Musical Theatre Techniques
(Posted on 12/12/22)
A conversation with Year 13 BTEC Performing Arts Students:
Rehearsals are underway for an exciting collaborative piece that the students are creating from well-known musical shows. The performance will form part of the assessment grade for one of the final units in the course: Musical Theatre Techniques, where students are given the opportunity to showcase their talents.
What is the concept for the performance you are creating and how did you develop this?
Maria Georgiou: The concept for our performance is a theme called ‘Hero v Villains’. We picked several well-known musicals to focus on and identified the heroic chorus songs and the darker villain songs. This shows the contrast portrayed in the musicals we have chosen and helps us to portray a variety of different skills.
Tilly N: We decided on this concept by each coming up with a different concept for the performance and then presenting the ideas to each other.
Maria: Once we picked the final contenders we developed the idea and thought of songs from shows we could do as a compilation.
Jazmine March: Although this was not our initial idea as a class, there was a collective excitement for the possibilities that we could come up with when focusing on Hero v Villains.
Tilly Kimpton: It was also important to consider what musical songs would work and suit us as a group.
What is your responsibility in the piece?
Jazmine: I helped to choreograph “When I Grow Up” from the show Matilda by coming up with the ideas for the beginning of the song.
Maria: I am choreographing Revolting Children from Matilda and Fat Sam's Grand Slam from the show Bugsy Malone.
Tilly K: I am choreographing Do You Hear The People Sing from Les Miserables. I also helped choreograph Revolting Children from Matilda.
Tilly N: I am choreographing a dance to a song called “You Don't Even Know It” from the musical “Everyone’s Talking About Jamie”, as well as helping others out with their choreography.
Tilly K: Even though we choreograph each song by ourselves, we all contribute to each other's ideas, making small suggestions to improve each dance.
How have you approached this task?
Tilly N: I created the dance at home by listening to the song and brainstorming ideas and what style of dance suits the song.
Maria: I have taken inspiration from past choreographers that I have learnt dances under as well as watching youtube videos.
Tilly K: When choreographing, I listened to the music to understand the words, I watched videos to get inspiration and then practised it to see if it worked.
Jazmine: We have been taking ideas from videos and adding our own twist to them.
What have been the challenges so far?
Jazmine: The challenge has been giving people in our group an equal amount of parts as there’s a lot to balance out, we've been trying to suit everyone to their best roles.
Maria: Trying to choreograph dances very quickly and teaching people certain dance moves that are more challenging and technical.
Tilly K: Trying to Sing and dance at the same time has been a challenge.
Tilly N: The biggest challenge so far has been how tired we get after rehearsals! Dancing and singing at the same time is hard and you have to make sure you're not too out of breath by dancing as your voice also needs to sound good!
What have you enjoyed?
Maria: I have really enjoyed having creative freedom over the choreography and the opportunity to teach what I have visualised. It’s been great to take ownership of the dance when it’s been polished and performed.
Jazmine: I have enjoyed practising the dances and look forward to doing full run throughs.
Tilly K: I am looking forward to performing it and for it to all come together.
Tilly N: I look forward to feeling ready to perform as we are currently still rehearsing. Once the piece is finalised the adrenaline will kick in.
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