Assignment brief - QCF BTEC

Give a presentation of research and analysis of the role/roles you have been assigned in "The best of British" showcase.

For the role/roles that we had to research, I chose Matilda because in my opinion It's the most interesting role out of the showcase.Matilda is a musical as-well as a Film which was produced in 1996 by Danny DeVito. Matilda the Musical is based on a 5 year old girl which is really smart and deals with trouble easily, that she has at home and at school. She attends to a school where the Headmistress is Miss Trunchbull which is the schools most scariest and most strict teacher. She makes kids like Bruce (which is a slightly older boy that is overweight) eat a really huge chocolate cake in front of the whole school because he stole a bit of her cake before that. Another example of what Miss Trunchbull did is that she threw a little girl called Amanda over a fence because she had pigtails. That  kind of stuff was normal at Matildas school.

Here's a trailer of a Matilda Musical which was presented at the tony awards show. I chose this clip because it really stands out from the other musical performances since the kids are really energetic and look really focused on the acting.

However Matilda was different. She was a smart girl who used to go to the local library to read books whenever she wasn't at school. Her home life was as bad as her school. Her parents were always mean to her and didn't really care about her. Even though she was really intelligent they always ignored her. So whenever her parents behaved badly, she decided to pull pranks on them. She pulls three pranks: she glues her dads hat to his head, she disguised her neighbor's parrot as a ghost and dyed her dad's hair blonde. This show's that wasn't really scared of her parent's that much.

In school matilda is really humble. She always does the best she can in class and does her homework. She also tell her friends at school what kind of a horrible teacher Miss Trunchbull really is and decides with her friends to create a revolution against Miss Trunchbull. Since Matilda is humble and fair towards everyone, her friends agree with her and try to go against Miss Trunchbull by pulling pranks on her.




First of all, I'd adapt this character (matilda which is a school girl) by dressing up in the same clothes as her which are a checkered skirt,white shirt and a tie which would symbolise a typical school girl. Id probably wear my hair down just like hers. Furthermore since matilda is a really calm and collected girl, I'd have to try to work on being a bit more serious and act not like a nerd but act like a little girl that is focused on all her work and does everything perfectly. I would do this by maybe looking at primary nerd kids to see how they behave and act like towards everyone else. Along with that, i would also have to act a bit cheeky because in the musical even though matilda is a really good girl, she pulls some tricks which would make me feel a bit better at acting it out since that would make my role a bit more fun and relaxed.

sources:  http://www.shmoop.com/matilda-dahl/summary.html
http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FMatilda_the_Musical&h=0&w=0&tbnid=Cm9cfhiN60Wk2M&zoom=1&tbnh=267&tbnw=189&docid=NAilnvwjHpxyKM&tbm=isch&ei=gT1yVPD3Fsb9iAKUioGQCQ&ved=0CAQQsCUoAA
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=what+is+matilda+like&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=643&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=sTpyVLrJGMfdaqfVgpgL&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ#tbm=isch&q=matilda&spell=1&facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=YUd9MjNP8eDf2M%253A%3ByV83t96pKhwLXM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fia.media-imdb.com%252Fimages%252FM%252FMV5BNTYxNDEyMDQ1MF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwODcxMDYyMQ%2540%2540._V1_SY317_CR6%252C0%252C214%252C317_AL_.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.imdb.com%252Ftitle%252Ftt0117008%252F%3B214%3B317

Rooster vs. Cabaret:

Let’s start with the basics. ‘Rooster’ dance which was created by Christopher Bruce and ‘Cabaret’ which was created by Bob fosse are two similar dances. First of all, let’s talk about Cabaret: the dance style was created by Bob fosse which was an American choreographer. He was famous for his hunched back moves and musicals such as ‘Chicago’.

Cabaret was once famous during the Nazis time. It was set in berlin, in Germany. Many Nazi’s people found Cabaret as an entertainment and comedy. The dancers are really charismatic, and you can see this because all of the girls ( Men aswell ) are dressed in tight clothing that is quite provocative, heavy make-up that looks like it’s been overdone and fancy accessories such as hats. The moves come as really sexual and kind of slow. The main moves that Bob Fosse uses are gestures such as the spiral of the wrist where the girls click their fingers, The hunched back, slow cross legged walk and chair moves, where the girls dance on the chairs.

Source of the photo: http://www.southbaymt.com/other/rentals_chicago.html

The rooster is a representation of the animals rooster. It consists of dominant males and sometimes dominant females. It uses natural Rooster characteristics such as head bopping and wing movements with the arms. Christopher Bruce also uses moves such as the hip movement rotation which shows the sexual side of being the dominant rooster.  In the dance there’s a difference between the male and the female. You can see this by the way they get ready, for example, the male rooster would fix his tie and gel his hair whereas the girl would fix her hair or her clothes. This also

relates to the way the Roosters behave in the natural world.

