Summative Assessment - 10th February 2025.

Summative Assessment - 10th February 2025

Summative Assessment - 3rd February 2025

In today’s first session we split it into half ballet and half tap to be able to work on all assessment repertoire.

We started with a warm up and were tasked to give ourselves 3 goals for the class, mine were choreography retention, strong arms and my turnout as I struggle with all of these.

We ran the exercises that we have learnt so far including barre and centre work, I had some help with my arms and turnout which improved how I felt doing each exercise, my main weakness was choreography retention and I will continue working at home to try and know which music relates to which exercise.

13/01/25

I unfortunately missed today’s session due to travelling and buses, I missed learning some new exercises at the barre and in the centre for our upcoming assessment and I will work on these in my own time, as well as my solo to be prepared.

27/01/25

I missed today’s ballet lesson due to an ongoing medical condition that prevents me from dancing and moving properly for a few days at a time, I will be watching all of the videos and listening to the songs and will rehearse all exercises and my solo when I am able to.

10/02/25

I believe my strengths of today’s assessment were my choreography retention and my lines. I have been working so hard to pick up all the choreography, especially from lessons that I’ve missed and I think this showed in my assessment, I’m still not the most confident dancer in any routine but I was sure of what I was doing which allowed me to focus more on how I was performing in my body and face not just with the routines.

I believe my ballet solo could have gone better, I had put all of my focus into the actual routines and when I went to perform my solo I did forget some moves but I think I recovered well and continued with the solo, still making it to the time it was choreographed to be.

Today's jazz class began with a longer warm up than usual, going from our cardio to stretches into some across the floor exercises with steps that would be required in our session today. We did kicks, leaps and turns to warm up these steps and work on technique and strength. I felt confident in the kicks and I feel that I am seeing improvement in these. I need more strength, spotting and balance in my turns and leaps. I've realised I need to focus on height in my leaps rather than travelling forwards.

We then went on to learning our first jazz assessment exercise, the Plié combination, I feel as though I was picking up the beginning quite quickly, it didn't involve any movement around the space so I could mainly focus on what my arms were doing. After learning the first half we split into two groups to watch each other and give feedback, I was told to have more fluidity in my arms and movements which I can feel I need more of when I dance, I will work on this by doing more stretches for my back to allow for better contractions and by working on the combination and slowing my movements down.

I struggled more with the second half of the combination, the turns specifically, I got confused with the direction and which foot we were turning on but I can work on this at home.

13/01/25

I missed the first half of this session due to issues with buses and travelling, I joined the class after a quick warm up of my own as they were learning the end of the kick combination, I had missed the beginning.

I learnt the ending with everyone else and then followed the practices of the beginning to try and learn it, I learnt some steps but knew I would need to watch the videos to continue learning it.

We then also learned the first travelling combination, I struggled with the very first step but was able to keep up with the rest, we were given some time to work on it alone before being asked to perform it solo in front of everyone. Until we had to do this I was quite confident in the combination but having everyone watch me perform alone made me nervous and I messed up some steps but I continued to the end as best as I could.

We also learnt the first jazz routine which is the intro to You Can't Stop The Beat from Hairspray, this is quite short routine but I enjoyed it and picked it up quickly.

20/01/25

Today's class began with our usual warm up before we ran through the 4 routines we have so far, pliés, kicks, travelling and hairspray. I felt confident in the plié combination apart from the turns, the beginning of the kick combination, the travelling sequence and I am confident in hairspray but I did make some mistakes as I mixed the timing up.

For this session we were split into two groups for a peer assessment and told to face away from the mirrors, we ran through all exercises and cleaned them. I really struggled with the change of the direction the studio and not having the mirrors as I am used to facing one way and doing it all the other way threw me off, I slowly got used to it and saw some improvement in how I was performing. I think rehearsing like this would be good for me as it gets me to be more comfortable in my movements without the comfort of the mirror. It also is good for our coordination and not relying on each other for the next step of the combination.

Still while facing the back we started to go over the combinations on the left again, I really tried to focus on get it right and I got a little bit overwhelmed but towards the end of the session I was a little bit more confident in what I was doing.

