Hayley Izzard

We are currently creating a dance piece to be performed in Coventry, for the arts festival on June 30th in Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham and also to be performed in Coventry for June 9th in aid of the Olympic Torch. This video is a dance routine that we learnt with a choreographer who specialises in Kathak South Asian dance, that we are incorporating parts of into our overall piece, combined with Yoga. Our aim of the piece is to explore the concept of Fire. Feedback and tell me what you think.

Feedback from my IPP Performance Greta and Tara providing me feedback on my performance that they watched in IPP1. I'm very pleased with this feedback and it also helps me to look back and keep viewing this video whenever I need to, if I forget how to progress or if I just want to know a way forward. I'm glad it came across as shocking and effective, as that was definitely the aim. Some of the feedback surprised me as I didn't notice there was an energy change in my performance, I guess that's also an added bonus. I agree with Tara and Polly that I should slow down and focus on the smaller details of my piece instead of being quick to throw away the movements.

'The traces left behind' - Fiona Jackson  A movement exploration looking into the different ways we imprint ourselves onto our surroundings in our day-today lives. I really liked this piece as I was fascinated with the collages in the gallery space of handprints smudged across the pages on the wall, seeing all the the delicate markings of the feet. On one of them there was a 'Start' and 'Finish' where she'd journeyed across the paper, and seeing the comparisons of the traces. The feel of the piece reminded me very much like it was an art exhibition. As I was witnessing Fiona drawing circular patterns with chalk, I saw in the process her foot went through the chalk line and the chalk scattered far over the page, which was interesting. A phrase stood out to me,'The movement is fleeting, the marks remain'. This phrase interests me as it says to me even though as humans were constantly progressing, travelling, moving forwards with our lives, ther...

The Trickster The Child The Innocent The Mother The Hero The Old The Whore - to name a few! These are all examples of sterotypical characters that are easily accessible to portray in theatre. This is easily acheived through playing around with undulations. Undulation is: bending knees, slumping your body over, pushing your pelvis out and returning upright to lean back into your hip joints. In each of these positions a character can be born, for example: in the bending knees and slumped over form, its easy to play 'The Old'. The same for 'The Mother' leaning back can portray pregnancy, and theres so many more. If you lead with your head, you can play 'The Hero', strong and willful. If you lead with your nose, you could play 'The Geek' or even 'The Nosey'. So many possibilities evolve just from playing around with physicality, and which part of the body to lead with. This technique was used as a form of 'Commedia Del Arte...

Ive said about the Arthrometric model in another post but the lesson plan we had today was putting the model into practice I think. We had to work in trios, and experience aswell as giving, with the rocking exercises, gripping the legs, arms and torso area. To Give: When rocking Katie and Janiece the momentums of the rocking were so different. Janiece had a slow and steady pace, whereas katies rocked quite fast, especially when her legs were involved. When the legs were involved on both of them, I noticed the partnership of the other person on the other side would quickly become out of sync, and we had to work together to stop the receiver feeling disjointed. I noticed that katie struggled to let go of weight, especially with the exercise of letting Janiece and I move her muscles, but I think we all struggled with this area. It was either weight was given in the leg or in the arm, never both at the same time. I think Janiece was the best out of all of us in giving weight, you coul...

To generate ideas for my 'Transformation' project, I wanted to add some personal experience to my movement piece, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to show my journey of my experiences at University so far. There's been so many ups and downs, and it would be an easy way of showing this comparison. Using levels to show the highs and lows, and using theatrical practice to display the emotion. These movements are displaying my emotions at the start of this course, like I was hitting a wall and finding it hard to break through mentally, and how I manage to break free. This movement was created when exploring with the score of 'battling with myself''. These are just sneak peeks of the performance I've done so far, any feedback?

The second session: In Voice, we were practising the art of carefully pronouncing vowels and consonants. For example, my warm up exercises were: Maa -Faa -So - La - Ti - Wa Bee - Bi - Bick - Boh Shcrap - Mi - To - Da - La We had to say these to the group and recite them over and over. She would individually give us feedback on how we would say certain sounds, which I thought was really good as its almost 1 to 1 feedback. We then had to say a piece of text and she would individually go around the group and listen. Again, we'd recite them; my feedback was to play with tone, but she didn't have alot to say. I think I have quite a neutral voice but I do have a slight birmingham accent, which isn't too big of a problem.

To start the session by melting when a partner nudges you was a nice experience for me; personally, I like moving in this way. It eventually progressed until four of us were doing it, initiating the movement for each other and receiving, which became our own 'nudging dance'. The next exercise reminded me of what we did earlier in the week in theatre, to do with suspending the torso. It's amazing how its so much difference when you suspend your torso and manipulate your weight into different areas of the body and how much difference it makes. Posture looks so much better when lifting, and you find that it actually takes more energy to walk normally than to walk with your weight lidted(torso suspended). It also reminded me of the rib and pelvis work in movement tasks. I was trying to imagine the spaces inbetween my ribs, but I could mainly picture the pelvis. I find it harder to picture the ribs for some unknown reason. I found gliding while the torso was suspended awkw...