The Process of Choreographing

Have you ever watched a dance and thought "Wow, I wonder what it took to make the dance so clean and nice to watch."... yea not many people do. In fact the only people who care about the process of making a dance so visually compelling are dancers and choreographers. I am one of those people, and through some recent experiences I have discovered a lot of work goes into creating a dance, and I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to do so this year, with the iPoly dance team. 

When choreographing a dance there are 5 steps that usually take you through the process.

1. Finding music*
2. The choreographer, choreographs the piece*
3. The choreographer then teaches the dance to the dancers
4. The dance is then cleaned up 
5. The dance is performed 

*Step 1 and 2 are interchangeable, depending on how the choreographer gets inspired.

Step number 2 is probably the most intricate and intense step. Not only do you have to think of the movements you are going to put in, but there is also formations, ripples, cannons, having groups of people perform one part while another group does another part of the dance, etc. to think about. Seems hectic right? But that is what makes it fun, all the options that are available to choose from. It allows you to create whatever you please.

Although, putting the process of choreographing into those 5 steps makes it look easy, it is an a very complex and sometimes frustrating process. You may have a vision in your head of how you want this piece to look, but it doesn't turn out that way because the tempo is too fast or the dancers aren't getting the movements, etc. It is from this that I learned why it is so important to keep in mind the ability of your dancers, and the tempo of your music and so on, so you don't have to go back and reconfigure the movements. 

Once you get through that whole process, though, and get to see your vision come to life, there is nothing more satisfying, and I am glad to have the opportunity to experience it this year. :)

Blog 19: Independent Component 2

LITERAL

a) I, Cheyenne Jarman, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 33 hours and 30 minutes of work.”

b) Cite your source regarding who or what article or book helped you complete the independent component:

Royal Opera House. "Dance Styles in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - The Royal Ballet." YouTube. YouTube, 4 Apr. 2013. Web. 23 Jan. 2015.

BBC. "BBC Documentary Good Swan, Bad Swan: Dancing Swan Lake." YouTube. YouTube, 30 May 2014. Web. 27 Feb. 2015.

First Position. Dir. Bess Kargman. Perf. Aran Bell, Miko Fogarty, Jules Fogarty, Michaela Deprince, Joan Sebastian Zamora. 2011. DVD.      

c) Update your Independent Component 2 Log (which should be under your Senior Project Hours link)

d) Throughout this independent component I learned two main things. The first is that I learned how to teach choreography better to help the dancers remember the movements. The second is that I learned different ways of how and when a dancer adds their personal style and how impactful it can be on a dance.   

INTERPRETIVE

Defend your work and explain the component's significance and how it demonstrates 30 hours of work.   Provide evidence (photos, transcript, art work, videos, etc) of the 30 hours of work.  

This component helped me provide more support for my answer 2, that a dancer should add their own personal style. It also helped me learn more as to how dancers add the style.

Another lesson I got from this component is that I was able to improve my teaching skills and learn different ways on how to teach that will help the dancer memorize the dance the best.

In these pictures Alyanna and I are working on choreographing a dance for the pep-rally.

APPLIED

How did the component help you answer your EQ? Please include specific examples to illustrate how it helped.

This component helped me really establish my answer 2, that a dancer should add their own personal style to a dance, and support the answer. While working on this component I was able to watch 30+ girls learn the exact same choreography and then see how they perform it with their own style. The dance team is currently working on two different pieces for the upcoming pep-rally and I have seen how the dancers interpret the choreography and make it into their own.