Josh Cullen Practical Development portfolio 24104567

Introduction

Throughout this portfolio I will be discussing the progress in multiple classes and different aspects of my training such as, singing, dancing and acting. Singing I have been working on numerous things like my diction and making a clear sound with my singing teacher Kathy Taylor Jones but also making choices throughout songs in acting through song with Aaron Newland Bentley. On the other hand, my dance training has had a few obstacles in the way with injuries but I have also noticed improvement in all 3 types of dance Jazz, Ballet and tap. Acting has been challenging this year with techniques such as Meisner with Adam Stadius and acting improv at the start of the year with Alex Palmer ‘threw us into the deep’ by demanding us to make such brave choices but also improving our choice ability. I will be discussing my strengths and weaknesses throughout this portfolio and how I could improve more in the future of my time here at Leeds Conservatoire.

Singing

When I first joined Leeds Conservatoire in September 2024 I brought ‘Empty chairs at Empty tables’ from Les Miserables by Claude Michel Schonberg and Alain Boubil. When I performed this in streaming week so that we could be assigned singing teachers. At this time this song was at a breaking point vocally for me and the top end of the song was challenging. Contrasting the top end I also found the bottom range of the song vocally accessible and not an extreme challenge to expand my vocal range that low. This song was a song I kept throughout the year and decided to work on through my singing lessons whilst also focussing on other and different material. The struggle I had and one of the weaknesses I endured whilst singing this song was the vocal jumps from my low range to the stop and trying to hit the note straight away and not ‘slide’ up to the note. To ensure I trained this technique out of my song I worked on vocal jumps by repetition of the lyrics until I wasn’t getting it wrong. Also throughout my time training with Kathy we decided to work on creating a clear sound in my voice and having a less ‘breathy’ sound by using less breath in my singing and not trying to ‘push’ out sounds. To try create and find this resonant tone in my voice we used vocal exercises such as repeating vowels in singing that worked best for me such as ‘Da’ and listening for the ‘core’ sound in my voice and finding consistency. The weakness I had whilst doing this exercise was practicing on my own as I had no one to give me feedback on how clear my sound is and if it is consistent due to the lack of ability to hear your own voice as clearly as others. To tackle this struggle, I had to become familiar with the feeling inside my mouth at the back of the throat which felt like a vibration going around the back of my mouth and also had to really carefully listen to the sound to hear if it was consistent and clear. Another vocal weakness I had to work on was my diction and pronunciation in songs especially with my ‘th’ sounds. This sound was also unclear in my own speaking voice, this led to me concentrating more in my speech and remembering to make my sound much clearer. The first song I used in my one-to-one lesson to take to Acting Through Song was ‘On the street where you live’ from My fair lady by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe. This song was my first assessment song and a piece of feedback I received was to make my ‘th’ sound clearer and not turn them into ‘ff’ sounds as a shortcut. To work on this sound, I used my first assessment song to knuckle down on my sound throughout song and to make the lyrics clearer by performing the song to Kathy and receiving feedback on what was right and what sounds need to be clearer. As my improvement in these specific two weaknesses started to improve me and my singing teacher Kathy decided to go back and work on ‘ Empty Chairs’ again and take it to ATS as a potential song for my end of year assessments. After I sang the song we came to the conclusion that my lower vocal range in this song was struggling to be clear as it was to low but the top end of my voice had a much more stronger core sound and now sat more comfortably in my voice. This helped us come to the conclusion to increase the key by a tone from A minor to B minor so the range of the song wasn’t going to be to low for me to sing and project my voice with clear diction and also had a better tone in my upper range. I feel like my improvements in my singing lessons have been evident and crucial in my singing and performance but also helped my confidence and knowing what I am capable of. Another song I had vocal problems with was ‘Why God, Why’ from miss Saigon also written by Boubil and Schonberg. This song was a marathon for me which really tested my vocal stamina and how I would change dynamic in this song. Even though this is a song that I wouldn’t audition or perform with for a while due to the type of sound in my voice I used this song to work on those features and adapt them to other songs. The change of dynamic in this song helped me decide to use different techniques such as a mixed sound quality but also a very solid pop opera sound in my tone. Also, the movement of the song in the lyrics had to be evident when performed due to the different feelings and thoughts the character Chris is going through. A weakness I had in this song was the ending note. Due to this I decided to take the song to vocal tech with Scott Harrison to try and figure a way to help me hit the note at the end of the song and hold it on for a sustained period of time. After performing the song Scott gave me advice on using a different mouth shape to help create the sound and open up the sound passage more. This was to create more of an ‘O’ vowel shape in my mouth by dropping the jaw. This helped massively and was crucial in me sustaining and hitting the note clearer and for a longer period of time. I now also use this technique and adapt it to other songs where I may struggle with the final note to test it and see if it lifts me in being able to hit a note.