Source of the photo: http://www.macleans.ca/culture/the-reign-of-kain/

One thing that’s similar to Cabaret in The rooster, is the hunched back moves which both Christopher Bruce and Bob fosse use in their dances. Bob fosses hunched back was because he originally had back problems which he used in his dance. On the other hand Christopher bruce used the hunched back moves because he wanted to get into the character of a rooster. Another similarity that the dances have is the overdone moves which are both done in two dances. You have to really get into the character of a Rooster in order for the dance to look effective as well as the characters in ‘Cabaret’ which are really bold and over dramatic.

The difference in the dances is that in ‘The rooster’ there’s a leader which is the dominant one in the group, whereas in the Cabaret, everyone dances together in sync so every move is done perfectly the same as each other. Another difference is that in ‘Cabaret’ they use props such as the chairs. In addition in Cabaret there’s a bit more dancers than is rooster, since in rooster its around4 and cabaret has at least 8 dancers. 

In todays lesson we started off with a Ballet warm up which i found quite challenging since im not a ballet dancer and I dont have a good balance which is quite important in ballet. Our warm up included Pliès and tondues. Then later on we looked at basic footwork of a male and a female in waltz: I found it hard at the beginning but then once i practised, I got better and understood the moves. Further more, we learned how to do a simple box step with a partner which I didnt find that hard since my partner was Rafa and it was quite easy to dance with him. In my opinion it was easier because he's a boy so its better than dancing with another girl. Then we did turning on our bodies and turing of the head whilst we were dancing which i found easy. Lastly, we put all the moves together and created a waltz sequence. I was quite happy with it since i practiced enough to get the moves right.

4th Tuesday Dominique lesson:

Today we started a new dance which is called 'Voguing' but at the beginning we started of with our core muscle exercises to improve on our strength since we need a good core balance and strength for voguing.
Definition of Voguing: Most of the moves look like random selection of poses which are combined together to create a really sassy dance routine.
We're going to be using this dance as an influence for one of our songs from the showcase which is 'Masquerade'.

Evaluation: Acting performance. 

Since September, our task was to learn a script that we were given and act it out. We had to specifically focus on the character that we were given and learn their lines. We needed to rehears the lines in a group in order to remember the play and to act it out as well as just saying the lines. For this task i needed to be focused on the character and try to learn everything about them so it'd be easier for me to play the character. At the beginning, my group was given a script from 'Stags and hens.' , the bathroom scene where all the girls are getting ready for the party. I don't think that the play was well suited to our group since we had people that were at different levels which was noticeable when we acted out the scene.
Since the scripted play didn't work well for our group, after learning the script and acting it out, we were divided into pairs and given another scripts that would suit our level. It was kind of a problem because we changed it after all our rehearsals, into a whole new script that we had to learn. In my opinion it was a good idea because the duo logs worked better with us and we got to engage with the new characters a bit more. After we got our new script, we rehearsed quite a lot, so we got used to the new script and forgot about the old one. Even though i didn't have a problem with remembering the script, i struggled on emphasizing the way i talked and making my voice louder and clearer. I think this is because I need to work on my confidence a bit more, so when i act I'm out there acting and really feel like I'm the character and not just reading my lines.
One of the issues that i faced when i went up on the stage is that my hands were shaking and they wouldn't stop which made me even more nervous. I also had a problem with fidgeting: If it wouldn't be my turn to speak, id fiddle with my hair or shake my legs which were really distracting for me as well as the audience, because it wouldn't seem as if I'm in the character. Before i went up on the stage, i was worried that i would forget my lines, hence in the performance i was saying my lines too fast and overlapping my partners lines because I felt like remembering my lines was the most important thing. I think that my performance was okay but if i could i would re-act it because i know that i didn't act like the actual character would. That was the most challenging thing; that i had to act like the character and not myself. There was a scene where me and my partner nearly kiss which was kind of hard to act out as well because i had to play a lesbian which i wasn't so i wouldn't know how exactly I'd have to show her emotions. I also think that i didn't use enough space on the stage when i was acting.
One of the positives was that we had a scene where we nearly kissed which I think the audience was most interested in because it seemed different in comparison to other plays. Another positive is that I had a good outfit which suited the 'School girl' character that I had to play. In the future, I will try to engage in my character more so I don't act as if its me, I will act and do the same things as the character would.