24th January Jamie Roberts

Lesson 1- Learnt a Short Phrase in our Dance Technique class.

In this lesson we carried on with dance techniques, we did similar warm ups, warming up each muscle.
We then learnt a short phrase of eight moves which involved travelling across the room, lifting yourself off the floor without hands and creating shapes in our bodies.

I found it really exciting I really enjoy dancing, and I feel learning a short phrase helped me understand what my body can and can't do. I learnt how to take risks with my body like when it came to jumping to the floor in a styled  technique, it involved landing on the front of your foot, or take the easier option where you swap legs to get to the floor. I didn't feel comfortable doing it the hard way, as it looked dangerous to me, so I took the easy way out. From this session, I have learnt that my weakness is trying new things out, but I know that I should give it a go, and if it doesn't work keep trying because practice makes perfect. I've learnt that my strengths from this lession is that I pick up things quite quickly and have a good memory.

Lesson 2 -  Learning the Effort Graph.

we learnt about techniques and how our body limits. We also learnt how to develop movements from the short phrase we learnt in lesson one.

We learnt the following;

• Space
• Weight
• Time
• Flow

The image above showed the 'Effort Graph', we learnt that using different effects for each of the bullet points. We decided that the main ones that linked were the A and B tables.

We then learnt about the 'Eight Basic Effort Actions', which basically means every day movements intrepreted into dance moves. Such as the flowing;

• Dab - like a painter dabbing a brush
• Slash- like a sword
• Wring - when drying out a flannel
• Press - like pressing a button
• Flick - flicking hair or fluff off of you.
• Glide - like ice skating
• Float - like your flying
• Thrust - like a punch

We then leanrt about Rhythms, which are tempos to do with movements. Such as the following;

• Rebound - In the middle of a movement (weight is free and strong)
• Impulse - Decelrates in a movement
• Impact - Accelerates a movement
• Continuous - Throughout your piece.
• Swing - In the middle of a movement (weight is light and bound)

All these techniques to help create a more deverse piece of dance have helped me develop my understanding. I will now use more techniques such as the Rhythms in my movements and using the Effort Graph to give more variety to my performance.