This is relevant to my current practice as a performer as I currently work for an Entertainment company that produces Musical Theatre shows to perform in various venues around Spain. I have worked for the company for 18 months but have recently been promoted to dance captain and the choreographers assistant. My role involves taking rehearsals with the cast when the choreographer is not there and to offer advice and help to the choreographer when needed. I aim to use my inquiry to increase my knowledge on the rehearsal process in order to improve the rehearsal experience for the entire cast and to act as a greater aid to the choreographer. In my future career I aim to own an independent dance school in partnership with my Sister, a fellow performer and dance teacher. The school will teach children from the age of four through to adults. Although my inquiry will not focus on working with children, I intend to use what I learn about the rehearsal process and input it in the future teaching of my students so that they are used to and can benefit from a good working rehearsal environment.
I plan to look at what elements are present in a rehearsal of Musical Theatre work that gets the work from rehearsal stage to performance ready. As anyone who has been part of a rehearsal process knows it can take hours and weeks of rehearsal for a few minutes work on stage.
I plan to follow an active inquiry in my own place of work, observing rehearsals and carrying out interviews with my fellow cast members and managers. However I wish to look at other elements too. I plan to look at rehearsals of work throughout the age of Dance and Musical Theatre. I will compare examples of rehearsals from different eras to the rehearsals carried out by professionals today in order to see how the elements have developed. I hope to see what elements have stood the test of time and see what is is about them that enables them to help achieve what is necessary with the work to put it on stage. An example of the literature i will use is work by Jennifer Neville on the rehearsal process of opera theatre in med-seventeenth-century Italy. She mentions that there has been evidence found that rehearsals used to entail practicing in the performance space, the use of costumes in rehearsals and the importance of communication between the creative collaborators. (Parergon Volume 28, 2011 pp. 135-153)
Another focus of my inquiry will be on the element of ethics within the rehearsal. I plan to investigate what elements are present in a rehearsal due to ethical reasons and how much they contribute achieving what is needed in the rehearsal. I have been looking at different companies and organisations codes of conduct. One example I have found is that of the RAD dance education and professional organisation. Although its focus is more on teaching certain elements are still valid for a rehearsal environment. Please find a link to the document below.
https://www.rad.org.uk/documents/about-docs/code-of-prof-practice-for-teachers-en-web.pdf
I intend to look at what work has already done on my inquiry subject in order to see whether my work finds similar results and also what is different and what this means to my findings. An article of interest to me is 'Practicing perfection: How concert soloists prepare for performance'. Although this is not directly based on Musical Theatre work I believe their findings will show similarites to my own. For instance they talk about an element of rehearsal is the extensive repeating of work in order to memorise what will be performed. (Advances in Cognitive Psychology Volume 2, 2006, pp.113-130)
I am continuing to research and read relevant literature to my inquiry. I appreciate any feedback from my fellow bloggers on the work I have done so far.
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