Artistic Group Reports

Modern Jazz

Artistic Director: Emma Hillyer

Group Members: Monica Larose, Danielle Campbell

What a great time we all had at Gala Weekend this year. The students had some brilliant lectures in various styles of Modern Jazz — Commercial, Musical Theatre Jazz, Technical Jazz, Bollywood, Bhangra Fusion, and Dance Fit. These are some of the many styles of Modern Jazz that teachers can use for their dances in the Modern Jazz Exams and Medal test. It’s encouraging to see how adaptable students are in different styles and I’m sure there was something for everyone.

Work is continuing with the Programmes of Study and DVDs to ensure they are even more compatible with each other.

If you are interested in being involved in future developments of the programmes or just want to find out a bit more information, please email emma@btda.org.uk

As always, if anyone has any queries, please do not hesitate to contact me or a member of the Modern Jazz group. Have a great Summer.

Emma Hillyer, Artistic Director

Acrobatic

Artistic Director: Pam Chater

Group Members: Jill Gough, Katie Guyton, Kelly Chater

We have made additions to the Grade 6 and 7 which we hope will soon be included in the Programme of Study, (just waiting on new music). The Grade 8 will follow.

The additions to the Rose Awards have proved to be successful and the new format on the medal levels.

We have had some new teachers taking up the subject after attending the courses, so that is encouraging.

As always, please do not hesitate to contact me or a member of my group for any info whatsoever we are always ready to help.

Happy summer holidays, let’s hope Mr sunshine comes out!!

Pam Chater, Artistic Director

Classical Ballet

Artistic Director: Kathleen Davis

Group Members: Emma Hillyer, Heather Fitchett

I can report a very busy 6 months for this discipline. The planned classical ballet zoom meetings were a great success. Starting with a discussion on the early training of our young dancers way back in January to a very in-depth meeting on the Vocational Professional Practice sections of the Intermediate and Advanced Foundation Levels at the upper end of our suite of examinations in April. Both meetings were very informative and relaxed with our coffee morning guests fully engaged and feeling able to ask questions as and whenever they wanted without feeling any pressure at all. We had a good cross-section of teachers and examiners in attendance from across the country and it was good for me to meet teachers from areas which I have not visited as an examiner and in the same light I think it was good for teachers to be able to put a name to a face and be able to talk and discuss freely with the artistic team. Our next zoom meeting will be held on July 6th with the focus being on the Grade 6 Examination as I know there are several problems here that need to be ironed out.

Please book your place for this meeting via head office I would very much like to meet as many of you as possible.

Our group members are Myself, Miss Hillyer and Miss Fitchett, as with the other dance subjects the workload grows at an alarming pace, so if there is anyone out there who would like to be considered for the Classical Ballet artistic committee, we would love to hear from you and ask that you send an e-mail initially to me at kdavisdance@aol. com which I will then share with the artistic group. Please outline a little about yourself, your classical ballet experience/qualifications and tell us why you would like to be a member of the group and what qualities you feel you can bring to the table. Don’t be shy we would love to hear from you.

Have a relaxing summer and enjoy the rest. I look forward to seeing many of you on zoom in July or at the AGM in September.

Kathleen Davis, Artistic Director and Head of Vocational Examinations.

Tap

Artistic Director: Mark Hudson

Group Members: Helen Guy, Jackie Crumell, Denise Moore, Michelle Bailey, Jill Gough

These following updates were all detailed over the last six months on Facebook, but I am listing them again here to ensure they have been seen.

New Preparatory Grade Tap

Stagecraft: The POS has been updated please check this, and also the track has been modified to a simpler version to aid your candidates in delivery.

New Primary Tap

Stagecraft the musical track has been corrected and you should download the version on ExamTrack. Please note the video track has not been updated at present.

New Intro To Grade 1

Centre Ex.2: the music track has been updated please ensure you are using the correct version that is now on ExamTrack. Centre Ex.5: this has now been moved to Travelling ex.1

There are now two tracks associated with this exercise the teacher can choose either 1a or 1b in the examination.

Clarifications on the type of music allowed in BTDA examinations

V = Vocals allowed on the track used

NV = Non Vocal track to be used

Class awards: set music only to be used

Rose awards: (V or NV) own choice in all sections of the examination.

Please keep in mind this examination is about developing Tap sounds and as such the music should aid and enhance the delivery of the work.

Crystal awards: (V or NV) own choice in all sections of the examination.

Intro to Grade 1: (NV) own choice music for dance.

Grades 1-3: (NV) own choice music for dance

Grades 4-8: (V or NV) own choice music for dance.

Intermediate: (NV or V for own choice music for dance).

Advanced foundation to Advanced 2: (NV or V for teaching exercises, and in the dance).

Professional Development: (NV or V). For all own set exercises and dance.

Medal tests all levels: ( NV or V) own choice music for dance.

