Unit 40 - Choreographing Skills: Cats/Jazz Solo

Cats/Jazz Solo

Music: Jellicle Cats Audition Date: 11th December 2014

Ideas: Choreographic Movements;

• Jumps
• Turns
• Rolls
• Head Rolls
• Leg kicks
• Leaps
• Floor work
• Circler Hips
• Ball changes

Ideas: Choreographic Devices, to use;

• Repetition
• Fragmentation
• Retrograde
• Levels
• Speed 
• Size

Speed - use of pauses will be used a lot as the music is very jumpy.

Levels - lots of floor work, jumps for higher levels and rolls.

Size - the size of the movement will be big and bold.

Research into Cats

Background information:


Since Cats first opened on the West End stage in 1981, it has become one of the world’s best known and best loved musicals. 

- (http://www.catsthemusical.com/the-show/background/)

On just one special night of the year, all Jellicle cats meet at the Jellicle Ball where Old Deuteronomy, their wise and benevolent leader, makes the Jellicle choice and announces which of them will go up to The Heaviside Layer and be reborn into a whole new Jellicle life. 

- http://london.catsthemusical.com/the-show/

Youtube Videos for Inspiration & Research

1. Jellicle Ball
I like the speed of this dance and the leg kicks,
I would like the use the kicks in my choreography.

2.Palladion Dance - Jellicle CatsI 
l like there floor work used in this clip, and hopefully was something like this in my solo too!

3. Macavity 
In this clip i like the very simple movement and they way it look effortless and easy to perform. I aslo like the gesture movements and arm movements in this clip too.

Rehearsals 

In our lesson on the 17th November, we had a short lesson on beginning to start choreographing our solo. In the background we had the music video, this helped me to see what movement is used in the musical and help me with choreographing my solo.

So i have decided for my researched into the Jazz style movement for cats to look at youtube videos and create a motif for the inspiration i have gathered for the videos/research.

After the lesson on 17th November I continued to research and gather movement inspired, I began to create a short motif.

Next I developed onto the short motif I had already made, adding more turns, steps and travelling movement. I also made sure I had Cat like gestutres in my solo too.

This was now called section A of my solo, approx 40 seconds of my solo.

* Here is my Spacing Plan of Section A; 

Section B of my solo was created from looking at the movement from the Youtube clip 'Jellice Ball'. I tried to interrupt the some of the movement done in the video in my own and way and use frigramention to create my own motif.

Finally I repeated most of the Section A phrase to finish my Solo, this is also uses the choreographic device 'repetition' .

I used a ABA structure through out my Jazz style Cats solo.

* I made a Spacing Plan to make sure I am using the whole space of the dance studio. This helped me to  see where I could put in travelling sequences and use different directions and facings in my solo. I found it very helpful to see where i could go next with my solo and what parts of the space I hadn't used.

Development in My Choreography  - Notes

1.

2. 

Peer Assessing 

Here is the sheet that Sax used to evaluate my solo, she did this one our last lesson before our audition.

This sheet helped to see what another opinion thought of my solo and more crucially what devices and movements I hadn't put and missed in my solo, its also showed me what devices and movements I needed more of or less of!

Link to finished Solo/ Cats Audition

Evaluation of my Final Cats Solo

The choreographic devices, movements and skills I used in my final solo were repetition, fragmentation, climax, tempo and rhythm changes, structure development, different use of dynamics, confidence, performance skills, gestures, travelling phrase, rolls, leaps, pirouettes and turns.

Some of the strengths in my final solo was the lengths of dance, I made sure I had the right timing and correct time given to express myself and the dance. I found getting into the character and focus of the dance quite easy, this was because I enjoyed the music and the theme of the dance, I also found the characteristics of a being a 'Cat' quite easy to grasp. I was confident and tried to keep the excitement  and pace of dance to the max through the dance. I wanted the audience to enjoy it.

The weakness in my final solo were ...

If I was to do it again I'd make sure I'd practised my leaps more and maybe stretched before my audition, so they were higher and prettier to look at and included some kicks to get more levels and heights to the dance.