Initial Workshop with the Director

 

Exploring the space and understanding character:

Within the workshop with the director we as a class worked on movement and choreographing the start of the routine and combining ideas we had discussed as a group. Throughout the lesson one key component the director reiterated was that timing was essential to ensure that the movement in the performance looked as effective as we envisioned. From watching the original performance of Hamilton we noticed as a call how slick and in time all of the movement was and this was due to the minimal set and the actors moving the set during the numbers. Things like this must be smooth and not distract the audience from the storyline. We decided to use chairs as our only set/props and explored different ways of moving around the space. In the video at 35 seconds you can see I kicked over and got off the chair a little quicker than everyone else, therefore making the effect of that move look less powerful. If my timing was out for the actual performance it would be a very obvious mistake to the audience, and it would overall make the performance look under rehearsed. To improve on my timing I went back over the music we danced to and made sure I knew I every beat of the song off by heart. I also went through the section of dance that I struggled with and made sure that I perfected that part before the next rehearsal. At the end of this workshop we all set individual targets for improvement and mine was to work on my core strength and posture. I also chose to take a lead role, meaning I would be multi-rolling in this piece.