Rent

Today we rehearsed 'Tango Maureen' a bit, working on the feet mostly, making sure that everyone was doing the same thing so that it looked neater. We then tried it with the backing track so that Ashley and Freya could try singing without the vocals.

Next we tried 'Will I' and 'Life Support' with the backing tracks. 'Will I' started to improve after a couple of runs as people started getting used to when they were singing and how it sounded against what everyone else was singing. I think it will keep improving with practice and now we just need to be more confident with it so that you can really hear the different groups and what they are singing, so it doesn't look like some people are just singing at the wrong time. 'Life Support' was not as good as the soloist parts were not very good without the vocals as the timing is very difficult but the chorus parts are sounding good so now it is just down to some people to go away and listen to the song and their specific parts, but I think we will get there eventually and it will sound good.

Rent

Today we started doing the dance 'Tango Maureen' which I was very excited about as Dan is choreographing it and it is a really good song. The choreography is really good ad although it is quite simple so that everyone will eventually be able to perform it well it looks really good and emulates a real tango without the hard technique. I am paired with Tom for the section of the dance that we come on for, we are in hold and do a short tango-inspired combination and then a travelling step. I think the addition of the pairs of dancers really adds to the song and makes it more of a performance rather than two people just singing a song. It also gives the audience more to watch while there is no singing going on.

Rent

We have been working on everything that we have done, running all of the numbers that we have done (La Vie Boheme and Rent). We also sang and set the songs 'Will I' and 'Life Support' which was nice as they are not to difficult songs as they are very static. 'Will I' was challenging to sing as it is in a round, with 4 groups singing over each other. Our class are not all confident with singing so this was quite difficult, in the end we changed it to be only 3 groups so each group was stronger and the song started to sound better. 'Life Support' was also quite challenging for the soloists as it seemed they were not particularly familiar with the song so were not sure what they were singing, but they did improve after a few runs, and I think with help will be able to perform it to a good standard.

Rent

Today we were working on the song 'Seasons of Love'. Most of the class was familiar with this song so we could all sing it through roughly together which was a good start. We spent quite a while working on who was singing what part and working on the harmonies as there are quite a lot in this song. Some people are struggling with the harmonies so we made need to simplify some of it or swap some people around but it is sounding good. I think with practice, especially on the harmonies, we will be able to improve the song greatly. A big factor holding us back at the moment is confidence with the song, once we have confidence it will sound better as everyone will be louder and therefore build the song up instead of only being able to hear a few people.

Rent

This is a video of our first version of La Vie Boheme. We have not completely finished it yet and have not polished it so it is a bit messy, but the foundations are there.

As a starting piece I think we have done very well to work together and create this choreography which is simple but looks good and everyone can do. We definitely need to practice this number and tighten it up, also we need to look at the solo and duet bits and work out what we are going to do so that we are not just standing still and there is still movement occurring, but we can easily add this later.