Future development plan

Task one: Progression

One skill I feel I have improved on is my balance when dancing as when beginning the course at Suffolk One during our first dance unit, unit 13 I personally struggled when doing specific dance moves like a simple turn due to the fact I had awful balance. During the first half of this course I was worried that I would not be able to succeed in doing simple tasks like a turn as they were such a struggle.  Over my year and a half at Suffolk One, I have been determined to work in my balance by doing exercises within college and my own time that specifically help with balance, I worked on my core strength (the Martha Graham technique help me with this a lot) and focus to really help myself improve on my balance. By doing theses exercises, they have helped me gain strength within my core and engaged my whole body to develop my balance. 

Coordination is another skill I feel I have improved on. At the beginning of the course, I feel I could not grasp the idea of two different body parts moving simultaneously, it would confuse me so much that I would not even bother trying to do it as I knew I would be unable to. Later on in this unit, we begun learning Jazz mainly based off Bob Fosses work which I instantly feel in love with, I felt it gave me an alter ego as it was full of sass and seductiveness (which I was not) the only thing that made me worry about this was that most movements within Jazz consisted on using coordination but because I had so much determination for this style, it encouraged me to focus on my coordination skills and develop them. I began developing my skills by doing exercises which focused on the arms and legs at the same time. I worked on this a lot as I really wanted to give Jazz dance its full potential, after succeeding in these exercises, I looked for harder ones to help me improve even more. By the time we had our Jazz assessment I felt fully prepared and proud of myself for improving this skill.    

Another skill I feel I have improved on is my timing. I personally feel I didn't fully develop this skill until the beginning of my second year at Suffolk One- specifically during our rehearsals for SIX. Throughout all dance lessons, I had always noticed that I was always slightly out of time. This had never been a huge worry for me but was always in the back of my mind. However, when we began our rehearsals for for SIX, I was put into the dance breaks this then started to worry me as I would always be slightly out of time with everyone else and due to the dance breaks being at a high speed this would be very noticeable which made me realize that I needed to develop this. To help me improve this I would listen to the music and go over the dance breaks during college and in my own time. I feel this really helped me improve as it allowed me to know exactly what to do and actually perform the dance rather than just marking it.  

Confidence is something I feel I have heavily improved on within myself and performing. I have always loved performing but when it came to the idea of being watched to doing it, I would loose all confidence and doubt myself for the duration of the performance. When I began Suffolk One, I really doubted myself and my work as I was surrounded by so many talented performers. This made me really anxious which made it hard for me to excel. After some time of becoming comfortable with everyone else around me, I learnt not to doubt myself and felt encouraged by the others to push myself to help me to exceed. The confidence gradually bounce off the others and on to me as I felt I was fully supported by everyone in the course. I knew that building up my confidence wasn't something I could do by using exercises to help but it was by doing something I wasn't too keen on, which was pushing myself out of my comfort zone and going against my boundaries to develop my full potential. I also leant that self belief was something I needed to have as although everyone is helping you, you always need to have you own back and be able to take pride in what you do. 

Finally, I feel I have improved on my characterization skills. Personally, I feel that characterization has always been a strength of mine. However, from being at Suffolk One, I have been able to really develop this skill as I have learnt a lot more than I previously knew about characterization, I have also had many opportunities to play different roles and develop new characters, the variety of different practitioners we have looked at has helped with developing this skill for example we have looked at work by Matthew Bourne who creates work that is full of character which is very exaggerated and over the top, in contrast to this we have also looked at the likes of Martha Graham whos work has little to no expression which makes the performance solely about the dance rather than the character you are trying to portray.  

Task two: areas for improvement. 

Improvisation has always been something I have struggles with. I always tend to over think such a simple task of making something up on the spot, when I am needed to improvise I feel very restricted as if I am doing it all wrong although I am not as improvisation is up for your own interpretation. When I improvise in future tasks I need to learn to focus on being free with my work and experimenting all my boundaries even if I feel uncomfortable at first, doing this will help me become more confident and comfortable with this to improve overtime. To help myself improve with this, I will play music when I am at home doing tasks like tidying to allow myself to get lost in the music and feel free to improvise. By doing this, I will become more confident with improvising and overtime feel comfortable enough to improvise in front of others. 

