DANCE

Prior to the start of this year I hadn’t had any training in ballet. I struggled to pick up the terminology for each move and the technique’s for how to hold myself, ensuring that my pelvis was adjusted in the correct way. I have re-looked at video’s I collected whilst working through exercises on the bar, these show improvement from September through to April especially on floor pressure I use when moving my foot across the floor. When moving from first to second position, you can see the way I have improved the stretch of the foot before it’s placed down on the floor. To further help with the terminology, I researched each exercise alongside the French term, this helped to enhance and embed my understanding, enabling me to understand what the tutor was expected me to perform in the session. This supported both my pickup skills and my understanding of a sequence of movements, practicing putting them together. Understanding how my body should be held, meant I was checking before each exercise to see if I was aligned in my spine, my core was engaged and my arm was in place with my thumbs tucked behind my fingers. Even so, I found myself falling back into old habits where my pelvis would point backwards when going down into a plie or my arms becoming weaker and unengaged. I can further improve my learning by practicing some of these sequences independently, helping to ensure that they are embedded in my muscle memory, making it easier and faster to correct myself in class. I could then develop further in sessions as I could challenge myself to ensure that I have the correct body placement in terms of my spine and pelvis, and where my arms are placed in each exercise. In comparison to the start of the year, I now have greater understanding of basic ballet terminology as well as the correct formation of my body in each exercise performed. It is crucial to know what is expected of me for example, in a balancé (a moving exercise) compared to an arabesque (a still balance). For a balancé, the whole body needs to flow side to side gracefully whereas in an arabesque my weight placement needs to be on my front foot to allow the back leg to lift off the floor and stay in the air without wobbling. Knowing what needs to happen for each exercise means I can adapt my body for that. This has improved my self-management by making myself accountable for practicing terminology outside of the studio and doing my own independent learning to ensure I support myself in improving my ballet skills. (American Ballet Theatre, 2018)

BALLET – BAR WORK SEPT 2025

BALLET – BAR WORK APRIL 2026

TAP ROUTINE – (APRIL 2026)

TAP VIDEOS – LEARNING CHOREOGRAPHY (MARCH-APRIL 2026)

I’ve had to adapt my learning recently due to a fractured elbow considering how I would get involved in my tap classes. We worked on recapping routines for our assessments at the end of the year. To be able to pick up each routine, I had to mentally shift mindsets from performer to dance captain and picture what this would entail in the industry. This was quite overwhelming at first, I find it easier to learn things physically, so I found it a challenge to learn from the side-lines. I discovered that by writing down the steps, I could speak these out loud as my peers danced. This helped me understand the timings for each of the steps in the routine. While saying these out loud, I marked the movements without tap shoes so that I could feel the movements without worrying about the sound it makes with the shoe. This took the pressure off and it allowed me work on the steps. The video clips show me prior to applying these techniques and after, which evidences how taking the shoes off and focusing on the moves rather than the sound, has benefitted my learning. To support my learning further I could use this technique while practicing independently to help with my pick-up skills for tap. It would also enable me to go at my own pace rather than everyone else’s, developing my skills further and ensuring that I become faster at picking up the routines. I also recognised how resilient I am and how determined I have been to still learn and improve throughout that process. This is still something I find challenging as I seem to fall back into the negative mindset and perfectionist pressure to get things right first time. To embed what I’ve learnt while injured into my daily practice, I must go back to these techniques: writing the steps down, speaking the movements and practicing without tap shoes to ease my mind and take things at my own pace. This has also illustrated my resilience, as I have taken the initiative to find new ways of learning that I can take into my training when obstacles like injuries potentially happen again.

Injury prevention is something I’ve looked closely at throughout this period of time to see how I can support myself further. I found topics on emotional responses to the injury (‘Dance and Dancers’ Injuries’ by Chris Caldwell), Chris stated, ‘…dancers will feel isolated to their peers, and less important than them in the eyes of the teacher.’ (Caldwell, 2001, pp.102) I found that I did feel isolated, but I believe that this made my healing process more worthwhile. I took my dancing classes for granted, I wasn’t enjoying them as I didn’t feel I was developing, but once I couldn’t participate, I realised I did enjoy them and my fear was I would fall behind. I had physiotherapy to ensure I was ready to go straight back into dancing. This was also a moment to pause and look at areas of my life that weren’t nurturing my body. Chris stated, ‘Dancers must give themselves the best environment in which to exist whether they are injured or not… diet, home surroundings, living environment, non-dance lifestyle etc’ (Caldwell, 2001, pp.14) I recognised my diet was unbalanced because I wouldn’t pick the healthiest options as I was in a ‘rush’ or just ‘couldn’t be bothered’.

