Introduction

When I started my training at Leeds Conservatoire, I came with my strengths, however I also arrived with my weaknesses both in my practical training and my academic skills. Throughout this portfolio, my intention is to present to you the amount which I have developed across all disciplines over the past year. I will display both the disciplines which I feel have improved on a much larger scale, and also the disciplines which may have improved on a smaller scale, and the actions which I have taken in order for these developments to happen. I will show these through the goals which I have set myself over this year. I also have amended these goals for when I came across unexpected obstacles throughout my first year of training. In this portfolio, I intend to include a range of specific areas in each discipline, my practical progress in each area, and how they will benefit me in my professional development. These specific areas include, but are not limited to: improving flexibility, improving stamina, building strength, improving technique, developing text and acting skills, developing performance, developing vocal onsets and tone and improving musicality.

Dance

When I started my training at Leeds Conservatoire, I had a bit of a vague background of dance technique, with only having done a year of basic jazz training, and being taught choreography back at college. With that being said, I felt that this was something which would have the most room for improvement on. The goals which I had set up for myself were improving flexibility, stamina, strength and improving technique.

Both coordination and flexibility have always been things which I have struggled on when I first started out dancing, however I knew that in order to stand a good chance within this industry, I needed to further develop myself not in just these areas, but in all aspects of dance. This quote from an article which I found states that “Young dancers, in particular, need flexibility not only to perform, but also to maintain overall health” (Dance Informa Magazine, 2025). This article shows how beneficial flexibility and stretching is as performers, and how vital it is in order for our bodies to be able to keep up with our standard of training, thus lengthening our lifespans and longevity of our health, which is something that I feel I have improved on, but I can definitely improve on more as a dancer. In order to start improving my flexibility, I decided to focus on a number of stretches from a range of my classes, specifically Ballet, Jazz Technique, Body Mechanics and Body Conditioning. Some of these stretches included the forward fold, the lizard pose, half-kneeling hip flexor and quad stretch and straddle stretch. These stretches were highly beneficial to me, as they helped push me further to my splits, and helped me get closer to reaching my head to my thighs in a forward fold, through breathing and further pushing myself. Here are some visual examples of the stretches I have been executing:

On top of doing these stretches both in classes and independently, I decided to include resistance bands into my stretching and training after having a resistance band class with our lecturer Carly Blackburn. According to ClevelandClinic, “A 2019 study shows how that training using resistance bands provides similar strength gains to using conventional gym equipment“. These resistance band stretches became highly insightful to my training this year, especially as I had an operation around 6 weeks ago, which hindered to the physical standard which I hold to myself. As I am still currently recovering from this operation, I have had to regularly include these stretches into my daily routine to make sure that I don’t immediately lose all of the flexibility which I have worked for over the last year, just to be lost over just a few weeks of not stretching, dancing, or doing anything for that matter. I have now managed to get myself to a point where I am able to mark and block routines out, which has helped with my memory and pick-up skills. Going forward from this, I will continue to drill these stretches into my practice, and make sure that I am able to improve in my stretching and flexibility, and one day be able to do the splits.

When it comes to building strength, I already had a good foundation and base to build on, as I had been overall quite active and physical while growing up, being in and out of the gym a number of times, as well as going with my mum. When I started this course, I immediately bought a gym membership to help aid my dance training, and in order to maintain my strength. As my dance practice won’t entail just strength, it is important for me to practice certain areas of my training outside of classes, as there isn’t enough time in the lesson to just simply focus on one area, due to the amount of work needed to cover. With this in mind, I feel that I have practiced improving my strength the most for dance. According to Strength and Conditioning for Dancers, “Supplemental fitness training” can “enhance both fitness and performance” (Wyon, M. And Clarke, S. 2021). This also helped me realise that I needed to ensure that I had more strength as a male performer, as males are required to ‘Do the heavy lifting’ when it comes to lifts in the industry. In addition to this, when I started this course, we all had a short physiotherapy appointment with physiotherapist John, who told me that I was hyper-mobile, which means that my body can tend to be more accident prone, and I am more likely to push my limbs further than they can be pushed, thus leading to possible injuries and even dislocations.

