Aspirations and Dreams Evaluation

As part of our BTEC Performing Arts course, we had to organise a variety performance at the end of the year in front of an audience. This was quite different to our other assignments as we had to organise the whole production, including the title, theme, programmes, tickets, venue, colour scheme, costumes and guest acts. We did this all by ourselves and it all had to be organised and ready for the final performance on 27^th of April.

It was quite hard thinking of a theme for our show as the acts all had to be linked to it. At first we thought about having an Oscar theme but then as we were talking about ‘Annie’ as one of the acts in our show, the idea came to mind that it should be ‘Aspirations and Dreams’ as the orphans from ‘Annie’ have aspirations and dreams. As a group, we all have aspirations and dreams and these were said in our bio in the programme that we designed.

The colour scheme was easy to come up with as purple and silver was grown up and pretty which is what we liked. The decorations followed this colour scheme too. The tables were decorated with purple table cloths, purple and white flowers, purple and silver balloons, tea lights and silver confetti. This made it have a more professional look. We wanted to be different and not have rows of seating, so we made tables spread round the hall with 8 chairs around each table, we also provided the audience with food and drinks.

There was a slight problem when it came to deciding what the ticket should look like, as we all wanted it to represent what our performing arts group is about, however we couldn’t decide on a picture which was frustrating, in the end we just used two of the girls from our group from rock challenge on the ticket which was fine. IT skills also came in when designing the programme too as we needed it to be printed double sided but we managed to do it thankfully. We decided to put a bit of information about us as individuals on the programme too just to let the audience know a bit about us for those who didn’t really know all of us.

We decided that we would use some of our previous performance numbers that we have done in the past to put into our show too as we all agreed that they were great and everyone seemed to enjoy watching them as well as we did performing them on stage. For example we decided to use our ‘All that jazz’ cabaret dance as it was our favourite dance that we had ever done as a group. We also wanted singing, acting and musical numbers in it too to create more of a variety, to help us to do this we also invited guest acts.

The majority of the BTEC Performing Arts girls did a singing solo each and some did a dance solo and singing duet, Louise also did a drama monologue. As we had made We Will Rock You costumes we decided to include some of the songs from WWRY so that we could wear them in our show. We decided to perform ‘Don’t stop me now’ which had very high energetic moves in it and as we sung to it too, we were very tired towards the end. We also chose ‘somebody to love’ which was fairly easy to choreograph as it was Chloe singing and the rest of us as backing singers and dancers therefore we didn’t want to make the dance too energising as it would take the attention off of Chloe.

Here is a picture of us rehearsing ‘Don’t stop me now’. We hadn’t cleared the stage here therefore we didn’t have all the spacing that we would have on the night, however, it went well, we just needed to sing louder for next time.

We had invited many guest acts with different talents, these students were part of A level drama, GCSE drama, my dance crew that I teach, Jack and Alfie who had written their own song themselves, and more musical acts. They all happily agreed to participate in our show and we were all really looking forward to it. Once we had all the guest acts respond and our group numbers and solo numbers were chosen, we decided it was time to make a running order and start non-stop rehearsing so that we could get the dances/songs/monologues to a very high standard.
A week before the show, we rehearsed our duets and solos as we hadn’t done it in front of each other before and wanted to before the final rehearsal on stage. This was a really helpful lesson as when Alice and I went to rehearse our ‘Popular’ song; we found that the backing track was totally different to what we had rehearsed to before for some reason, the CD’s must have been mixed up, so we had to find a new backing track which we did, but there was obviously a slight panic there. We also organised a rehearsal for Jack Dent (student guitarist) and our BTEC group to rehearse for our final song ‘Use somebody’, the rehearsal went to plan and we all felt confident with the song by the end of the rehearsal which was good.

It got to the technical rehearsal which we held on Tuesday 24^th after school for all our acts to rehearse on stage for spacing and technical information for Chris (on sound), Jack (on curtain) and George (on mics and runner) which was completely student lead which was more stressful than we thought it would be. All of our acts had joined us in the hall and Myriam and I introduced them to what we would be doing for the next two hours and we cracked straight on.

