INTRO TO PRESENTATION IN THE ALEXANDRIA HARMONIZERS JUNE 2012 FROM YOUR PRESENTATION TEAM
Full Performance Style Some choral groups have a stand & sing style. But the Harmonizers have a full performance style, which enhances music with presentation. Presentation refers to how we present a song to the audience during performance. It encompasses all the visual and emotional aspects of performance. It s one of the things we are judged on at contest. More important, every audience is judging us on our presentation every time we perform. The full performance style in action. More on full performance style later. But first, some basics on the mechanics of practicing and performing in the chorus.
On the Risers STAGE LEFT STAGE RIGHT 5TH ROW 4TH ROW 3RD ROW 2ND ROW 2ND ROW 3RD ROW 4TH ROW 5TH ROW FRONT ROW The chorus usually practices and performs on risers, designated as above.
A Place on the Risers for You When you join the chorus, the Music & Performance leadership assign you a place on the risers based on the musical and visual needs of the chorus. The Chorus Manager will help you learn where your spot is. YOU ARE HERE... or somewhere like it. Sometimes, we change positions for certain songs. That will be made clear when the time comes.
The Front Row Men on the Front Row stand on the floor rather than the risers and have special duties and responsibilities with regard to presentation. New members are assigned to risers but may be reassigned to the Front Row later.
The Quadrants Sometimes we rehearse in separate quarter choruses called quadrants. STAGE LEFT LOWER (SLL) IS THE LEFT HALF OF THE 2ND & 3RD ROWS. STAGE RIGHT LOWER (SRL) IS THE RIGHT HALF OF THE 2ND & 3RD ROWS. STAGE LEFT UPPER (SLU) IS THE LEFT HALF OF THE 4TH & 5TH ROWS. STAGE RIGHT UPPER (SRU) IS THE RIGHT HALF OF THE 4TH & 5TH ROWS. It s important to know what quadrant you are in.
The Presentation Team Each quadrant has a Row Leader for each of its two rows. It s important to know who your Row Leader is: he is responsible for helping you improve your presentation. The Row Leaders are coordinated by the Riser Captain. The Riser Captain and the Front Row Captain are coordinated by the Presentation Chief, who reports to the Director. Together with you, they are your Presentation Team. MUSICAL DIRECTOR JOE CERUTTI, JR. PRESENTATION CHIEF SCIPIO GARLING RISER CAPTAIN CHUCK MCKEEVER ROW LEADERS FRONT ROW CAPTAIN CRAIG KUJAWA You are the most important person on the Presentation Team. Although the other men can help, only YOU can really improve your performance through your efforts. YOU!
Uniforms Another important person on the Presentation Team is the Uniform Master, Tom Kern, who helps you get your outfits for our shows. FORMAL Usually, the chorus maintains at least three levels of uniform: formal; standard; and casual. STANDARD Sometimes we have special costumes for particular songs. Uniforms cost money both to you and the chorus. Our professional image depends on your taking good care of your uniforms. SPECIAL
Make-up FOUNDATION When we perform outdoors with natural light, make-up is not necessary. But when we perform onstage with bright lighting, make-up is necessary. Our make-up is simple: foundation (a skin-colored product to give a smooth, not-shiny appearance); blush (a reddish product to accent the cheeks); and eye-liner (a dark line applied below the eyelid to highlight the eyes). BLUSH Skin tones vary; choose your own make-up in accordance with your skin tone. Apply foundation first to your entire face using a makeup sponge. Then apply a little blush to your cheeks. Don t over do it or you ll look like a clown. Then use eyeliner to draw a line thin right under your eyes. EYE-LINER
Stage Terms Know these special terms for directions and places on stage, relative to the risers. THE APRON DOWNSTAGE THE CURTAINLINE STAGE LEFT STAGE RIGHT WINGS UPSTAGE WINGS BACKSTAGE
Focals MOVES! When you learn to perform a new song, you will learn not only the notes and lyrics, but our plan for presenting it. This includes moves, emotions, and focals. Focals are where you are looking when you perform, and you might be surprised how important they are to a good performance. Having a unified focal for the chorus is key to engaging the audience. Moves and emotions can vary widely between and within songs. But there are several common focals that we refer to very often. Knowing these terms will make it much easier to perform with us. FOCALS! EMOTIONS! Know the terms for focals on the following page.
BACK OF HOUSE (CENTER OF THE BACK WALL OF AUDITORIUM CENTER AUDIENCE 5TH ROW CENTER (THE MID-FORE-AUDIENCE) CHORUS STANCE (LOOKING AT DIRECTOR) SQUARED OFF OR DOWN THE TILES (LOOKING OUT PERPENDICULAR TO THE STAGE) COMMON FOCALS
The Five Keys to Presentation The Harmonizers full performance style is about using all of yourself to entertain the audience, not just your signing voice. What we and the audience are looking for in your performance is "total involvement". That means the undivided attention of every man in the chorus to performing the song and delivering its message to the audience, 100 percent of the time, both while performing and while practicing for performance. ENERGY MOVEMENT EXPRESSION CONSISTENCY BELIEVABILITY Because practice makes permanent, it is paramount that when we are rehearsing a song you perform with just as much involvement as if you were on stage.
