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The focus in today's lesson was to learn the choreography and perform to the best of our ability. At the start of this class, we completed a warm up which involved stretching, cardio and isolations to ensure that the body was warm for safe practise. We then learnt the choreography in small sections to enable us to memorise the movements and this helped us to execute the moves correctly. Once we had learnt the dance, we were split into small groups to give us the opportunity to perform in the space. One of my strengths from this lesson was musicality, as I was able to keep in time with the other dancers around me and this helped me to look precise and clean as I was performing at the same time as everyone else. Musicality is essential when working in the professional industry because you may be asked to perform as a group, so you must show that you can stay in time with the other dancers, otherwise, you will stand out and therefore will be unemployable. In this lesson, I struggled at the beginning to pick up the choreography, this is because I am less confident when doing commercial because I am more of a technical dancer. The choreography was taught at a fast pace and this lead to me being unable to concentrate as I was focusing too hard to perform the moves to the best of my ability. To improve on my weakness, I will go to extra classes to explore a range of styles and help me my pick up rate to increase, also I will focus more in lessons to ensure that I pick all of the movements up within the choreography.

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The focus of this stretch is to improve the flexibility of my hamstrings as this will help me to prevent injury during classes. This stretch helps me as it loosens my muscles when they become tight and it also improves my mobility range. My strength from this stretch would be anatomical awareness as I made sure that my body was in the correct position as this would lead to injuries and tightness in my muscles. These are both important when working in the industry because you need to be aware of the positions that your body is in to prevent any injuries, because if you have many injuries then you will be unreliable and, will make you lose jobs because employers will be looking for dancers who can cope under the constant pressure of the intense training. My weakness from this stretch would be my flexibility in the back of my legs because I was unable to get my head to touch my knees as it was painful as my hamstrings are very tight. To improve on this weakness, I will continue to do this stretch every week to see improvement. I will practise this stretch every week to ensure that my muscles don’t get fatigue or become too weak to perform to the best of my ability in classes. Overall, flexibility is vital when working professionally because it makes you a more versatile dancer.

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The objective of this stretch is to improve the flexibility of my lower back. This stretch helps to reduce soreness of my muscles and it also improves my muscular balance which helps to maintain good posture. This means that I am less likely to get injured as it also increases physical performance as well. One of my strengths when doing this stretch was my overall flexibility as I was able to lean back to the best of my ability, however my lower back began to hurt after a few of these stretches as my muscles at the bottom of my back are weaker than the others. If a dancer, has excellent flexibility, then this will make them more employable to work in the industry, this is because it makes you more versatile and employers will be looking for dancers with a great range of movement in the body. A weakness for me when doing this, would be my posture, as I was in a difficult position to keep my posture in line, to improve this I will be more aware of my body and it’s allignment when doing this stretch again. Posture is vital when working in the professional dance industry because dancers who have poor posture are more prone to injuries because extra stress is being added onto the joints and muscles of the body, therefore this will make you unemployable because you will be unreliable due to the increased amount of injuries so it is essential to maintain good posture to prevent injuries so you are reliable and more employable when auditioning for jobs in the industry.

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I have been practising this stretch every night to ensure improvement. This image was taken a week later. A strength for me whilst doing this stretch was flexibility because I was able to reach further without any pain, this proves that I have improved from the first time because my head is closer to my knees which is the aim of this stretch. Flexibility is vital when being a professional dancer because employers will be looking for dancers with an excellent range of movement within their body, this will therefore secure employment. However, I believe I can improve further on my flexibility, to do this I will continue to practise this stretch every night. My overall goal would be to have my head on my knees and be able to complete this stretch to the best of my ability without any pain or tightness in my joints and muscles.

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Rehearsal for commercial assessment at home 10/12/2017

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Rehearsal for commercial assessment at home 10/12/2017

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I practised rehearsing the choreography for the final assessment piece at home. This was beneficial for me because of the amount of rehearsals I missed due to my absence. It enabled me to practise on my own confidently and focus on my weaknesses in more detail. My strengths from this would be my determination and motivation because sometimes I went wrong but I always tried to carry on throughout and never gave up. It is important to have excellent mental capacity when working in the industry, as employers want dancers who are willing to learn and improve and cope under the pressure of the intense training and performances so this is vital. I identified a weakness when practising at home, this was my performance. This was a weakness for me because I struggled to use facial expressions or perform confidently, this was because I was using the free time to the best of my ability by ensuring that all my parts were clean and precise in order for me to be an effective performer overall, to improve on my weakness, I will continue to attend extra classes and practise on improving my confidence at home to help me to feel more comfortable when performing in front of an audience.