In all examinations where vocals are being used teachers must be aware that the examiners marks will be influenced by clarity and tone in the delivery. Do not allow the vocals to overpower the foot work, however much the track inspires your students it is a “TAP DANCING” examination.

The change in this rule to allow vocals is still in the consideration period and is being monitored

Grade 1: Stagecraft. The POS has been updated and now states that although the candidate should know all the directions, in an examination each candidate be asked to demonstrate 2 directions only, chosen by the examiner.

Grade 3 and 4: Timestep combinations — the alignment of these exercises has been removed and is now left to the discretion of the teacher.

Class Award 1 and 2 have now been filmed and are available to view on examtrack. We have tried to show adaptions of the set work where possible. Please remember the setting and delivery of the work is up to you the teacher and should always highlight your students to their best advantage.

These awards are assessments not examinations and are presented as a class to the examiner, we are not looking for the work to be foot perfect or exactly in time, but we wish to see that the candidates are enjoying themselves and are participating in a dance form.

As we are coming to the end of a busy summer term and looking forward to the rest, I congratulate all our tap teachers for their support and very kind comments and feedback about the work being undertaken on the tap upgrades.

This is a hard process for the team and I send a huge thank you to all of them for their support.

Work is well under way on the New GRADE 1 TAP, the music which to me is so important for the inspiration of our students is amazing and covers styles from street samba , Argentine tango, bossa nova and blue grass to name a few.

Over the summer we will be sending out info packs to the teachers who showed an interest in becoming a part of the Tap artistic team, it is still not too late to add your name, are you interested in adding something to our new work, do you love tap, then drop me an email asap.

Enjoy your summer and relax…

Mark Hudson, Artistic Director

Lyrical

Artistic Director: Tracy Liggins

Group Members: Jacqui Everitt, Wendy Oram

I hope you are all ready for the Summer and have had a good year so far, I know its show term for most which is busy busy busy!!

Just a couple of things, there has been a slight change to:

Grade 5 Centre ex 4: Parallel Arabesque Exercise, the 2nd bar now reads as follows with immediate effect-

223: Step forward L, developpe side kick (can be shown with rise or fondu)

4: Step R, making ½ turn to face LDB ready to repeat

Lyrical Skirts: Just to clarify, (as I think when the dress code changed to option 1 & 2, there may have been a word missed out), Option 1 - Lyrical Skirt - this should be a circular see through skirt made of at least one full circle of material

Grade 3 Video: We are aware there is still an exercise missing on exam track for this grade and will get it filmed as soon as possible.

We ran another successful Level One POS course earlier this year at Head Office, please contact them if you wish to book on any of the Levels and they will let you know forthcoming dates.

Have a great Summer and hope to see you in September!

Tracy Liggins, Artistic Director

Modelling

Artistic Director: Wendy Oram

Group member: Jackie Crumell

There have been no changes to the Modelling POS. We are currently working on filming the lower grades. Rose Awards and suggestions for medal tests are available on Examtrack now.

Please email at wendymorton.acad@ tiscali.co.uk with any queries or any help or advice on any of the Modelling work. Wishing you all a wonderful summer.

Wendy Oram, Artistic Director

Musical Theatre And Drama

Artistic Director : Danielle Campbell

Group Member: Julie Barker

Everything seems to be going well with the Musical Theatre Programme of study. I have had no emails with any queries in the last 6 months, so I presume everyone is ok. It was nice to talk to teachers at the February meeting who are introducing the Musical Theatre into their schools and are taking their first sets of exams. Hope they all went well.

The new Drama POS and mark scheme should be launched later this year so please keep your eyes open for information on that.

One note, if you have students taking crystal award speech and drama currently, please note that they should not be doing the same tongue twister for each level. You should start with maybe 2 or 3 words tongue twisters for level 1 repeated 8x, then by level 5 be doing a paragraph. The poems and readings should be done from memory and suitable to the candidates age and abilities. There will be more information and changes to this when the new Drama POS is released.

If anyone has any queries, please don’t hesitate to contact me or Miss Barker, we are always happy to help!

Best wishes

Danielle Campbell, Artistic Director

Contemporary

Artistic Director: Fritha Fallon

Hello Everyone

Based on what I have seen recently I have just one snippet of feedback for you. For the Repertoire question “What is the aural accompaniment?”, often the answer is a piece of music. A full and correct answer will include the title of the piece, the name of the artist or composer and the date it was composed. If you have edited a soundtrack using several pieces of music, the candidate should explain this and then give the full reference for one of the pieces.

This will be in line with what students learn in school, particularly at GCSE and A Level. You may have younger students or students that don’t choose to study arts subjects at college. This is, therefore, a great opportunity for them to develop their knowledge of the arts in your dance lessons.

I hope this is helpful information for any teachers who are not used to this type of question.

Enjoy being playful and creative with your Contemporary dance students.

I wish you all the best as you plan ahead for the next academic year

Fritha Fallon, Artistic Director