So far in the BTEC course I have developed a range of
skills as a performer that I believe will be useful tools to carry with me when
going on to study higher theatre education and/or pursuing an acting career.
Rehearsal
skills (working with texts): Researching historical,
cultural and political contexts of the piece helps me to understand the main
themes. Splitting up your text in gear changes is also important so you can
analyse why your character has these changes.
Characterisation: I
have the ability to analyse and understand text. I am able to do this by looking
at the given circumstances to work out my character.
Discovering the characters objectives; what does the
character want? How and why do they want it?
Movement/physical
skills:I’ve learnt how to spend emotion through the body
and voice by opening your body physically and allowing your instincts to take
over. To do this I have learnt you need to be willing to be ugly and beautiful-
by this i mean be free to experiment finding new body position and facial
expressions without being afraid of looking ‘weird.’
I've also learnt that when working with your physicality it’s
important to work with the breath.
Voice:
The voice is a very important part of acting and I've learnt to not restrict yourself to the norm and to experiment by modulating
your voice. Doing this can engage your audience and help you play a more
believable character.
The voice should work with the body, exercises like ‘Slimy
Frog’ when your repeat ‘I am a Slimy frog’ using different parts of your voice
and body helps to make them work together as one.
Evaluation
skills: I now know how to critically evaluate myself
and others. It’s important to give opinions and back them up with evidence.
Working
in an ensemble: I understand working in an ensemble in this course
helped me understand how to sustain energy on the stage. Feeling the energy
drop and picking up again.
I've learnt how important it is to keep focused in
transitions as in an ensemble transitions are crucial as everyone is on the
stage at once and they can get messy.
I also learnt the meaning of ‘sight specific’ as we
created a piece using a stimulus and our sight for our performances suited the description
in the text (the given circumstances)
Different
styles of acting: We did a unit on children’s entertainment.
During this unit I learnt how to perform to a specific audience (younger
children). I looked at how their concentration span differed from ours and
adults and how modulating the voice and making interesting shapes with the body
and facial expression could engage them. This meant our performance was quite
comedic.
We did a performance of a play called ‘Blackout’ this was
quite an emotional play as it was about a boy going through a time of discovery
in his life which faced him with many emotions in which we had to adopt. I
enjoyed doing this as i got to experiment with different emotions.
Understanding
different theatrical configurations
Understanding
special awareness: We
have looked at spacial procsemics during this course so far and I have learnt
that every scene is a chase scene. Being too close to another actor can kill
the scene and drop the tension on the stage.
Have you gained any skills elsewhere?
I have had dance training since a very young age in tap
and ballet up to intermediate grades in ISTD alongside jazz dance at Italia
Conti Associates School which has helped enhance my physicality when acting. Also
because of my dance background I have the flexibility and strength needed to
take with me when doing physical theatre units. I have also done LAMDA up to a silver
medal so I understand how to choose monologues best suited for you and the
researching that goes into it. I am also a top grade student in English so I’m
able to evaluate performances by digging into particular things and analysing
them. I’m also good at analysing the text and characters by looking into the
deeper meaning of the lines.
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