In order to assess my strength, I decided to assess the difference in weight I was lifting back in September, to the amount which I was lifting now, ensuring that I am doing the same amount of reps in both scenarios. As you can see, I have managed to to increase my weight, while still maintaining the correct form and keeping the same number of reps, showing how I have improved in my strength, thus becoming stronger. Overall, I feel that I can further aid and benefit my development by having a better understanding of balancing all of the efforts placed in each area, so that they all grow and improve at a similar pace. This means that I need to put just as much focus into improving my strength and stamina as I do my flexibility, so then I don’t end up with struggling on one of the areas, for example, stamina. Going forward from this, I will aim to include more stamina training into my routine, so I don’t struggle with my cardiovascular health when it comes to certain choreography.

Voice

When I started my training at Leeds Conservatoire, I had some very bad self-confidence issues when it comes to singing and the sound of my voice. As a Bass-Baritone, I always felt insecure that I couldn’t sing as high as a Tenor. However, I soon came to realise that this isn’t as much of a problem as I made it out to be. My main problem which I soon found was that I needed to work on my overall tonality of sound, as well as my falsetto, and overall stretching my voice. According to A Study of the Importance of Vocal Energy on Classical Singing, improving on your vocal tone gives you “a clearer vocal timbre, a deeper musicality and a richer vocal performance”. This shows how important tonality is in singing, and it is important to understand what song you are singing, and what vocal qualities and tonalities you must use to convey the correct message and meaning of the song.

One of my first milestones in singing was when I sang the song Some Enchanted Evening from South Pacific (Rodger’s and Hammerstein, 1949). This song is a very romantic Ballad, and the Character (Emile de Becque) is singing to his love interest. I progressed a lot with this song, as it was a ballad, and at the time, I didn’t enjoy singing ballads, and leaned much more towards more comedic uptempo songs. Some Enchanted Evening is a Golden Age ballad, and the hardest part I found of the song was when it went up to an E, and as I originally listened to a recording of someone singing this song with a rather operatic voice singing the last note in falsetto, I thought to myself that this was the only way to sing the song, which I found out isn’t the case, and that I should place it in my own voice, making the song sound more effortless and free, rather than tense and restricted. Initially from first singing the song, I was given the note to find more of a line through my singing, rather than it being more rhythmic, which is something that has been a main area of improvement for me in the last year. Being able to improve on these has made me feel more comfortable singing in my own body, and it has allowed me to feel freer, and less uncomfortable when singing ballads. Here is an example of me singing Some Enchanted Evening, using the exercises set by my singing teacher, Kathy Taylor-Jones, helping me to sit into the song more, creating a lighter, more effortless sound

One goal which I initially set myself was to get rid of any bad habits which I have picked up over the years of singing. One bad habit I have picked up was being very tense over my upper body, especially my shoulders and my back muscles, specifically my shoulder blades. This was due to the large buildup of nerves over me, causing my body to tense up, also creating the sort of ‘rhythmic’ sound when singing, thus not allowing me to have a sense of line. The exercises which I have been working on with my singing teacher in order to improve on this have been onsets, falling fourths from falsetto into my chest voice, then working up in my chest voice from there and also sliding on a vowel sound, using legato, usually on a ‘Da’ sound. Here are a few recordings of practicing this in my singing lessons.

As you can hear, the line tone, and ‘blade’ of the sound is much more efficient lower in my range, and it allows me to have a much clearer sound when I sing, so what we have been working on is getting this sound further up in my range, keeping the same volume and effort throughout the entire time. A main quality of my voice is that it is naturally loud, and that I don’t need to try too hard to be loud, due to the nature of my voice. One thing I have been working on with this is learning how to sing quieter, allowing for more meaning and emotion to come through my voice, which is something I realised I had no idea of how to do. This also helped aid me closer to singing with more of a through-line.

When it came to learning about vocal onsets, I learned that there are 3 types, which are asparate, which is quite ‘breathy’, glottal, which allows for no breath at all, and can sound quite resonant, and balanced, which combines the two together. Kathy and I started initially working on glottal onsets, which are very beneficial for a legit vocal quality.

