Choreography

Read more about the article It’s Not All About The Tricks

It’s Not All About The Tricks

Its not all about the tricks. Dance is not all about the tricks, how high you can get your leg or how long you can hold a certain pose. Whilst all of those things are eye catching and impressive they don’t make me feel anything apart from a second or two of “wow”. When there is a real intention behind even the slightest movement I am more impressed because it makes me question what the performer is thinking or why they chose to do that. For instance, when I was judging the Blackpool pole dance competition I was really struck by the repetitive hand gesture of one of the competitors. Her head whipped up from looking down and then her hand flipped and I was instantly drawn in. Repetition is great tool that can be used to keep an audience engaged; as humans we like to see something that is familiar which then helps us relax and remember a bit more of the performance. (more…)

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Read more about the article Is Solo Dance Self Indulgent?

Is Solo Dance Self Indulgent?

Is Solo Practice Self IndulgentVulnerability is all over me when I dance. Maybe the audience doesn’t notice it because of the way I have manipulated the movement or the way my facial expression looks as I focus on them, but I know that when I watch my work I become more and more aware of who I am . Solo practice has been labelled as “self-indulgent” and I can understand why, but I think it is the wrong description as it almost sounds as though it is a bad thing. What is wrong with being drawn into ourselves, getting to know who we are a bit better? I would say that this process is very similar to meditation which is a practice that often encourages self-development and self discovery. So many motivational speakers will tell us how much we don’t know about ourselves and they are right; to be alone with thoughts is sometimes it is a very scary thing, but I do it because I know that there will be some sort of reward at the end. Some sort of relief. (more…)

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Read more about the article Too Much Movement Material

Too Much Movement Material

021When creating dance there are people who will have mountains of movement material to sieve through or there are those who create far too little. For me, it can go either way, there is never just the right amount and I’m ok with that because I know the ways to work around it. There was a time when I was creating a solo and I had about 10 minutes’ worth of movement that I was trying to fit in to 4 minutes for a performance piece. It didn’t happen. I was very overwhelmed, so instead of becoming more and more frustrated I scrapped 50% of it and formed 5 sections with the rest. These 5 sections were still too long so I decided that I would narrow is down to 3. Here’s what to do if you find yourself in a similar situation.

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