Unit 13 & 14 Contemporary Dance Workshop - Danielle Gardner from The Garage, Norwich (11th January 2023)

                                                    'Floor work swinging sequence' film

This exercise helps to develop your flexibility and strength skills, this is because of the swinging of your leg which you are trying to stretch to your hand as you swing it, their is also the use of your flexibility in your joint and spine, it develops your strength because you have to hold a plank and also transfer your weight throughout the exercise. 

I feel okay with this how I performed the swinging exercise, I do believe I could use more work on it such as straightening my legs, but overall with my second time performing it I'm happy with my progress, in terms of the floorwork I believe this is a key area for myself that I want to improve. 

This exercise helps to develop your contemporary dance skills as it is heavily floor work based and this is a key feature of contemporary dancing and an element that you will have to become familiar with in order to improve your contemporary dance skills. 

                                                             'Handstand sequence' film

This exercise develops your balance and strength as you are giving into the floor and using your hands for balance as your feet leave the floor and you extend your legs, it develops your strength because you have to rely on your upper core strength as it supports your body as you leave the floor.

I feel that when going into the handstand I need to develop my confidence as I am clearly very nervous and this will only develop as I have more experience, I also need to work on my leg extension. 

The exercise helps to improve your skills as an aspect of contemporary dance is giving into the floor which is a significant part of this exercise, it allows you to work on having trust and control over your

body as your balancing on your hands.

'Weight transferring sequence' film

This exercise helps to develop your coordination and strength as you have to focus on the direction in which you are stepping next and also when you have to turn around in the exercise, and it develops your strength as you are giving into the gravity therefore using your core strength, and also you are transferring your weight from one foot to another.

I moved in the correct directions however I believe I could further develop and improve this exercise by having more confidence in the movements and using my coordination skills to allow the exercises movements to run more smoothly together.

This exercise develops contemporary dance skills as it works on the fluidity of your movements and moving them smoothly into each other. Coordination is also very important in contemporary dance and having an understanding of how your body is moving through the dance.

'Performance of group work based on the words, Push. Pull. Wrap. Throw.' film

In our routine we used various elements of contemporary dance, some of the keys elements I could see while watching our routine is strength as we had to push our body of the ground into the jump, another element I could see is the contraction and release of our bodies as we allowed our bodies to fall from one side to another as we tilted our upper bodies towards the ground.

The movement where stand to the side and push our hand forward and back represents 'PUSH'.

The movement where I held my hands to together and drew them in and out represents the word 'PULL'.

For one of our movements we spin and wrap our arms around our upper body, this represents 'WRAP'.

For another movement we step forward and then allow our bodies to fall back using our core strength, this represents 'THROW'.