This creates an entire new tone in my voice, with a much lovelier sound. This has helped me find the centre of my sound, and broaden from it. This has also helped me release any tension from my physicality, and has allowed me to put more of this effort into my tone and overall vocal quality. As I progress further in my training, I intend to keep practicing these exercises, helping to further improve my tone and vocal quality, and also to further enhance my vibrato, which is something that I feel is my next goal, as currently I feel that it is something which I struggle on, and I would like to be able to find this, as this will also help with my tone as well.

Acting

When I first began my training at Leeds Conservatoire, I was very experienced when it came to comedic acting, and I felt that Acting was the best of the 3 disciplines, especially when it came to Acting Through Song. However, what I soon came to realise was that this isn’t the only acting style I could get away with learning, and that I would need to learn many different acting styles, from Naturalism to Method, in order to be a versatile performer. It is important to ““Learn them all, take what you like, and leave the rest.” (Mink, C, 2024). This shows how I need to understand a wide variety of acting styles to become more employable in the industry, so I am easier to work with, and I am more likely to find work as a performer. As said before, this became highly apparent when it came to my Acting Through Song. I soon came to realise that both in my acting classes and in Acting Through Song, I struggled to find a good medium between overacting certain lines, making them sound too heightened, or not giving enough effort as an actor, making it look like I’m either not trying enough or that I’m acting for a film. This shows how vital it is as a performer to master the skill of naturalistic acting, to ensure a believable, meaningful performance.

When it comes to Acting Through Song, I have learnt a wide variety of techniques on how to make a piece more believable, especially when it comes to ballads. In my Acting Through Song classes, I have learnt how beneficial it is to understand both the context of the song, and many of the character’s objectives throughout the song, in order to be able to follow what the text means and understanding the subtext. On the contrary, I have found times where it has been beneficial to strip back the context and try certain exercises to help find a different side to a character. This was abundant when I was working with the song My Name from Oliver! (Lionel Bart, 1960). This song Introduces the character (Bill Sykes), and is a very villainous song, showing Sykes character, and how he is very immoral and will do anything to get what he wants, and how everyone is scared of him. At this point in my training, I hadn’t had much experience when it came to villainous characters and songs, however, this time, I realised I wasn’t as scared or nervous to try something new as I was before, which was very important to me. This song was where I took a different approach to preparing it, as usually I would just look up the context of the song, and only understand the song from there, meanwhile with this song, I decided to make notes on certain lines which stood out to me, and helped me understand the context of the song, and what the subtext was for each line. For example, on the line “With me jemmy in me hand”, I didn’t know what the word ‘jemmy’ meant, so I researched this and found out that the word was 19th Century slang for ‘crowbar’, meaning the line says ‘with my crowbar in my hand’. This technique helped me create more of a shape of my performance, and gave me more of an idea of how I wanted it to look like. Moving on from this into second year, I will approach every piece of rep which I have in this manner, in order to help me get an idea of how it should look like, helping me get an idea of the objectives of the character, thus solidifying the idea of the context in my head.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I am overall very happy with the progress that I have made this year. I feel that the techniques which I have learnt over all three disciplines have benefited in my development and training vastly, and they have also helped me become more self-disciplined and it has helped me be more accountable to myself. I now feel more comfortable being adventurous when finding new rep, and I am slowly finding my voice, rather than just trying to copy a recording of someone else singing the same song, helping me find individuality in my rep. When it comes to dance, I feel that I have improved in all aspects, from technique to flexibility to strength, as well as sharpening my pick-up skills, and finding the accents in each piece of choreography and rep that I do. When it comes to the techniques which I have learnt in Acting Through Song, I have learnt a variety of ways to approach a song/piece of text, and I am now more capable of preparing a song to create a better sense of meaning, and better conveying the message which I want to convey. If I could go back and do anything different, I would attempt to better my practice, making it more frequent, especially when it comes to certain voice exercises, as there are definite moments which I could implement them into my daily routine in order to strengthen myself, for example, doing calf raises whilst brushing my teeth, or doing my vocal technique exercises whilst doing my daily chores. Overall, the skills which I have learnt over the course of my first year will benefit me for the rest of my training and future career, and they will contribute to the way in which I conduct myself both in a professional and educational environment, helping me to have a better mindset for the future.

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