The NEW class...

Hello everyone!

Yes, after a very long break writing, composing, and generally being otherwise lazy, I'm BACK to dance again!

A new dance class commences at City Academy called Musical Theatre Dance! It's taken by none other than the most excellent Mark Short, and promises to be something of a wonder that will help give me that final bit of inspiration I need to get this project off the ground :D

So, I don't know if anyone will be interested in joining the class, there's still some space!

If you do, you can find all the info here:

http://www.city-academy.com/musicaltheatredance/

Until Feb then... :)

Hello, Dolly!

Okay, so this isn't about MAKING a musical, but it's ABOUT a musical, and so I felt the best place to write it was on here!

On Wednesday, during the afternoon, the lovely Jenny Lowe (editor, What Investment Magazine) at work called my work phone and said that she had a spare ticket (corporate hospitality from Santander Bank) to see Hello, Dolly! on stage at the Open Air Theatre in Regents Park!!!

I WAS going to go to the cinema, ALONE, but this was by far a much much better offer.

And so I went... and OMG! It was AMAZING.

I was totally loving it! The costumes, the music, the cast, the stage, the evening, then venue... the corporate hospitality... the EVERYTHING!!!

It has only made me MORE determined to get my musical on the stage, but at the same time, it's made me feel even more self-conscious about what I've written... how can it possibly compare to such genius? I feel like I could never produce something that good.

But I'll try nevertheless :)

Making a musical 22: The end of street dance

So, the six weeks of street dance are now over.

Sadly, I have nothing to do now :( haha.

If only that were true. Far from it in fact.

Although the street dancing wasn't exactly to my taste, it was still enjoyable.

Unfortunately we didn't have our usual instructor, and although our new instructor was good, it just wasn't the same. The pace was too fast, the moves too complex.

I suppose I have been really spoilt so far. lol.

Anyway, the next thing I was SUPPOSED to do with the academy was intermediate musical theatre in October... however this looks extremely unlikely due to some financial commitments that were not initially in the plan. Needless to say, it's going to be near enough impossible to save enough.

On the plus side however, I have managed to carry on with my musical, and I can safely say that the bulk of it is now out of the way. There's just one more song to do, and then the dialogue (the easy part), and then the actual music! lol.

Trust me, it's much easier than it sounds.

The hardest part was writing lyrics enough for the few songs I wanted that could tell the whole story in an entertaining way... and I think I managed that.

It has still to be seen.

Next step after writing? Gain approval from the academy and see what they say :D

So, I shall keep you all up to date on what's going on.

Until then, please do take care, and keep dancing :D

Making a musical 21: Street dance begins!

I'm finally blogging on here again! It feels like AGES, although I'm pretty sure it's only been a couple of weeks (looks at calendar)... okay, maybe a few weeks then!

So, I finally started street dance. It began last night. And it was AWESOME!

Well, I mean, I couldn't move for beans, but I loved it.

I felt like a proper gansta "BRAP". hehe.

Seriously though, our instructor, Mr. Jack "Pointer" McKenzie, is actually pretty cool. He's like only 22/23, but he's awesome. And the dude can MOVE!

It's amazing just watching him move. Mesmerising!

I have absolutely NO rhythm, and I can tell it's going to be a while before I manage to nail this dance technique, with all the side-stepping and rocking back and forth, and arms being all gangster-y. But I totally love it.

I am actually the ONLY guy in this class (apart from Jack), so that's interesting. But I know some people on the course anyway, so that's okay. The only problem is that women tend to have more rhythm than guys - so even though we're all beginners, AND I've been doing dance for like 6 months now - they all dance much better than me. But I don't really mind so much. I'm just glad I took it.

I was a bit scared of having a different instructor to Mark Short (a living legend); but Jack is pretty cool, and I didn't feel uncomfortable - even when I couldn't get the moves down.

So basically, this is the score: I need to practise A LOT at home and break out all my old hip-hop tracks from back in the day.

I think I'll bust out some moves to the Fugees tonight... word!

Making a musical 20: The Showcase!

So, it finally happened.
After 9 long weeks (well, it felt long), we finally performed our 'masterpiece' to room full of people.
Was it perfect? Did it go off without a hitch? Hahaha! We wish.
But did we have fun? HELLS YEAH!

Okay, so, we knew there were going to be problems right from the start. Firstly, the left speaker kept blowing, so the music was very muffled for the start. Then, the microphone wasn't on, so people were trying to sing over the music, which wasn't the easiest thing to do. And if that wasn't enough, the disc skipped! Arghhh!
Imagine - mid dance routine, and the disc skips... what does one do? We were all so confused.
But we just picked up and carried on. But the disc did skip about 3 times during the whole thing. lol.
Oh, and wait, on top of ALL that, I (yes... ME) started singing a part too early. And some people joined me... and that was a shambles! lol.