Another skill I feel I need to improve on is my strength. This is within dances and warmups. This can be found mainly in warmups when doing exercises like a plank or a push up. During those exercises, I struggle to maintain myself in the same position for the whole exercise. I would like to improve my strength to allow me to do these exercises without struggling. To help me improve, I will do strength trying regularly witch will include using weights and continuously doing the exercises used in our warm ups to help with this. I want to improve my strength to see an increase in my performance. 

Stamina has always been something I felt I have needed to improve. I personally feel that when performing, I finish quite worn out or can't fully push myself when singing and dancing at the same time. I need to work this as this will hold be back in future dances to come. To help myself improve on this, I will do regular cardio exercises to increase my stamina, I will start of easy by doing high intensity for short periods of time then over time I will increase the speed and length of the cardio to help build up my stamina and help me endure long and high intensity movement. 

Another skill I feel I need to improve on is my control. I have always noticed that when performing I tend to just throw the movement out rather than performing the movement to emphasis the performance. This can be seen within our performance of SIX in the song 'Heart of stone', there is a move we do for the word unbreakable an din this move we are needed to clench our hands together to show how unbreakable we are, however I feel I just hold my hands together without that push behind me. To help me improve in this is will do exercises to restrict myself which will give me that force to complete the exercises. 

Spatial awareness has always been something I felt I have needed to improve on. When performing I usually forget I am sharing the space with other people and don't tend to move over to create more space for them. In the dance break for 'Ex-Wives' for our production of SIX, I felt that I was constantly in the wrong place and moving into other peoples spaces. To help me improve this, I will work on imaging I'm in a designated area where only I can be and I cannot leave, this will help me focus on staying within my area and not feeling like I need to move over to other people area. 

Task three: Future development plan 

 

My progression strategy begins with completing my current course level 3 Cambridge Technical Extended Diploma in Performing Arts with a predicted grade of DDD. I will continue to attend PQA in my own time, to develop my skills across all three art forms. This training is further enhanced by weekly having weekly dance lessons at Emma Dodd's, these lessons will help build a strong foundation for my overall portfolio. To extend the range of my skills I will continue to work voluntarily as a teacher of nursey age children at my local nursery little ducklings. I will maintain my current part time work as a customer service assistant at the COOP because as well as helping me financially, it also builds my transferable skills of confidence, punctuality and reliability which will be invaluable for my work in the PA sector.

I am then planning on attending Mount view Drama School for a 3-year BA Honors in Musical theatre . This course offers multiple workshops led by professionals within the performing arts industry, this will help me with my progression within the industry as it will help me know exactly how to get in the industry. An ex-student Karl said ‘Mount view was my first choice’ (Karl, 2020) which proves that it is thought about a lot by many others. I am inspired to attend this course because the statistical evidence shows that 86% of alumni’s make it into the industry. (Mount view , 2023).  After I graduate from my 3-year course, I will plan to work as a freelance performer so I am aware that I will need to register with the HMRC as a self-employed actress and. Then I will look for a reputable agent to support me in finding auditions and appropriate jobs. I will then join the Equity Union to ensure I am fairly treated and have support during my career.

Later on in my career, I will be apart of a small scale regional touring theatre company like ‘BADAPPLE’ who are based in rural North Yorkshire who take high-quality, hilariously funny original new performances to the smallest of venues around the country. They bring entertaining shows for all ages to some of the most unexpected of places.

This will provide me with a range of skills which will relate to the performing arts sector at the early stage of my career as well as allowing me to get the experience of performing in a diverse range of venues and audiences around the UK. Having the strong dedication and passion in which I have for the arts will be displayed in my enthusiasm to work both on stage as well as backstage and any other areas in which I may be required to.