G&T Dance Company:Work in Progress a HA News Team Report
Report by Ruth H., Kipling College
Preparations for the Christmas Performance are now underway
G&T dance company is an extra-curricular dance club for gifted and talented students who are aiming for an A-A* in their GCSE or are looking to study dance further after their secondary education. We meet for 2 hours every Monday to work toward many important performances. Last year we performed at the London Youth Dance performance at the Scoop in London.
"High Level"We are currently learning a routine to perform at the school´s annual Christmas show. Hampton Academy has a Christmas Celebration, which is a very spiritual and high calibre show. There are performances from all years from the dance, drama, and music faculties. As the show is very high level there will be many senior staff and important people attending, including Dr. Demont, the school governors and staff from the Learning Schools Trust as well as Mr. John Baumber — CEO of the LST. space "spiritual and religious"The dance piece we are currently working on is very spiritual and religious. We are working on the idea of having a body and a soul where the soul is escaping the body after life. The dance is very contemporary with many balletic movements and big sections of floor work. There are lots of more grounded strong movements for the body and lighter, more airy movements for the soul. This should help to show the souls freedom — almost like a gas. Half of the dancers will be dressed in black as bodies and the other half in white as souls. Every Monday a professional dancer and mentor at Hampton Academy, Kelly Bull, comes in to teach the gifted and talented group dance and routines for upcoming shows and performances. Kelly is a good teacher and a very talented dancer. By having her teach us for 2 hours every week we not only have fun but we get to learn new dance styles and moves, perfect technique and get new ideas for our own choreography. One of Kelly´s teaching styles I particularly like is filming us and then watching back with us our performance. By doing this we learn about our own dance style but we can also see where we can improve. Many of the movements we use in the ‘Body and Soul´ dance piece have been picked out from individual groups who were filmed and then edited to suit the whole group. 
'Eye on the Prize': Club members are focused on excellence
"we can all learn together and have fun"I really enjoy going to the G&T club after school as it is fun and I learn a lot. I think it is a great way to improve my dance skills and it really helps to build confidence and performance skills. Everyone at G&T is really friendly and talented at dance. It is great to go to a club where we can all learn together and have fun. It is also quite laid-back but commitment and attendance is important as other people may wish to attend. Kelly is a great teacher and it is great having a professional teacher. 
Practice makes perfect, but training sessions are always fun
|