Dance

As someone who has never danced before in my life when looking to do a musical theatre course this was one of the main parts of the course which made me feel anxious about doing as I didn’t want to look out of place in classes and was worried about my progression. Being at Leeds conservatoire has been nothing like that from the first minute I stepped into my first dance classes, these classes made me feel welcomed to dance and in comfortable space with also other people. The first dance class we has after streaming was a Jazz Repertoire class with Damien Poole where we jumped into our first bit of choreography doing the ‘Duloc’ dance from Shrek. Even though I was nervous to start this dance as my first ever dance class the choreography was more movement and character based which helped it be a nice way to ease into the start of some of our dance lessons. Throughout this dance I felt like I coped with what was asked and expected of me as a performer starting a new part of musical theatre and it was a confidence boost to start the year. Another dance we learned at the start of the year was also from Shrek ‘I’m a believer’. Even though this was still extremely character full this had more of what at the time I felt was harder dancing techniques and different details in the dance. This was my first real struggle in jazz rep as I felt as though I should be doing better and compared myself to others but as time went on in the class, I picked up new skills which improved my dancing technique in the song and helped me push forward. After this dance was the first reading week we had this year. Unfortunately, in this short period I played football at home and dislocated my right shoulder. At this point of doing it I was gutted as I only just started dance and felt like I was progressing at a good pace especially in Jazz Rep. After speaking to physios and consultants this injury put me out of dance for 2 months from November to start of January and was a massive wall in the way of my progression and the enjoyment I was having in dance. At this time I also had surgery on my feet to try and sort a ongoing problem I had before which was also just under 2 months out of dancing action. Throughout this period even though I couldn’t dance much at all with restricted movement I done my best in certain exercises to try keep myself in a better condition for when I was ready to go back to dancing. As I came back to jazz in January I at the time thought it was a good idea to throw myself in the deep and go straight back into full dance and conditioning classes. For the first week I coped in these classes but did have a low morale and not much confidence as I felt behind and that as my progression has paused others are way ahead of where I am and felt like I needed to put in more work. The first jazz dance I came back to was ‘the more we dance’ from dirty rotten scoundrels and was a new dancing style for me as it was a salsa. When doing this choreography, I really enjoyed the salsa aspects and the different style and felt like that this style may suit me better. After the initial class I took the week to practice and be ready for my first mock audition in Damien’s next class. In the class during my mock audition, I done a kick as part of the routine and landed on the side of my ankle spraining the lower ligament on the side of my right foot. As someone who hasn’t had many injuries in the past this was realty frustrating and was a massive low for my morale and confidence as this set me out for an additional 4 weeks from end of January into February. After this I came back and started learning the ‘dead ringer for love’ routine from Bat out of Hell a jukebox musical based of Meatloaf songs. This routine required a lot of stamina bur surprisingly to myself I felt like my dancing stamina was one of my strengths in this routine and in dance as a whole. The struggles I had in this dance was the quick movements and jumps due to my recent injuries and being worried about repeated injuries. This routine was my favourite routine I’ve seen and done in class so far due to the rock style being very different to the dances we have done before as it felt like we had more freedom in the dance and as it was a whole class routine it was a lot more fun and social. Up to now we have worked on our routines that can be used in our forthcoming assessments and I am learning dances I have missed out on to catch up and choose what I would like to do but it is also helping me with the different styles and my jazz dancing in general. A class I do feel like I’m struggling with in dance is jazz technique with Laurie Scarth. At the start of the year I felt like this class was demanding in levels of fitness and I felt like I was pulling my weight and improving whilst keeping up with expectations, but due to the pile of injuries now I feel like that class is extremely tough and that I am behind. To try and keep up in the class I have been rehearsing the set class given which also helps my fitness and will boost my stamina but also the technique routines so that I can get sharper in my dancing and work a lot more on timing. My strength in that class on the other hand would be the body conditioning and ground work we do. I feel like this is to do with the sports I have done in the past and present which has helped me gain a type of long-term stamina. I feel in our jazz classes I have seen improvement despite certain obstacles but want to push myself to go further by working harder in and out of these classes. Ballet with Christina Barlow is another class I feel that even though despite injuries I have seen improvement in my routines but also my technique. A technique I worked on and concentrate a lot on in Ballet is my plié and have been concentrating on keeping my pelvis in a neutral position tucked in and not letting it go out behind me. To do this I have done a lot of pliés and squats to get used the un-natural feeling as so are majority of moves in ballet I find. Throughout the entire year I have found pirouettes in ballet a lot harder than jazz pirouettes due to the different way and style and often get confused. To practice this I go over my positions and the different positions of getting ready to perform a pirouette. Even though I feel like I have improved I feel like I need to again push myself more to catch up and gain more confidence. Finally Tap class with Harriet spence and also Jessica Murray. At the start of the year this was the class I was most looking forward to as I find tap really intriguing and satisfying. At the start my progression in tap picked up straight away as I was pushing myself in classes to be at a high level due to the excitement in the class. In this period, I worked on basics such as ‘time steps’ to help me get used to quick changes and would break down the move and take my time to perfect the time steps from singular, doubles and triples. Routines such as A train with jess was fun to do as we choreographed our own pieces using the new tap movements and put them together as a class to make a routine of our own. This piece was a recognition of where we are in terms of improvement since the start of the year as personally I wouldn’t of been able to think of majority of different tap moves we chose a couple months prior.

