch the rehearsal videos in detail watching closely to make sure I hit
the beats and am timing my movements accurately with the music. I
would also consciously listen to the music whilst dancing trying to focus
on my timing to the music and ensuring I am always perfectly in time to
make the choreography look good and effective, by doing this my
awareness of the music improved and the choreography with the music
became muscle memory for me which made sure every time we ran
through the dance I was in time and had perfect musicality. Which was
really important for our piece charge by Andrew Winghart which was in
the style of contemporary.

One of my interpretive skills which I improved was my idea of the

choreographers' intentions. At the beginning of this unit my knowledge on
Mad hatters' teas party's choreographic intentions wasn't very thorough
and I hadn't looked far into the piece and the meaning behind it. So, to
help my understanding I researched into the production and the reasoning
behind the show to find out more about the backstory and the creation of
the show and the aims in which Kate Prince had. For example, Kate
wanted to use MHTP as a way of spreading awareness about mental
health and to help people not be ashamed of their mental health
conditions. This for example is helpful knowledge to know and learn about
so I can understand the backstory and take it into consideration when
dancing and working on my characterisation as this information will help
me bring my character to life while thinking about including one of Kate
Princes’ aims which adds to the effect of the production.

Another interpretive skill which I have developed is my original creative

intention, style and genre. My creative intentions and style weren't very
good at the beginning of this unit as I particularly struggled with
choreographing my solo as choreographing isn't my strongest skill,
especially in two new styles in which I had never done before, which was
very challenging for me. This developed over the course of this exam as I
had to push myself and try my hardest to work through the struggle. This
resulted in it being a longer process than other people in my class,
however it has improved and although it may not be where I want it to be,
I still managed to improve slightly which is good. And this just shows that
pushing through some harder tasks can cause improvement and have
good results. Improving my choreographic intentions, style, and genre will
be helpful in the future when I will need to choreograph more pieces and
pieces in new and different styles to me.

One of my personal management skills which I had improved over this

unit was ensuring I wore the correct attire for dance. This was one of the
things I was particularly bad on during this unit as I forget to make sure I
had the correct dance clothes in my bag before school (all black clothing).
Throughout the unit it fluctuated but I think that towards the end it had
improved overall. However, I was good at making sure the rest of my
attire was correct, for example removing all jewellery, I had the correct
footwear and had my hair tied back. Which are all important as it could
cause a safety hazard to myself or someone else, but I will try to further
improve that I have black clothing for each dance lesson in future units.

Another personal management skill in which I have improved ensuring I

was ready to work each lesson, making sure I am warming up, stretching
and cooling down every lesson. At the very beginning of the unit, I wasn't
very good at ensuring I was fully stretched and that I cooled down before
leaving the studio. Once doing research I realised the importance of being
properly stretched and ensuring you cool down after dancing or doing any
exercise so I ensured that every lesson I made sure I sat down and
stretched properly and then cooled down after the lesson to prevent the
risk of injury as much as possible as that is something quite important as
injury would cause a huge set back in my development of skills.
Overall, I think I have definitely have developed so many skills over this
unit and have gained so much more confidence in these areas due to the
skills development I have made and have enjoyed giving myself a
challenge and things to work towards, but also pushed myself out of my
comfort zone and tried something completely different and new to me.

Detailed skills audit:

In my detailed skills audit it shows the development I have made through

this unit clearly and easy to read and shows where/what skills I have
made the biggest improvements in and what I could still improve further
and go into more depth. For example, it shows clearly that I haven't fully
improved my manipulation of set/props and shows that I could develop
this further in the future. My detailed skills audit also shows other areas
such as use of spine and torso not showing any improvement whatsoever,
or how my weight placement has improved hugely going from red to
green on the RAG rating scale. This is helpful as it is highlighting in good
detail and displayed clearly how my skills have developed of this unit.

Identification of strengths and areas of improvement:

One of my strengths throughout this unit was my ability to pick up the

choreography quickly and the ability to remember it too for future
sessions so that it ensured we could move onto the next section swiftly
giving us the most time to clean up the dances and time to highlight our
areas of improvement and give us time to work on them.

I think that throughout this unit I was able to self-critique quite well and
lookout for my weaknesses when dancing and was able to pinpoint what I
needed to work on and able to create a plan or try to do something about
those weaknesses. For example, I was able to see where in MHTP i wasnt
as strong at and was able to research and find out what I need to change
to perfect it and apply that and try to make these improvements happen.

An area of improvement throughout this unit of skills development was

my charactersiatio. For example, at the beginning I didn't understand
much about my character or did I know how to act like him in
scenes/dances. This meant that you couldnt really tell anything about my
character when doing the dances as nothing I did specifically symbolise
him or would show his personality/traits. It was important for me to
improve this as it was a massive part of the show and is really important
that the audience are entertained but also see clearly who my character is
and what he is struggling with. As this was a big part of Kate Prince’s aim
when creating this show, she wanted to enlighten the world about the
struggles that mental health conditions can cause people, and she wanted
to spread awareness about the topic. Which is why it's really important for
me to characterise at all moments and really portray my character well.