We started off with the dancing acts as the microphones were not ready to be used therefore my street crew rehearsed first which I was quite nervous about, but thankfully they were fine as they looked good on stage. After their rehearsal though I did go through a few things and made them practise when they weren’t doing anything whilst the other acts were rehearsing. As their dance teacher I felt the pressure from their performance so I wanted to make sure it was perfect so I polished hands and positioning of arms which was very beneficial for the performance later that evening.

As soon as we got the hang of our jobs roles that we assigned ourselves, the rehearsing began to go smoothly, we started to stop panicking and things got a lot easier. The whole rehearsal went well; we sorted out technical details and made sure everyone including the performers knew what they were doing.

For the rest of our BTEC lessons, we ran through all of our solo, duet and group numbers so that we were all confident and prepared for Friday. We made sure everyone knew what time to be there Friday and where they should be. Alice had also gone to town to get any extra tights, socks and hot pants that we would need for the show which was very helpful.

It came to Friday 27^th and we were all very, very nervous. We had all brought bags and bags of costumes, make up, straighteners, hairspray and all the other essentials that we were going to need for the show. We also stayed behind after school to set up the hall and the stage ready for the evening. Once everything had been set up, we went upstairs to set out all our costumes and make up in the order that we would need them. Chloe Green had also printed off a few A3 page running orders for us and our acts to see for the evening so that it reminded us for who was going on when. Once that was also done we went back downstairs to the hall to test the microphones and sound.

We asked the acts to arrive to the school at quarter past 6 to get ready in their changing rooms and start doing any group rehearsals before going on stage. Once everyone knew what they were doing and where they were meant to be, we started to get into our first costumes which was for ‘Annie’. We had fake tanned, put stage make up on and done our hair and we were ready to do the vocal warm up at 6:45 with our singing teacher. It was then 7 o’clock and the show had begun with Jack Norris introducing us.

Here is a picture of us on stage for our first number of Annie. We decided to sit on the edge of the stage for this as it was to show the innocence of the ‘orphans’ and it’s the start of our dreams. The song we sung was called ‘Maybe’. The number went well as we had had a big singing warm up beforehand therefore our diction and volume of our voices was very clear. We performed this as a whole group too to open up the whole show. If I were to go back in time and improve anything I would make my drama actions more clear as looking back at photos and videos, facial expressions cannot always be seen from the very back of the hall.

Here is a picture of us performing ‘Hard knock life’. This song went straight after ‘Maybe’ and it was a great combination of dancing, singing and acting as we had to sing like children, ac t like children and dance like children. This meant that in our head we just had to think that we’re young children at an orphanage. This was one of my favourite song numbers in the show as it was a chance to act like a character I haven’t played before. By receiving audience feedback I found that this number was in the top 5 favourite numbers in the whole show to some individuals which is good to know as we all worked hard rehearsing it.

After our performance were Gabriel and George (GCSE drama students). They performed a drama piece from ‘Blood Brothers’, they were so funny and really made the audience laugh. The reason we chose these two was because we had seen and heard how good they are at drama and Miss Dolan recommended them to us to invite them to perform at our show and thankfully they were delighted to. These two students were very good actors and even managed to pull off a Liverpool accent.

We also had my street dance crew perform after Gabe and George and I was very, very pleased with their performance. It was honestly the best they’ve ever performed it and I was so proud of them all. There were only seven girls therefore it was quite tricky when it came to working out formations and group work as it would have looked more affective with more students but we pulled it off. I had remixed the soundtrack so the two songs were merged into one. These songs were ‘blow remix’ by Kesha, and ‘bounce’ by Timbaland and I chose these songs as they had a great beat to it which got the girls in the mood to dance.

