Evaluation of Kathak performance 'Dancing in the Streets'

I have just watched the film of my final performance of the Kathak dance group piece ‘Dancing on the Streets’ which I performed at the spotlight college production on Wednesday 14^th of June 2023.

Personally, I am pleased with what I achieved in this performance. One of the things that I was particularly pleased with was my ability to clearly communicate the story through my voice and my movements. In this performance, I could clearly hear that I effectively was able to tell the story through my vocals not only by being able to clearly hear myself, but also my individual use of tone to create the mood of the story that I was telling. My clear ability to communicate the story effectively was supported by audience feedback I received which said, “Their projection was excellent from everyone in terms of telling the story and the diction really clear”. Another thing that I am really pleased with when it comes to my performance was how in unison I was with the rest of the ensemble that I was working with. Personally, I sometimes find it difficult staying in unison with others when it comes to group dances, however the way in which I was able to keep in time with the others not only physically but vocally made me very pleased with myself. This can be seen very clearly in the very beginning section of the dance that we all do as a group. This is supported by audience feedback that I received which said, “It looked very clean and tight and well-rehearsed”. A final thing that I am very proud of when it comes to what I achieved in this performance was my overall confidence. I am very proud of the level of confidence I had when it comes to this performance as for me I find that I do not always have much confidence when performing, especially if it is something that I have never really done before. Personally, I felt very confident when it came to knowing what I was doing and what I was performing, and I am very proud that I could see that after watching back the performance. This is supported by audience feedback that I received which said, “Your performance was very engaging, and you looked like you knew what you were doing”.

By watching the film of my final performance, I also recognise that there are elements which I could still develop and improve on. When it comes to the elements that I feel that I could improve on, one of them would be my ability to stay more focused and engaged in the rehearsals we had leading up to the final performance. I say this as something that I need to improve/ would like to improve as I found myself sometimes not engaging or putting in as much effort as I could have been during the rehearsal process. This can be slightly seen during my smaller groups piece where I was slightly out of time compared to the people around me. Another thing that I could still develop and improve is my general performance and understanding of the dance style. This could be developed through researching and studying in this dance style more so that I have a better understanding.