Evaluation of long-term/short-term targets:

One of my long-term targets was to improve my technique over the

course of this unit. I set myself this aim as I was learning a new style of
dance which wasn’t anything similar to what I have tried before. This
meant I wasn't very good at it overall and had many areas which could
use some improvement. For example, I needed to improve my
rhythm/grooves for each of the different hip-hop styles as this was a key
part to the differentiation between the styles such as; popping and
locking, house, krumping, breakdancing etc. Each of this styes had a
different beat to hit of different underlying groove to it which made it
different from the rest, this meant that to improve my technique in this
styles I had to almost master the groove which they had to it in order for
my dancing to be correct and effective. This means that I had to
concentrate on really breaking down that groove movement when
learning each new style and understanding it fully on its own before
adding it into the choreography.

A short-term target that I had set myself was to improve was my footwork
at the end of the dance ‘hatters house’ as this was a section of very
intricate but fast footwork. This meant it was a very challenging piece of
choreography and was a tough one to make it perfect. I wanted to
improve this as when we run it with music it was messy, and my feet felt
very heavy and kept getting tangled up and would cause me to stumble
sometimes, which isn't ideal as it lets my impression as a dancer down
and doesn't look good and doesn't have a good end to the dance as it
looks unprofessional and as if I had no idea what I am supposed to be
doing. To perfect this, I ensure I repeatedly went over the steps slowly
without music, so my muscle memory knew what to be doing with my
feet, then I began trying it to faster counts then eventually to music to
ensure that it stick in my memory and that my movements look crisp and
clean, and the choreography looks effective. Once I was able to clean up
my footwork it allowed me to work on my performance and perfect what I
was doing with my arms so that it looks effective and not take away from
the difficult but impressive footwork.

Feedback from others:

In my teacher/peer assessment, my areas of improvement were;

  Enhancing the contrast between the two states of my character
 Sustaining characterisation
 Explore proxemics further to enhance storytelling

These were helpful for me to have an outsider's perspective on what they

think I could further improve and is really helpful to get a second opinion
on my performance as different people notice different things and have
different tips/corrections. In the future I will make sure I work on these
points as it is an extremely helpful starter to further development through
any dance and anything else I work in the future.

Some of the good things my teacher/peers said in the observation was;

 Strong ability to develop appropriate movement

 Adaptive and versatile to new dance styles
 Good timing and pace

This is helpful to know as it reassures me and lets me know what I am

doing well, and what stands out to others around me with my dancing.
This is helpful as it makes me aware of my strengths so I can use my
knowledge of me as a dancer to my advantage in future and I know not to
spend time trying to improve those things, but to work on my
weaknesses.

My progress:

I have made quite an improvement over this unit of skills development

and my progress is clear to see over the rehearsal videos filmed
throughout the rehearsal process, this is an effective way to track
progress as it can be seen and studied rather than trying to remember
you're able to watch exactly how much you have improved.

As well as making physical progress over this unit, I have also improved so
much in my confidence levels. I have become much more confident in my
ability as a dancer as I have proved to myself and my peers that I can
learn something new and completely out of my normal comfort zone and
something completely new to me. This has also added to my physical skils
progress as because my confidence has increased it has caused me to
push myself in improving my dancing as much as I possibly can in the
time frame given and it has shown me my potential and made me strive
to perfect dancing as much as possible.
Use of correct terminology:

Over this course so far, my vocabulary in dance has widened. This was
really helped by the two workshops we did with professional hip-hop
dancers, my knowledge and use of dance terminology has expanded but
for sure in the hip-hop sector as this was an area I was less familiar with.
Some of the words I have learnt are;

 Bounce- foundational movement involving bending and

straightening of the
knees, usually in time to a beat.
 Groove- the natural and relaxed body movement dancers use to
connect with the music.
 Isolation- moving one part of the body independently to others.
 Popping- involves quick muscle contractions to create a jerking
effect.
 Locking- where a dance will freeze in place after quick movements
(popping)
 Krumping- energetic, and expressive style characterised by free,
exaggerated and aggressive movements. Born from the desire to
express intense emotions (this is why it was well suited for my
character of the cheshire cat)

Contemporary based;

 Release- letting go of muscular tension to allow natural movement.

 Contraction-a movement where the dancer pulls the torso inwards,
usually initiated by the core.
 Articulation- clear and precise movements of joints and limbs.
 Projection- the extension of energy and intention beyond the body
to connect with the audience or space.
 Fall and recovery- the body's movement between giving in to
gravity (fall) and regaining control (recovery)