SECRET LOVE – CALAMITY JANE

HOW COULD I EVER KNOW? – SECRET GARDEN

Another exercise we did was from Richard Miller’s book ‘The Structure of Singing: System and Art in Vocal Technique’. (Miller, 1986, pp.5, 63) This exercise makes you aware of what your vocal folds are doing and gives you more understanding of how much effort you should use whilst singing. This was an interesting exercise because you could feel the vibrations of the vocal folds coming together.

I discovered during my singing lessons that I had a nasal sound to my voice which meant I was placing my singing in my nose rather than through my mouth. I tackled this by taking what Richard said and pinched my nose to raise awareness of the feeling so I could place the sound in my mouth, making it sound louder and less concealed.

Reviewing my singing skills, I struggled with a ‘legit’ sounding voice when I started. When working on legit repertoire, I found myself feeling very underprepared and self-critical. In my 1-1 sessions, we looked at strengthening my range and working on exercises; (shown in the voice note I attached), to stretch my head voice and make the higher notes sound strong and dainty. By doing exercises whilst plie-ing, meant that my focus was on the plie and not on my voice, making it easier to sing higher up the scale. When singing ‘Secret Love’, (Fain, Paul-Webster and Hanmer, 1963) I worked on my posture, I would tense up before singing ‘now I shout it’ due to concern whether the note would come out clean. To improve this, I would relax by body before practicing with: spinal rolls, child’s pose and cat-cow stretches which created focus on feeling present in my body. This removed the tension but I still found I was struggling with the vocal challenges of the song. In Vocal Tech, we looked at the ‘Husler Method’ placing the voice on a part of your body when singing. When placing the song on my chest/collarbone (as shown in the diagram, I found the note came out clearer. This wasn’t the only placement I experimented with this song. By placing my voice in the ‘soft palate and top of head’ during the verses and then in the ‘corner of the collar bone’ for the chorus meant I showed the correct dynamics throughout the song, supporting the switch between my chest and head voice.

This furthered my confidence with the song discovering that visual learning was a tool I could use in other pieces of music. Another song that this technique supported me was ‘How could I ever know?’ (Simon, 1992) because I placed the song on the top of my head which made it light and airy. Also, putting a Laban effort onto the vocals improved the performance. (Ewan and Sagovsky, 2018) By using ‘gliding’, the song was softer and the intention was shown vocally. This highlighted that I still need to strengthen my ‘head’ voice to enable the sound to be strong, instead of weak and breathy. These strategies worked because I was removing pressure and using my body to produce the sound I wanted to make. Some techniques worked for some songs and not others but now I have tools to tackle each new song I come to sing in the future. Despite that, I have to be careful not to rely on these resources to produce the sound I want since they’re just a visual tool and not something that will shape my voice without the other vocal techniques I’ve learnt. This represents a significant improvement, I have explored numerous techniques to improve my singing for different styles of music instead of relying on pure instinct. This has shown my adaptability during the course of this year as I’ve taken research and applied it to my own practice, experimenting with visual learning to see if it enhanced my vocals and confidence when singing.

When singing ‘Somewhere that’s Green’ from Little Shop of Horrors (Menken and Ashman, 1987), I realised I had to switch between my head to my chest voice throughout the song. To ensure this was smooth, adding different character choices really supported how I delivered each line and the part of my body I would use to vocally support myself.

For example, during my acting through song session, we looked at focus points I would have. Audrey has to picture everything she sees in her future home and her future with Seymour. It’s quite melodramatic since she’s coming out of herself when she’s not with Orin. She feels comfortable whenever she’s not around him.

