Dance in 'Rent' - You'll See ft. Happy New Year B

My main character was Benny, the main antagonist of the musical with the intention to build a cyber studio after he attempts to move his ex-roommates Roger and Mark from their flat currently occupying plot for the cyber studio. This characters analysis of the first opening sequence can be found here.

My other character Mr Grey is the owner of CyberArts, and Benny's boss, similarly to Benny's movement and posture as they're both contrasting characters to the main set of protagonists but I'm going to make his movements more gently as I envisioned him as an older version of Benny.

My final character is a homeless person features when I'm in my Mr Grey cast, although this character is only featured at the start of the show in the opening song. His movements and character dance evaluation can be located here.

You'll See

Movement in this piece was important to show the relationships between the characters with Benny and the status of his character. In this song Benny says to Roger and Mark that he shall forget about their rent if they convince Maureen's to cancel her protest (SPOLIER: It doesn't work).

Entering from the entrance of the flat (up the scaffolding) presented a immediate high level in status, as Benny I tried owning the space by holding onto the scaffolding bar whilst speaking. Walking down the steps in Benny fashion I think had a really recognisable visual understanding of the status and 'importance' of this character for audience members.

Attempting to own the space again I walk around, going up to characters and interacting such as pulling my arm round them, pointing at things, trying to manipulate the other characters. My intentions were to make clear that this character thinks that he is the most influential and 'in control' in the room.

Moving around the space with my Benny stride (Walking chest first, slower movement) with the occasional change in levels demonstrate a wide variety of contrasting habits and flexibility around the space in comparison to the other characters.

A strength of my performance in 'You'll See' personally would be the balance between movement and singing as any more would take it's toll on my breathing for singing and any less might have looked too static and/or not reached my intentions of the song.

On the other hand a weakness of my movement in this song is trying to keep my eye-line with the character fixed, something I wanted Benny to use to exaggerate his status and 'power'.

One thing I improved upon in the movement was from audience feedback, my movement looked a little messy so I had to assign meanings into why I move somewhere, to argue, persuade or inform other characters in the space. Another piece of feedback was to interact with only Mark and Roger and ignore the others, showing that I'm a busy man and I'm only there to see and do business with them and leave; this I did incorporate into the movement of the song.

Happy New Year B

This viewing of Benny in the second act shows contrasting aspects to his first appearance in the flat in 'You'll See' as he's angry followed by a sense of forgiveness towards the end of the song. This second part of 'Happy New Year' shows relationships being destroyed and Benny entering and making things much worse unintentionally, accusing, getting pushed and disturbing what's left of the peace.

Positives lack when it comes to movement in this scene, movement was still and contrasted with the lyrics, weaknesses of this scene included the final set of 'It's gunna be a happy new year' being sung still facing in a circle.

Improvements would have been to contribute as a group movements for our characters or us all as a group to keep the tension going visually alongside the aural atmosphere.