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Rehearsal for commercial assessment at home 10/12/2017

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Rehearsal for commercial assessment at home 10/12/2017

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To improve, I have been practising at home in my own time to ensure that i effectively improve on my weaknesses. This has helped me to self assess myself, it has also helped me to outline my weaknesses when practising and it has given me more confidence since doing this at home. My strength from this, would be musicality, this was my strength as i ensured that i stayed in time with the music and this helped me in the final piece to be an effective performer, this was because I was able to stay in time with the other dancers which made me look clean and precise. Musicality is vital when performing because it is the key to dancers performing in time with each other, this makes you more employable as it shows to an employer that you can work effectively in a team and make the performance excellent and entertaining to an audience. However, my weakness would be my performance as I just danced the choreography without focusing on projecting to an audience or using facial expressions to explore further. To improve on my weakness, I will start attending more classes to ensure that I gain confidence, and this will help me to perform effectively to an audience.

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Rehearsal for commercial assessment piece- 11/12/2017

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Rehearsal for commercial assessment piece- 11/12/2017

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The main objective in today's rehearsal was to ensure that all the sections were clean and precise and that our musicality was correct throughout the performance. In this rehearsal we ran through the dance once and then we cut down the sections and looked at the dynamics in more detail. When I was practising my sections, I ensured that I was precise when performing certain movements. My strengths from this lesson would be, retention and musicality. Retention was one of my strengths as I have missed a lot of the rehearsal process and this meant that I had to pick up the choreography at a fast pace due to the deadline date. In this class, I made sure that I was in time with the music and the other dancers around me and this resulted in me being on time for all the sections and performing them in time with the music. However, my weakness from this lesson would be my performance, this is because I was focusing on the execution of my moves, rather than performing to the audience, to improve on this, I can use facial expressions to engage the audience into my performance. Since, starting Shockout Arts, I have improved in my commercial dance style, this is because we focus on this style and this has helped me to gain confidence and move my body in a different way. I have been practising at home to ensure that I improve, and I have been practising in the studio when I have free time. To make further improvement, I will start going to open classes after college hours, to keep improving my performance and confidence. It is important to be an exceptional performer when working in the industry because a dancer’s role is to entertain the audience so you need to be able to perform confidently and not be shy because this will make you unemployable.

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In this lesson, we began with a very intense warm up, which involved cardiovascular fitness, stamina and strengthening. My main strength from this lesson was my core strength, this was a strength for me because I was able to complete all of the core exercises without any rest in between. Core strength is important when working in the industry as it leads to better balance and stability, in dance, most movements depend on stable core muscles. My weaknesses from this lesson were stamina, performance, and retention. I was unable to keep up with the intense cardio fitness at the beginning of the class, and I also struggled to remember all of the movements in the choreography, this is shown in the video when I make a slight mistake when I turned the wrong way and kicked the wrong leg outwards. This made me feel uncomfortable when performing so my performance skills weren’t as good as expected from me. To improve on all my weaknesses I believe I need to continue to work on my fitness by training at home and creating a fitness plan for myself to maintain excellent stamina, I will also attend more classes to gain a faster pick up rate in order to remember all of the choreography and perform confidently. Overall, my weaknesses are all vital when getting jobs in the dance industry because they help a dancer to secure longevity as stamina is needed for the intense training, retention so that everyone looks like they are performing together and no one is out of time, and performance because dancers must entertain the audience and this will make them more employable.

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This is my favourite kind of dance style, because I have done it since the age of 4. My strengths from this would be my musicality because I was able to dance in time with the music and express my emotion also as I was really confident when performing this dance. This helps me when going for jobs in the future because it shows that I am capable of doing a range of skills and shows that I am a more versatile dancer. It will also help me at auditions, when employers ask dancers to freestyle, this will help me a lot because I can show that I can do other skills and this will make me more employable because employers will be looking for experienced dancers who can make their company stand out and be excellent so I believe that my style of dance would be unique and would bring something different when performing for example.

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I attended an open class with Josh Wharmby who is very popular in the dance industry. My strengths from this lesson would be my pick-up rate, musicality and performance. These were my strengths as I picked up the choreography at a faster pace than usual and this helped me to have confidence whilst performing, it is essential to have a good pick up rate in the dance industry because choreographers will be expecting you to just learn the choreography at a fast pace and perform without any further practise, so this is necessary. My second strength was musicality, this was a strength for me as I was able to dance in time with the music and execute all of my movements correctly on time and this helped to make my moves to look clean and precise. My final strength from this class was my performance. I have gained confidence since being at Shockout, and in this class I portrayed this effectively. I was confident whilst performing in small groups and I was able to use facial expressions to engage the audience, rather than having a blank face. However, I believe I can improve even further on my performance skills, to achieve this I will start attending classes more and practise performing and using more facial expressions.

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Developing Skills and Techniques Homework

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Personal management and discipline evaluation 

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Personal management and discipline evaluation 

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Target Setting for the final assessment piece

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Target Setting for the final assessment piece

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Target setting for the final assessment piece