Need help with choreography? Feeling thoughtless as to what moves you want to put in your routine?
Whether it’s hip-hop or lyrical, every kind of dance needs choreography. The hardest part of choreographing a dance is getting started.
It’s OK to feel lost when you start creating a new routine. Here are some methods and tips to get you started.
STEP ONE
Listen to the music. An important part of choreography is making sure the moves match the song. Listen to the music several times and imagine what you could be doing. In a way, you’re seeing what the music “tells” you to do. It’s hard to understand the concept if you don’t try it yourself. Turn on the music, and let your imagination flow. Write down any ideas you get. If it’s hard for you to put the dance in your head, stand up and do the moves. It might also be helpful to listen to the song, maintain the mood of the song in your head, and then try to think of moves. This way, you can ensure that the mood of your choreography matches the mood of the song. Keeping the mood of the song consistent to that of the dance is important for engaging the audience.
Don’t stress over “bad” ideas. Generate ideas and don’t worry about whether they’re good or bad, at least not now. Write down a list of moves that you like. You can eliminate any ideas that you don’t like later.
Ok, so now you have a list of ideas. Step one is complete. Now your job is to choose which ideas you want to use. Things to consider:
STEP TWO
Reality test. All the moves you want to put in your routine have to be possible. A risky move is different than an impossible one. If you know that you or your team will not be able to stand on your heads by the time the performance season comes, then take away the idea. On the other hand, if you think that doing something risky/difficult is possible, then I’d say to go ahead and work hard to achieve that goal. Moves that are “risky” can often be perfected if they are practiced enough.
Eliminate ideas that you don’t like so much. Listen to the music and go down your list of ideas. Cross out the ones that seem unfit for the music or that you might not like anymore. The rest of the ideas will go into the routine.
Not enough ideas for your routine? Repeat step one: listen again and create more ideas. Do it now and don’t procrastinate!
After step two, you should have a list of ideas/moves that you want into your routine. Now your job is to organize these ideas.
STEP THREE
Create counts for each move. If, for instance, you do decide to stand on your head during your dance, then you need to see how many counts it would take. Again, it is a good idea to do a “reality check” with this. Actually try the move and see if you can finish it by the count specified. If not, feel free to change things now since the routine is not yet set in stone. You don’t want to give too much or too little time to do a move. Make sure it’s just right. Definitely focus hard on this because if for some reason, you did not give yourself enough time/counts to do something, you may have to make adjustments that may change the entire routine. That would be adding unnecessary stress to your life.
Create smooth transitions from one idea to the next. Be creative! It might help to listen to the music as you choreograph the transitions.
Write/type the routine. This will help you memorize the routine. Nothing’s worse than creating a dance and not being able to remember what you put in it! Writing things down also makes you feel more organized and confident about what you’re doing. If you dance with a team, it helps to give each member a handout of the moves so that they can practice at home and just look back at the handout if they forget anything.
You’re done!
You’ve finished the basic part of the dance, which is the choreography. Now your task is to work on how to best perform the routine so that it generates an appropriate response on the audience. I will write an article about this next week. Keep dancing!
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