Analysing Production Features Across the Set Works
The production features used to analyse a professional dance: staging and set, lighting, properties, costume, the dancers, the aural setting and dance-for-camera, with examples from the six anthology set works.
Justify the choices, the way you are assessed
Free interactive practice on the decisions the assessment actually asks you to justify.
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Reading a dance
When you analyse a professional dance, you look at more than the movement. The production features are the parts a design team creates: the set, the lighting, the properties, the costumes, the dancers and the aural setting. Some works are even made to be filmed. This module looks at those features across the six set works.
Production feature words
Learn these four terms before you analyse the set works.
What you see and hear
Production features split into what the audience sees and what it hears.
Feature plus effect
To reach the top grades, do not just name a production feature; say what effect it has on the audience. A strong answer describes the feature, then explains the mood or idea it creates. Naming a feature on its own will not lift the mark.
Match the feature
- set
- lighting
- costume
- dancers
- the scenery and structures on stage
- how light creates mood and focus
- what the performers wear
- the performers and how they are grouped
Match the set work
- Infra
- A Linha Curva
- Within Her Eyes
- Artificial Things
- a screen of walking figures above the stage
- a brightly lit floor and a large cast
- a dance filmed for camera
- disabled and non-disabled dancers together
Which is filmed?
Which set work is a dance for camera, made to be filmed?
- Within Her Eyes.
- Infra.
- A Linha Curva.
- Shadows.
Spot the features
Select the TWO things that are production features of a dance.
- The lighting.
- The costumes.
- The weather outside the theatre.
- The price of a ticket.
How to analyse
Put the steps of analysing a production feature in order, earliest first.
- Watch the set work carefully
- Identify a production feature
- Describe what you see or hear
- Explain the effect it creates
Name the features
The scenery and structures on stage are the _____. What the dancers wear is the _____. The way light creates mood is the _____. The performers themselves are the _____. In Infra, a screen of walking figures hangs above the _____.
Features left to describe
To analyse a dance you might describe four production features: set, lighting, costume and aural setting. If you have already described two of them, how many are left to describe?
Find the features
Tap the TWO production features of a dance.
- the lighting
- the aural setting
- the size of the audience
- the price of a ticket
Which feature is it?
Read each part of a set work and choose which production feature it is.
- A grid of squares in the floor lights up as the dancers move
- The dancers wear bright, colourful clothes
- A recording of piano music plays throughout the dance
Analyse a set work
Choose one set work from the anthology. Analyse two of its production features and explain the effect each one creates.
- Name the set work you have chosen
- Describe two of its production features
- Explain the effect each feature creates for the audience