The audience must see energy or there will be no interest in the performance. Sometimes guys say, "Hey, I feel energetic when I am singing. Whadda you want from me?" Well, feeling energetic and broadcasting that energy are two wholly different concepts. No energy that you feel does any good unless the audience feels it too. The Five Keys: Energy How do you allow an audience that is 30, 50, sometimes 100 feet away to feel your energy? You must use both your body language and your facial expression. At first, this may seem unnatural; that's okay. People don't normally relate with people from 50 feet away. Soon, when you learn to connect your internal feelings with the body language you are using, it will become second nature. If you watch our best performers in the chorus, you will notice several things. They are off their heels and on the balls of their feet, pressing forward. Their chests are out, their shoulders are relaxed, and their head and necks are straight. Such intensity is immediately evident to the audience as involvement. It is also a good baseline for any performance and a versatile presentation tool; the slightest adjustment to such a basic attitude can easily convey a change in mood or attitude in the song. Get in front of a mirror. Try it. Consult the Presentation Team for tips.
The Five Keys: Movement Part of the visual plans for each of songs is movement. Whether it be the individual animation used in some freeform love songs, the precision snap movements, ripples and such used in many up-tunes, or simply a common focal point that the chorus is looking at while singing, every song has some movement to it. Concentrate on learning the moves and focals well enough that you internalize them. Only when these aspects of the song are second nature to you can you devote your full attention to the finer aspects of your performing, such as your expressions. Do your moves on time, with authority and with ample preparation. Remember, if you can't perform the moves with your eyes closed (literally), then you don't know it well enough. Consult your Presentation Team if you have any questions about the moves or focals.
The Five Keys: Expression If energy is the basis for your visual performance and movement its framework, then your expression is your greatest weapon. The goal is to have the right expression at the right time and at the right level. The trick is having an expression which is both universally recognizable as conveying a particular emotion but that is still uniquely and naturally your own. None of this is easy, even for professionals. But it is possible for all of us. Make sure you understand the emotions and attitude required for a song and for which sections of the song. Then, practice using your face to convey those emotions. For example, stand with your back to a mirror and smile. Now turn and look back at the mirror. Is that what you thought you were doing? Some people think they are making bold dramatic gestures, but upon observation they are barely noticeable. Others overdo it and need to tone down a bit. You need to figure out which one you are and adjust accordingly. Good acting is knowing yourself, your abilities, and tendencies so you can make the adjustments needed to transmit the intended message to the audience. Chances are, given most men's tendencies to be poker-faced and considering the audience's distance, you will probably need to gear up your expressiveness to perform with the Harmonizers. Always strive for more expressiveness, until the Presentation Team tells you to pull back. Learn what your own special adjustments need to be, and then use them to allow the audience to totally immerse themselves into the message and the beauty of the song.
The Five Keys: Consistency The energy and expression must be maintained throughout your performance, from the curtain's opening to its closing. Even when you have no move, you should still be using your body language; even when you are not singing, you should be expressive in your face. Never back off, not during the silent times between phrases, not when you lose concentration, not when your section isn't singing. To the audience, you are still a part of the chorus, whether you are singing are not, so you should be emoting whatever is being sung, regardless of who is singing it. If you form the right habits of consistency, the audience will be able to lose themselves in the unit message of the chorus, without being distracted from time to time by men who lose their expressiveness ("drop face") when not singing. It is possible to sing "smart", dropping out when need be to breathe or otherwise recover. But it is not possible to "drop out" visually without being noticed by the audience. Nothing stands out more in a group of expressive performers than a '"dead face", even a momentary one. That is why consistency is so important to your presentation
The Five Keys: Believability Believability is not simply a pleasant additive to top off your visual performance; it is the goal of your performance. It is the essence of what the chorus is trying to accomplish, what the Presentation Team evaluates you on, what the audience marvels at, and what the Society judges us on at contest. Mastering the presentation elements discussed above will go a long way to making you believable. But, in the final analysis, the only thing that will make you look believable in conveying the emotions and attitudes of a song is to actually have them while performing it. Believe in the song, feels its emotions and attitude while performing it, and convey them to the audience through consistent energy, movement, and expression. It's a lot easier then "acting". With time and practice, you will develop your own varied and sophisticated palette of emotions and ways of conveying them to audience; that's what makes the Harmonizers a pleasure to watch.
A Final Presentation Tip: Let go! Putting all this together is easier said than done, and may seem daunting at first. But all the Harmonizers have learned to do it, and you can too. Throw caution to the wind. When you perform, turn all that polite society has taught you about suppressing your emotions on its head. Let loose, and enjoy it; not only do you get to "break the rules" by feeling powerful emotions and sharing them with others, but people are even paying to watch you do it! When you practice or perform, set aside your "ordinary self", with all its hang-ups, emotional defenses, and personal barriers. Create your "performing self", one with a rich emotionality, a fearless self that does not hesitate to share those emotions with others, and, indeed, longs to share them. Trust more and more in this "performing self", as you allow it do things that your "ordinary self" could never do. The more power you give your "performing self", the more powerful your performance will be, the more comfortable you will feel with it, and the more enjoyable the audience will find it. Soon you will be as at home with your "performing self" as you are with your ordinary one, and perhaps more.