Acting

Acting for me has always been a stronger skill for me out of the three and the one I would feel most confident in due to taking straight drama in A level and focussing on this specific skill. The first acting class that I felt was very interesting was acting improv with Alex Palmer, this showed me so much more to improv than I thought it was such as making certain choice to not ‘throwing a grenade’ which would make the scene harder. Even though at first, I was nervous to go up I was excited and very quickly learned how to make a bold choice. This improv class also helped me in my acting through song class with Aaron Newland Bentley and Jacob Savage. Improvisation skills in this class were important to me and the class with Alex built my confidence to make a choice in songs whether it was good or interesting. Throughout the year in acting through song I have taking multiple styles from love songs like Why God and On a Street Where You Live to sad songs about grief like Empty Chairs. When doing a class with Jacob I brought Empty Chairs and we looked at different choices to begin the song on how to try and show the characters grief by sitting down but in different positions. As I tried the positions in the song at the end, I got feedback from my class which helped me decide what I should do and how they came across and finalised my decision for that song. Furthermore, Meisner classes with Adam Stadius have really taken massive steps forward since the start. Sanford Meisner was an American actor and teacher who created the Meinser technique which helped characters connect with their scene. At first, I was confused on where this was going and I found it hard to stay focussed on the repetition but now I have realised the class has helped me so much already by connecting with the scenes and my character and how I would perform the line as evident in my classes with Dermot Daley in scene study. I feel that Meisner is extremely impotant to my improvement in acting and feel it is one of my stronger skills of progression.

Conclusion

In conclusion with the nature of injuries preventing my full progress I feel like I am satisfied with the amount of progress I have made over the course of first year in all three skills but especially in my singing as I feel like my confidence has been boosted and the feedback I get from people is telling me how my voice has improved from how it was when I arrived. Also in acting I feel like I am satisfied with my progress as I feel more connected to script work and make bolder choices. I feel that when it comes to what I could do differently it would be looking after my body more and not rushing back to dance classes and try to prevent injuries more but also to practice in my own time more. My hope for the future is to become more confident in my dance and improve my ability by concentrating a lot more on it not just in university but also in my free time.

Bibliography

Meisner technique | Definition, Stanislavsky System, Components, Development, & Facts | Britannica. (2024). In: Encyclopædia Britannica. [online] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/art/Meisner-technique.

https://lesmis.com/. (n.d.). Les Misérables | Welcome to the Official Website. [online] Available at: https://lesmis.com/.

London Coliseum. (2023). Musicals at the London Coliseum. [online] Available at: https://londoncoliseum.org/musicals/.

StageAgent. (2019). Miss Saigon (Musical) Plot & Characters. [online] Available at: https://stageagent.com/shows/musical/1590/miss-saigon.