27/01/25

I missed this jazz session due to an ongoing condition and I missed learning the tendu and grand jeté combinations, I plan to watch the videos once they are posted to catch up as much as possible, I can't actually dance at the moment but watching the videos and trying to memorise some of the steps will help me to prepare for when I can start rehearsing them.

In this class they also went over all the other routines and continued to clean them. I will watch all the videos and once I am able to dance again in a few days I will catch up as much as possible.

3/02/25

We began today's session like normal with our warm up before going into our final peer assessment, I felt mostly confident in the plié combination, the kicks, the travelling and hairspray but the pressure of being assessed and watched and also being filmed always throws me off. I am really trying to work on this as it is very disappointing for me knowing that I have worked hard to learn and improve these routines but it doesn't always show in class due to my anxiety. I felt like I performed as best as I was able to but I know for the assessment to go over all the choreography so I know I am as confident as I can possibly be. This will help me with my performance as well, when I'm not so focused on what step is next I can think about my face and arms when I am dancing to add character and style to my performance.

In this session we learned the last routine of our assessment, the lyrical routine. I feel like I picked this up at a faster pace than I used to, I have been working a lot on my choreography pick up and retention and I feel like that showed in this routine. I will continue to work on all the combinations and routines for the assessment next week.

10/02/25

In the assessment today I think my strengths were my character in the hairspray routine and freestyle section of it. I think I could have improved my facial expressions and arms in each of the exercises, specifically the pile one as that is the routine I was most confident in so I feel I should have performed more in it. My biggest weakness was the tendu routine, I missed the only lesson that was spent learning it and I was spending a lot of time at home trying to learn it, I was quite confident in the first half but it was quite fast and I missed a few bits which threw me off for the whole exercise, I froze and was extremely anxious but was able to move on to the next exercise.

Even though the assessment is done I will continue to work on all the exercises we have learnt to try and improve my technique more and think about how I am performing each exercise as well.

This session was split between ballet and tap today, when we moved on to tap we began with our usual warm up before running all exercises in 2 groups to watch each other. We were tasked again to create 3 goals for ourselves and mine were choreography retention keeping my eyeline up and using my whole body more.

Today my weakness was my choreography retention, I was able to continue with the exercises after seeing someone do the first step which showed I wasn’t sure which song was for which exercise and I also was watching my own feet a lot, I was doing this to make sure I was doing the steps right but it threw my balance off which only made me make mistakes.

To prepare for the assessment I will work on all the exercises and will practice in front of a mirror to make sure I am keeping my eyes up.

20/01/25

Today’s rehearsal started with a warm up, focusing on fluid movements for our tap repertoire. We then got into pairs for our peer assessment and ran each of the exercises, I paired up with Rachel as I knew what her strengths and weaknesses were so would be able to help her with them in terms of her performance.

I think I kept up with most of the centre exercises, I am still unsure of some steps but Jasmine has told me that if I can’t do the exercise then as long as I hit the one beat I can improve it from there. Once I knew that I could do this instead of trying to do the whole routine and making mistakes, I actually found it easier to keep up and started to get the steps I was finding difficult right. This mainly refers to time steps as I really struggle with them, and going from singles to doubles to triples.

I think the travelling exercises were weak as well, the movement and focusing on my whole body makes it a lot more difficult but once I get it right once I find it easier.

As we were all clearly stressed and didn’t trust in ourselves that we knew the routines, Jasmine had us close our eyes and perform the warm up routine, and we all got it all right. This improved all of our confidence because we know the routines we just can’t rely on each other for them.

Moving into the 42nd Street choreography, we ran it with the mirrors to get into it and then performed in smaller groups without the mirrors, I have struggled with this routine but I took jasmine’s advice from earlier and focused on the one beat so even though I was unsure of some steps, I stayed in time with the music and moved with everyone else, I just need to work on the choreography and my face and arms.

3/02/25

Today is our tap assessment day and I think my strengths were the centre exercises, I have worked hard on them at home , I have been slowing down the rehearsal videos to be able to see exactly what each step is, my main strength of improvement was the pickups, in our last lesson I still couldn’t do a pickup but when it came to the assessment I could and in all the routines even when I made a mistake I continued to dance and tried not to show it on my face.

My weakness was knowing the choreography for 42nd street, I was unsure sometimes of which step came next and I missed a few which threw me off for the timing but I kept coming back into it and I finished it as strong as I could.