But luckily most of this all happened really early in the first song, and the rest of the show was pretty much awesome (shambles again during "You can't stop the beat", but I thought that recovery was pretty cool!).
Also, I THINK my solo's went down quite well, and I'm very pleased about that :)

Behold the fruits of my labour!

So, where does that leave me? Well, I am now the proud recipient of a certificate outlining my achievement in completing the 10 week course; however I am also free of a Monday night :(
Yes, once again the fear of a dance-less existence has overcome me. I'm going to be doing intermediate musical theatre in October, but between now till then, I wasn't planning on doing anything... however, the very thought of no dance classes for 5 months makes me very sad indeed...

So (haha, you knew this was coming), I MAY enrol for beginners street dance (as you remember, it's my favourite type of dance) which starts on the 22nd of July for 6 weeks.
That will take me up until September, and I will then try to control my dance urges until October (it's only one month... we'll see... haha).

So now the decision I have to make is do I enrol in street or not??

Making a musical 19: The three-hour extravaganza

Yes, last night's musical theatre class was extended to three hours as next Monday is our showcase, and with so much still left to learn and to fine-tune, I was seriously worried we wouldn't be ready.

We still had four pieces from Les Mis to work through, three of them we had no idea what we were doing - and we kept forgetting the words for the other one (well, I did anyway! lol); not to mention the mega 8 minute long Joseph and Hairspray songs!

Without wasting too much time, we went through a lightning fast vocal warm-up and then straight into the lyrics for Hairspray (which I now more or less know... well, I should considering we're performing it next week!).
After that, we did the vocals for the Les Mis songs, and then to the dancing! Oh the dancing :D

A full run-through of the Les Mis pieces actually went quite well. Simply because there wasn't really any dancing, and it was just a case of remembering the lyrics (which I STILL can't do when moving about).
And then we did a run-through of Hairspray. Well, we cut it up first, and went through each section slowly, which was a great help as we were able to fine tune some moves, and change others that were proving too difficult (although I was upset that this little ballet type move got taken out, as I worked really hard to perfecting that, lol). In the end, we actually managed to do it - and then the curtains came across.

So basically what happened was this: Mark (the instructor) pulled the curtains over the mirror so we couldn't see what we were doing. Now, this is vital to any performance, because in a dance studio, you become very comfortable looking in the mirror, and that way, you can always keep an eye on everyone else to make sure you're doing the right thing.
But with the mirror gone (as it would be on stage), you have to start getting into the mindset of actually performing as an individual, but in a group. You can't really look to anyone else for cues, and you also have to think about looking at the audience.
Personally, I am very lucky in this respect, and I'll tell you why.
When I did beginners dance, the room was small, and I always used to find myself on the far left hand side, where the door was, so I could never look at the mirror.
So, my dance education began not looking in a mirror, and now, when faced with a mirror, I don't really bother looking. I try to keep my eyes high as I would on stage (fire-exit level as Mark would say).
But of course, not everyone had had this experience, and so there were ample gasps of fear as the curtains were pulled across.

After Hairspray we ran through the entire show, and I forgot all my solo parts for Joseph which was not exactly great, but I smiled the whole time despite singing the wrong words at the wrong times! lol.
During the Hairspray song in the final run I also managed to get a duet for the role of Edna which was great, because it was a role I was thinking of auditioning for before, but felt I ought to give someone else a chance to take a lead. lol.

So, all in all I can say this: After the 3 hours, I was amazed at how incredibly we'd come together as a class. Some of us had never danced before, others had never sung, and yet together we were simply AWESOME!
I personally can't WAIT for next week's showcase, and if you fancy coming along, please do as it's FREE! haha.

It's next Monday (29th June 2009) at the Old Finsbury Town Hall (AKA Urdang Academy) on Rosebury Avenue, and it starts at 8.
Hope to see you there :)

Making a musical 18: Jamaican accents and the first song!

Huzzah!
I finally got my singing solo part, and it's one of the ones that I really wanted.
Alas, the Elvis solo in the Joseph megamix was denied to me, however I managed to get my second favourite singing part which I actually have to put on a Jamaican accent for... I think I pulled it off quite well.
Either way, I got the part, so I'm happy :D

We advanced in our dancing, however, we're still only working on two songs, and we have to do about 5!! With only 3 more weeks left!!! How will we manage?
I have faith though, so it's okay.

In other news, I spoke to my dance instructor (Mark) about my musical. I figured that since the article about me was now published, it was only a matter of time before he found out what I was up to. Anyway, I ran my idea by him, and he seemed to think it was worth doing.
We both got really excited about musical related things, and since, I've had no end of inspiration.

Having now got the entire story down on paper, words started flowing through my mind, and I started writing lyrics on the bus this morning. I'm actually very happy with them. I showed them to a couple of people, and I got laughter and approval, so I think I'm on the right path to success :D

It's only a matter of time now before it's all completed. Once done, I'll run it by City Academy, and then see what they can do for me in terms of putting it on stage!