Rent (Friday 2nd October) blocking today for you and tango Maureen

In this lesson we did some more personal tasks and then split off into smaller groups to work on songs that not everyone was in. I went off with the people playing, roger, angel and Collins and we began some work on 'Today 4 you', this song has a great feel to it and is such an energy lift for the musical. We wanted to reflect this in the way that we set it, so we looked into alternative ways of movement and moving around that space. We have set this song in the flat and my character and roger, have been bombarded by Collins who has a suprise of treats and drinks, followed by angel in drag. I wanted to think of my own character mood changes throughout the song and the song as a whole, this is what I suggested for the mood changes for me and roger.

Everything up to "no flow" (page.17) we are enthusiastic and excited about seeing Collins again and him bring the treats, I suggested that we showed this mainly through facial exspressions but also the way that we move round the space and how much fun we are having.

The next mood change is up till when Collins says "Angel Dumott Schunard" this is where we become more confused and thrown in the middle rather than excited, as angel has walked in and we are not used to this pep in the flat. I tried to show this through looking round for confirmation and awakard laughs to fill the time. I think this big jump in energy change works well as it really highlights the entrance of Angel. At first I don't think everyone was on board with the awkward change in the scene but after we ran it think it worked well.

At the last set of "today for you, tomorrow for me" that angel sings this is when the energy changes again. It then goes back to the excited mood from us where we get into the song and how much fun we see angel and Collins having. This is a gradual mood change and we show this through a slight head bob and a tapping foot, to slowly bring up the energy again.

I think with setting these clear objective changes it helps to break up the song, and doesn't seem to drag on. We ran the song, while focusing on these changes with created different sections to the song that weren't written in.

In the second half of the lesson I looked at some chreography for Tango Maureen, one of the actors playing Joanne has had some experience dancing the tango so we spent some time exploring the basic step patterns. I suggested that we looked into switching the dominate characters around and making Joanne the leader earlier on than the script says. This would help to highlight both of our characteristics as Mark is quite quite and submissive but Joanne is quite controlling.

Our target is to book a slot with the dance director and look into chreography of the song and how to make it flow with the song.