After they had performed, there were a few solo performances and a dancing duet from a few of the BTEC girls. As I was getting ready for my next number upstairs, I didn’t get to hear them perform, however I asked a few of the parents and audience members and they said that they were amazing and wanted to watch them again which was a great comment. There was also a sax solo from Alfie (year 11 music student). We invited Alfie to perform in our show as we had seen him perform in assemblies and thought that he had a great talent.

It got to the last two songs before the interval and Jack Norris mentioned to the audience that we had made our costumes ourselves for our ‘We Will Rock You’ numbers in our costume construction lessons. Whilst he was doing so we prepared ourselves to get on stage for our first song of the ‘WWRY’ numbers, ‘Don’t stop me now’. There was a slight glitch at the beginning of this number as the curtains didn’t open in time and so it was messy and we didn’t know what to do, however we kept calm and carried on with the song as if nothing had happened which was good.

Here is a picture of us BTEC girls on stage at the beginning of ‘Somebody to love’. This song went really well and I was pleased with it apart from one thing which was the music, it was far too quiet and we couldn’t hear it. I felt sorry for Chloe Stockman as she was worried that she was out of time as she couldn’t hear the music either. Personally, I felt that I had performed it better than I ever did in rehearsals; maybe it was all part of the nerves on stage. This song closed the first half of the show and it was time to reflect on how the show has gone so far, obviously whilst changing into our Chicago costumes ready to open the second act.

To open the second half, we performed ‘All That Jazz’ from Chicago. I was excited about performing this dance as it was also one of my favourite dances of the whole show. In the middle of the song, the track skipped a bit therefore we missed out a few beats and had less time to get our chairs ready to put on stage, but as before with the curtain situation, we just carried on, stayed in character and pretended as if nothing wrong had happened as we wanted to be professional about it. I think that the performance looked amazing, especially as our timing was very good as the moves were specific. This made me confident throughout the whole dance.

There were a few more solo performances after our Chicago performance, including Myriam Maley who performed my GCSE contemporary dance. Once again she was outstanding; I wish I could dance as well as she can. Luckily as it was my solo after her, I could watch it from the side of the stage.

For my solo I sung ‘Crazy for you’ by Adele. Not many people have heard this song and as I am a huge fan of Adele I decided to sing one of her songs and ‘Crazy for you’ was my favourite to sing at home. As I am attending singing lessons at the moment I asked my teacher to help me with anything that I could improve on and with my breathing as it has many long notes in it. I found her lesson very beneficial as it made me more confident on my song and helped me master the long notes. I enjoyed my performance very much and even made some of my teachers and my Nan cry, (hopefully in a good way).

There were more duos and solos after me from the BTEC girls and some GCSE drama students. Then it was time to go on stage again to perform ‘Popular’ from Wicked with Alice Norris. This was the song that I was looking forward to the most as it was a cheeky, funny song that we made our own. Originally ‘Popular’ was sung by just one person, however we decided to turn it into a duo and give popular advice to the audience instead of a girl which is what it originally was. This was a lot of fun as it got the audience involved which made them enjoy it more.

I stayed in my outfit from ‘popular’ for the final song of the show which was ‘Use somebody’ and we had Jack Dent play the guitar for us. This was a very emotional song to sing as it was the last song we would sing together as a group. However we all managed to not cry throughout the song, until the end when we gave Miss Hearne and Miss Dolan their thank you presents. We were given lovely flowers at the end too which was really nice and thoughtful!

Overall, I thought that the show went amazingly well! All the acts were brilliant and we got fantastic feedback from the audience. All the hard work and stress all paid off and I’m immensely proud of all the BTEC girls, they also worked very, very hard organising the show, and without them I wouldn’t have enjoyed school anywhere near as much as I have. I am so glad I chose BTEC performing arts for my GCSE as it has literally been the best two years of my school life. We are all so close and I think that’s why the show went as well as it did. I am also so thankful for Miss Dolan and Miss Hearne for their time, help, support and hard work that they have given us. We wouldn’t have been able to even think about organising a show on our own without them as they have turned us independent and confident with whatever we do.