Blog Two- My Personal Development
As a performer it's integral to understand how to convey yourself as someone to be taken seriously within the performing arts industry as well as being able to consistently demonstrate technically proficient levels of skill. The skill set required to have a clear pathway into the industry fall under the topics of:
.Acting
.Dance
.Singing
.Behaviour -Research-theatre etiquette
As a performer aspiring to be successful withing my industry its a nessesity that I am able to evaluate my own behaviours and skill set in order to effectively reflect on my skills that require further development.
I can ensure that I am a confident performer and my skill set covers all basis of the required skills within my industry. Key examples of my skills are:
Communication, As a performer I use communication at all times wether it's during my rehursal process or during the actually performance, communication allows me to express myself both vocally and physically in a productive manner that helps benefit my overall performance as well as how efficiently I work within groups. A prime example of how I structure communication into my work is my first year of college imersive theatre performance for a Profound Multiple Learning Disorder (PMLD) based audience, this immersive theatre piece meant that I needed to ensure I correctly portrayed myself as a someone who can be trusted and gain comfort from throughout my performance in order to create a more settling and available surrounding I used communication throughout to ensure that my audience were prepared for what was to come next by giving very clear instructions and informing the carers as to where my audience should be sat and when. This multiple sensory performances helped me engage with skills I hadn't yet fully grasped I belive that I am now a strong verbal communicator and do so everyday.
Flexibility, I have a total of 15 years within dance aspects of my industry and i enjoy pushing my limits in order to progress as a dancer therefore Flexibility is something that I make repetitive progress in and endore the challenges it brings, flexibility has many different meanings the key is being able to comfortably support your own bodies force and movement and how quick you are to attack each step. I can confidently take advantage of flexibility and I include it into the variety of my performances most recently Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales and Waiting for Godot. Both performances are completely juxtaposed however they both depend on movement to demonstrate further characterisation. Waiting For Godot is a play written by Samuel Beckett which presents the life of two men who go there entire life bound together waiting for an inevitable end that never arrives leaving them stuck on earth continuing with their awful life which nether has the effort to leave behind. When provided with the script for Waiting For Godot we were instructed to form a Circus based movement sequence or clowning act within, I understood my assignment instantly and began to construct movement such as acrobatics taking place at drastic downcast moments in order to contrast the speech and gain a reaction from my audience. Similarly I use acrobatics within my portrayal of character in my current physical theatre module for Brothers Grimm, I constantly introduce new technique and acrobatics within my dances, i am aware that a lot of my flexibility stems from my back and my left leg as these are the parts of my body that i strengthen and stretch the most as i can produce good results from them by constantly demonstrating my skills my body gradually adjusts and gains more flexibility. The flexibility skills i currently have will help me achieve my end goal of being a dancer because it demonstraights my control and how i use motion within my body, not only does it make my performance structured and easier to watch but it also reduces risk of injury as i have the strength and security in my body to control where i go and avoid any fatal incidents reassuring any future employers that i can priorities my safety and will be a consistent worker who reduces the need for a replacement or money spent on understudy therefore because of this skill I am a more well rounded performer with the technical skill and ability to extend my bodies lines and appear seamless.
Another skill in which i posses is confidence, I can evidently portray the role of a character on stage through many different techniques and skills shared between Acting and Dance However confidence became more prominent once group rehearsal began to take place and produced effective results. Confidence ensures I can portray myself in an admirable respectable light that conveys who i am as a person, being confident provides me with the access and the opportunities to share my thoughts and ideas on the practitioners and performances we prepare for. I will maintain this skill by reaching out to others both within college and outside in order to widen my networking capabilities and start to construct a reputation, having such high levels of confidence permits me to establish myself as a dependable source of leadership there for When it comes to working within a group i am prepared to establish myself as a leader and provide support to those around me. Leadership is a skill that i can use within my future career as it provides me with a pedestal which draws in peoples attention which is exactlywhat i am expected to do as a dance teacher or any role within my industry that requires student or audition persona participant, I can produce detailed explanations and further examples as to what our lesson plan is if we are without a lecturer for the session or have been instructed to begin individual tasks. I aspire to be taken seriously even as a Student therefor to ensure i sustain this skill I intend to continue to be a driven student with a clear idea and understanding as to where and how I would like to progress as a dancer within the industry. Additionally, being able to lead a group is an important factor that many employers consider, making me a more valuable potential employee moving forward as this skill opens many different possible pathways within my industry ranging from director to assistant director to lead choreographer and many more.
Through my final products and development process i can demonstrate clear levels of creativity, I can produce forms of Creativity in both my theory and practical work and a key example of this is our upcoming new musical finding hope, for which I produce the script. As a scriptwriter and editor I am instructed to ensure that all aspects of our script drafts follow the required and set storyline as well as convey a clear plot throughout, techniques I can use to challenge my creativity and provide support to my writing are improvisation tasks, as a scriptwriter being able to jump straight into a scene and analyse what works and what needs improvement is incredibly important there for short-acting improvisations within groups allow me to form ideas which can be recorded and noted down to lengthen our script scenes and provide more dialogue providing more insight into our characters. I also use creativity within dance to create new choreography and Demonstrate memorable storylines which match the narrative of our theme, a good example is Grimms Fairy tales, this is my latest ongoing project. My Creativity stems from my ability to latch onto ideas and produce a good final result I challenge this skill every day by exploring new techniques theoretically and practically. My knowledge of practitioners permits me to incorporate new techniques within my dance and acting. In order to maintain this skill I will continuously do my own research new practitioners this information will benifit me as it allows me to portray classical acting techniques without taking it a step too far and straying from my set brief.
An area in which I require improvement is Acting through song as this skill requires that I need to able to correctly emote which I am able to do whilst dancing and acting however i have not yet had the chance to fully explore this skill in order to confidently portray it within my work. Similarly another skill i would like to improve gradually is pronunciation this skill is inclusive of many acting styles that range from comedic styles, happy, sad, anger and tension filled. I do feel as though i am able to clearly enunciate my words, I was able to develop this skill via a range of different practice methods such as rhyming vocal warm-ups, vowel pronunciation and highlighting keywords within songs that I know need to present clear emotion therefore I am always working towards developing my skills. Its important to develop my acting through song skills as my end goal of being a musical theatre performer will evidently require this skill due to the high demand that musical theatre depend upon and the messages they convey through emotive behaviours both vocally and physically. By harnessing this skill I'd evidently be expanding my level of employability and presenting both to my audience and employer that I can consistently convey a character of any genre. This skill opens many career pathways as it allows me to begin my journey and explore more singer based pathways and acting.
As a performer mostly familiar with the singing and dancing aspect of my industry I understand that breathing is a skill that Is simple however it produces difficulty for many as singing a sustained note makes it easy to fall into the habit of pushing out air instead on holding it and engaging your core to strengthen the note. In order to improve this skill I regularly do a range of breathing techniques in order to become less dependent on short notes and breaks between movement. By improving my breathing technique I am overall improving my endurance and stamina which will help me gradually become more employable as I present myself as someone who can handle and effortlessly complete physically challenging work loads.
Once I have improved upon my current skills and set target skills I will confidently have a clear idea as to which line of work I would like to explore within my chosen career path of the Performing Arts industry and will be able to ensure that I am prepared for any opportunity that is presented to me via networking skills or opportunities that I have found on my own.
