Student Blog: Swinging Through the Weeks

And there we are in our rehearsal room, posing for the camera to mark our positions for the song '38 Planes (reprise)/ Somewhere in the Middle of Nowhere'.

As we move into our third week of swing, we prepare ourselves for an intensive last two weeks of rehearsals and workshops. It has been a lot of work in and outside of classes but I think I’ve been managing it all pretty well with an amazing team and swing captain. Since my last blog, much has happened in the process and I am here to share every step of the experience. I never thought I would enjoy it as much as I am, and it’s been enthralling to see how we tackle the tasks with how difficult it has been since we’re also balancing the rest of our course on top of this project.

There have been so many compromises to help one another, especially when it comes to recording videos for our reference as it can get quite hectic when you are sharing tracks with 10 other people and only one person has the opportunity to run the track. So, the first system I would like to introduce to you is our ‘Scrunchies system’. With 12 tracks, we have 12 different colored scrunchies assigned to each role. When someone is selected or volunteers to cover the track for the day, they will don the scrunchie on their wrist so that it is easier to keep track of who’s playing which role in the multitude of videos we have on our OneDrive as the same person donning the scrunchie will not always be in the same role in other videos. 

I cover tracks 5, 6, 7 and 8. If you are familiar with the musical, I cover Bonnie/Martha, Beverly/Annette, Oz/Joey, and Kevin T./Garth. But so far, I have only ever donned the red and lavender scrunchies.

The OneDrive is another compromise that was created by one of my classmates so that we would all have a platform to share our material neatly. There are folders for each track and group as we were divided into two classes for the past two weeks. The content ranges from vocal harmonies for each song, stage maps, and workshops of each song and blocking for specific tracks that we did for ourselves as an easier reference rather than having to track one person in a hectic ensemble.

With only have a 6 hour workshop every Friday, as a cohort, we have been running our own rehearsals whenever we can as studios are not easy to book and everyone’s been busy with many other things of their own but we make it work with all the plans we’ve made. It’s really within everyone’s responsibility to catch up since we have all the content they need, and so far, everyone has been doing absolutely amazing. One of my classmates has gone as far as making a Minecraft server for himself with the set and an accurate grid of our stage.

This module does not only give us the swing experience; it has also been a way for us to explore how we learn to pick multiple things up in such short time which will inevitably help us for other projects in the future. It's why it's just so incredible. I get to see and understand how everyone goes about coming up with their own rehearsal material.

While we may have these collective compromises, I have found my own ways to handle my tracks within the comfort of my bedroom if we don’t have a rehearsal that day. As a recommendation from our swing director, I made my own maps for each of my tracks that record their journeys from one position to another according to the designed stage grid. Our director is quite particular with detail so she has certain coordinates for the characters throughout each scene and number to test our abilities to replicate the performance as accurately as we can. The character journey across the stage matter as so I make sure to include that detail in my maps to avoid any traffic issues as I could well be a safety hazard to others if I were to cross as I please. Here is one of many maps I have drawn!

It helps a lot being in the space with my headphones and my maps, and travelling across the space to get it into my system along with my harmonies. Either that or I get to shadow the chosen one for the role on the day the number was workshopped which is immense help as I often get more details from them.

The cooperation and support I've gotten from everyone solely for this project has been amazing, and I'm really glad I'm stuck with these wonderful people for classmates. All of the work we have done has been from our own initiative. The extra rehearsals, the crazy amount of files downloaded and uploaded about, the maps and Minecraft servers. Juggling 4 tracks with only 5 weeks to learn them is no easy job but with allt the material, I feel confident that I'll have it done in no time.

Tomorrow, the experience continues and I might just have more to say about this opportunity by the end of the semester which is in two weeks. It's insane how we're already coming to December, halfway through second year with one of the biggest projects in our course. 

Thanks for joining me on this ride and see you for the next one. 

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