Welcome to my first blog post! Hope everyone has had a great Easter within quarantine and all of you are safe and healthy! I must say the musical theatre student life is new to me, as this is my first year as a uni student! However, I have come across some useful tips and tricks to ensure my time studying, singing, acting and dancing are efficient and sustainable! DON'T BE LATE - It's essential to put this into practice now more than any time! Within this industry, your appearance and character is your product. No matter if you are in auditions, rehearsals, or performance. If you are late, you are instantly given a bad reputation to your name. Directors have limited time to get from point A to point B. This means they have a strict schedule to stick to complete the tasks at hand. If you are late, you instantly mess this schedule up and have affected the actors and directors time! KNOW YOUR DAY- By knowing what your lessons and practice you have during the day, you can prepare yourself for the day ahead better. Such as: -homework due -dance gear needed. likewise, strapping or required braces for injuries. - what you should eat. If you have a massive dance schedule carbs are necessary for the day! it gives you the much-needed energy to power through! -sheet music needed. For either lessons, rehearsals or singing lessons. Likewise, monologue or duologue work! These are some of the things necessary to prepare. PACK THE NIGHT BEFORE- this plays into my point from before! By knowing about the contents of the day, you can spare yourself some work for your future self! This point is mainly for things like homework, dance gear, clothing, or lunch needed! It saves you from having to worry in the morning and causing you to be late! GOOD NUTRIENTS AND MEALS- healthy nutrition and diet are required for a dancer due to the art forms demanding need on all areas of the body. Dietary suggestions should be taken into consideration to maintain a healthy and balanced meal regime. Such as ingesting: 1. Carbs - body's primary source of energy (not just pasta!) 2. Protein - build and repair muscles (not just meat) 3. Fats - provide energy when you have depleted your carbohydrate stores 4. other vitamins and minerals - most common is magnesium and Vitamin D deficiency 5. as well as staying hydrated. This allows the dancer to maintain a focused and optimized performance during practice, rehearsal and performance. If not taken into consideration can lead to injuries due to fatigue, muscle failure. MEAL PREP- this more helps money saving and living (this has saved my butt), it also helps in preparation. The idea of meal prep is to prepare meals, as the name suggests. At the start of every weak, you make meals either dinner or lunch, so all you have to do s heat them when you go to eat. This has personally helped me as I make meal prep my lunches and dinner, so all I have to do during the morning is chuck my lunch in my bag, and a couple of bars and I'm good to go for the day! HOMEWORK HOMEWORK- this is pretty simple: do the homework assigned! This is god practice and a healthy mindset to get into. As directors alike will designate homework to reference or to study. Usually to help with the rehearsal process, so if you don't do it probably won't be so good for the rehearsal nor your rep.
PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE- to get the most out of your time in studying is to practise what you have learnt. Especially within weaker aspects of your craft. For example, I am weak in my dance, so I make sure to practice whatever I have learnt, be it through reviewing dance sequences or moves, redoing choreo, stretching, or rewriting notes taken in the class. This ensures that I can make better improvement within this aspect. Some tips for this one I would recommend would be having one book for every subject to take rough notes, then at home have different textbooks for each subject where you neatly write the notes. This helps to retain that knowledge gained. Or of your anything like me who is weak at dance, making a practice schedule so you can make sure you are up to date and keeping on top of your choreo and flexibility