BEYOND MY WILDEST DREAMS – THE LITTLE MERMAID

When looking at this song (Menken, Ashman and Slater, 2008), I took on the critiques given to me about changes of thought (Ates, 2023) and I researched how I would perform a song composed by Alan Menken. The song is made for ‘Disney’, so everything is very big, expressions are animated and melodramatic. Ariel as a character is portrayed as naïve, curious and rebellious, I wanted to show the excitement she would be feeling for finally being on land, with legs! I went through my sheet music and added her thoughts to each line. This enabled me to carry out her focus shifts throughout the song, I found it easy to follow this strategy, meaning I wouldn’t lose the audiences attention and I felt I was guiding them better through the performance. Moving forward, I need to thoroughly delve into the lyrics in the score to understand the character’s thought process.

Paul also states, “Every moment of your life you are at the centre of a world of limitless stimuli, vying to grab your attention.” (Harvard, 2013, pp.20) This is what I wanted to convey when singing this song because Ariel is open to discovering this brand new world right in front of her and she’s constantly finding new things to look at and admire.

You can understand how a character feels because the music reflects that. In this song, it’s hopeful, joyful and euphoric and it tells you this before Ariel starts singing; the tone of the song has already been set. Once I understood the character, I had to figure out how I was going to portray Ariel vocally, especially during this part of her journey in the show. I struggled with the dynamic shift from the verse to the chorus (‘I hoped and wished’) since this was her reflecting on her dream coming true, being on land with her ‘true love’. I have struggled to use vibrato before, but when I added this to the notes that I found difficult in my head voice, I found it easier to sing. Before applying vibrato, I would push my voice to sing these notes which resulted in vocal cracks. This improved the way I tackle these sections of songs as it doesn’t sound forced or strained, but controlled and easy. However, it didn’t feel natural so to improve this, applying vibrato every time will ensure that this is a skill I can hone easily.

This diagram (Harvard, 2013, pp.51) supported my process of developing my acting for this song. For example, when I would see something in the distance as Ariel, the change would be my reaction to that which most likely would be excitement or awe. Then after that change, there would be a focus shift to the next thing Ariel would see which starts the cycle again. This is a method I can use again in the future. I also used this diagram to sing ‘Somewhere That’s Green’ since Audrey is picturing her future with Seymour. She’s imagining all of the things they’ll have in their house and what they’ll do together in everyday life. At the start of the year, I would find it hard to react to what I was singing, this diagram is a step by step guide to loosely help you find a structure, meaning you’re not just stood there singing but helping the audience to really understand. This research supported me with singing these songs, a useful skill to use when singing similar songs. A limitation with using this skill is that not every song will require me to picture everything around me. Previously, I relied on my tutors telling me what to do during the song, now. I explore what the song needs me to do as a performer. I have developed how I portray characters, visualise places and explain things to an audience; to take them on a journey so they understand what’s being sung and what the character wants to achieve by the end of the song. This highlights my independent learning as I’ve implemented time into comprehending the context of a song and a character and applied that to my practice, embedding characteristics, visualisation and being able to tell the story of the song through my research.

CONCLUSION

To conclude, I have grown considerably through this year and have used critiques from tutors, independent research and discoveries in practice to take into the rehearsal room for my development. I’ve discussed how mindset can affect how I work, by changing my perspective. For example, when injured, finding new ways to adapt in learning material has further supported me when practicing in and out of the studio. My biggest overall development has been my legit singing as I’ve journeyed since September to find strategies that not only support my confidence but make the overall sound better and more fitting to the style I’m singing. My training habits have evolved from only working in the room to taking my work outside of the sessions and putting in my own personalised practice. This was seen the most in ballet by taking the time to understand the terminology taught to us during each lesson. I made sure to grasp the idea of alignment by checking that each part of my body was engaged (spine, pelvis, neck, arms, etc) before each exercise, meaning I was critiqued on the actual routine and not my body placement. I am determined to use the techniques learnt in my second year of university. I especially want to remember that it’s a process and material I bring into the rehearsal space doesn’t have to be perfect straight away. To further develop within sessions, I will take on critique and new ideas and develop them independently. By changing my mindset and perspective, I can support myself by taking the things I’ve learnt this year and the strategies I’ve found that work for me into the next step of my training to develop and grow more as an actor, singer and dancer.