Popping (Certificate in Dance)

Popping is type of hip hop – street dance. It came from California during 1960’s-1970’s. It is based on the technique of quickly contracting and relaxing muscles to cause a jerk in the dancer's body, referred to as a pop or a hit. This is done continuously to the rhythm of a song in combination with various movements and poses. It can be concentrated only to certain parts of body – legs, arms, neck, chest. Pops are performed on the beat of the music. Popping is usually performed standing up but sometimes popper go on his knees or floor to show special moves. This dance style is usually integrated with robot, waving and tutting dance styles. 

Notable poppers: 

•Salah Benlemqawanssa

•Michael "Boogaloo Shrimp" Chambers

•Steffan "Mr. Wiggles" Clemente

•Suga Pop

•Nam "Poppin'" Hyun Joon

•Stephen "Skeeter Rabbit" Nichols

•JayFunk

Popping performance by Salah Benlemqawanssa

Rooster - sexual dance (Dance Certificate) 

Today we started to learn Rooster's dance by Christopher Bruce. This dance is about sexual revolution and it is combination of contemporary and jazz. I find it quite funny dance. 5 males and 1 female are involved in this dance. Males are dominants. Female is always trying to get their attention. Movements really remind a rooster, also they are strong and sexual. Body is quite up and straight.

Famous modern dance choreographers

Isadora Duncan - her choreography was free and natural. Her choreography doesn't really have sharp endings. She always thought that ballet is really unnatural. Most of her dance was influenced by Greek sculptures.

Martha Graham - in her choreography we can see a clear contraction and release. Movements and eemotionalexpressions are linked to each other. Her famous work is "Appalachian spring"

Merce Cunningham - He wasn't interested in telling stories in his dance. His movement didn't really differ from ballet.

Alvin Ailey - he used African-American traditional spirituals and he liked lines, like long unbroken leg line. His techniques was more like a new dance style. He uses different levels, low stance and tall contrast. His most popular and critically acclaimed work "Revelations":

Ruth St Denis - her dance idea came from Egypt and India. Her dances are usually slow and really dramatic.  

Christopher Bruce -  his choreography is usually dramatic and tells a story.

Dance assesment

Today we were assessed on our dance.
First my group showed what we have, after that we got a feedback and we had some time to improve our dance. What we needed to improve was use more space, because sometimes we were too close to each other. I think we managed it quite well. Take a look at our final dance.

In my opinion I was really focused, punctuality could be better. Quite good contact with group.
My moves should be more specific, also I really want to improve my flexibility and posture. I could be more confident and I should have added more expressions.
My target to improve is to work on timing, expression, creativity and flexibility.

Anyways I really liked this dance and I am happy with our work :)

Dance with Dominique

We started to learn a dance with Dominique. This dance is interesting because of it's sharpness, angles and directions, use of planes. In first lesson we learnt section 1:

After that everyone needed to create their own motifs. Mine looks like this:

And after this Dominique separated us into groups of 2 and we needed to learn each others motifs. It wasn't really hard and I think it helped us to improve each others motifs because when we worked together it was easier for us to notice each others mistakes. After we did it, Dominique gave us one more task - an interesting task in groups. Honestly in the beginning I didn't think that is it possible but after my group even got a bit passionate about completing is. So task was to merge our dances and use as much spacing as we can and the most important thing - to cross each others dances. This is the result, but it is one of the first attempts :

And also we learnt section 2 but unfortunately I don't have a video. Not yet :)

Oh freedom

The first song we learnt was: 

“Oh Freedom” by Odetta

Oh freedom, oh freedom, oh freedom over me

And before I'd be a slave I'll be buried in my grave

And go home to my Lord and be free

No more moaning, no more moaning, no more moaning over me

And before I'd be a slave I'll be buried in my grave

And go home to my Lord and be free

No more weeping, no more weeping, no more weeping over me

And before I'd be a slave I'll be buried in my grave

And go home to my Lord and be free

Oh freedom, oh freedom, oh freedom over me

And before I'd be a slave I'll be buried in my grave

And go home to my Lord and be free

There'll be singin', there'll be singin', there'll be singin' over me

And before I'd be a slave I'll be buried in my grave

And go home to my Lord and be free

There'll be glory, there'll be glory, there'll glory over me

And before I'd be a slave I'll be buried in my grave

And go home to my Lord and be free

Oh freedom, oh freedom, oh freedom over me

And before I'd be a slave I'll be buried in my grave

And go home to my Lord and be free

Today I had an amazing lesson. This lesson was supposed to be hard cardio training, but because of some reasons it wasn't. We all were laying on the floor. Really calm music was playing. We were laying on the floor and thinking about our life. What has changed during last 5-10 years, how many choices have we made during our life, were they all right or not, what would we have told ourselves at 5-10yrs old. I looked over my life from the beginning, and understood that so many things have changed and that there are many things I am planning to do or change. I found this lesson helpful :)

Singing warm-ups

Today we had first singing lesson. We did a few warm-ups.

My favourite one is numbers:

Also we did some tongue twisters. I find it really hard. The hardest for me is "red leather yellow leather". Also we do "unique new york", "good blood, bad blood"etc.

Introduction

First of all I want to introduce myself. I am Viktorija and this is my first blog.   I go to Leyton Sixth Form College and I study BTEC Level 3 Musical Theater there. That's the reason I started to write this blog. I find it really interesting that teachers will assess us by reading our blogs. I will share all my views about this course and what we are doing during our lessons. Enjoy reading ;)