Thread: Choreographies in Class

As inspired by Shira's presence and bearing thread, I wanted to ask other instructors about how they approach class choreographies. Do you use them at all? Are your classes comprised only or mostly of choreographies? (I've been to some classes where joining class sort of automatically joins you in some sort of troupe where class focuses on choreographies to perform). Do you encourage individual growth in choreographies or group synchronicity?

Ususally, my class structure is like this for most levels (it changes a bit for higher levels):

-warm up
-improv building/circle/individual discovery/historic understanding (may do some moves inspired by certain dancers or discuss history/trends/changes/etc
-technique building
-short choreography to put it all together
-cool down

Class sessions usually last 8 classes and at the end of the session, my goal is to give them another piece of the belly dance puzzle. I wouldn't say I move slow, as there is so much information in once piece, but I try to approach it so that they understand they've got just one piece of a 500 or 1000 piece puzzle, not a 25 piece.

I use choreographies (more so in the lower levels) as a sort of glue to hold it all together. Sometimes we perform them, sometimes we don't. But I like the idea of having something they can take with them; like a study guide almost. I encourage individualism in my choregraphies and often have several imrpov sections in there, but there is still emphasis on hitting moves when the music says so.

I'm not an instructor, but I can tell you what my teacher does.

She kind of sets classes up a little bit similar. We'll do a warmup, then maybe focus the class on 1 or two moves - or parts of moves. She does talk a little bit about the history of the dance at times - but I wish she'd bring it up more. :)

Anyways, at the end of the class, she puts together a little choreography that uses the move we learned that day. Usually it's like - 4 or 5 eight counts, so it's not that long, but it shows what the move would look like 'in context'.

At the end of the last class in the session (it's usually 4 classes = 1 session), she reserves a little time at the end of class for us to make up our own choreography. She lets us get in groups and we get to use the steps we learned that session (so probably around 4 - 6 new moves) to slap together our own little mini-dance. Then we get to perform it with our 'troupe' in front of the class.

The mini-dance is never that long, and she doesn't give us tons of time to work on it (like 5 - 6 mins), but I still like the opportunity. It gives me a bit of accountability and helps me to 'own' my belly dance experience.

technique class: we are working on learning and perfecting specific movements, concepts, combinations. I do have time at the end of class to string together what we've been working on so students have some format to remember them when they get home, but it is not necessarily a premeditated choreography, and I make sure we spend time in a circle where everyone has to come up with a move, and we talk about transitions between the moves that are called out.

In the spring, we have a technique class and a choreography class in preparation for the recital- students can participate in the class without performing at the end, but most choose to perform. I like using choreographies to teach various stage craft concepts that are harder to work on when new dancers are trying to improvise. Once they have drilled into them what steps they are taking, it frees up brain space to pay attention to arms, attitude, breathing, exact foot position, etc. It also helps illustrate how I hear and understand the music.

Honestly, I need to find more venues for student dancers working on solo pieces. Right now, there are so many people who want to perform in the community recitals/haflas that it generally gets limited to groups and the audacious soloists (either the top level dancers who are confident in what they are presenting, or student dancers with enough fire in the belly to put themselves forward regardless!)

I have come to dislike teaching choreographies in class, even though students like them a lot.

Why? Because when a class focuses on choreographies, students quickly become less creative and more anxious about "doing it right." Like, it's scary.

Since my goal is for my students to become creative artists in their own right (at whatever level), I have reverted to teaching combinations and choreographic fragments (which is how I was taught), so there is something different every time. It better prepares students for personal expression, and they learn a lot more stuff more quickly.

I also focus on teaching how to choreograph (dance composition), on developing collaborative group choreography, and on honing performance skills (along with mega improv technique and musical interpretation).

It is fine to learn and perform choreos, and I do still teach choreos sometimes (because I enjoy making dances, and it is nice for a show), but usually in a separate, specific class.

i am not a teacher. my teacher does mostly choreographies this is what my teacher does. starts class with warm up. we drill one or two moves that are in the choreography & then we work on learning the choreography. now i really like choreographies as they are easy for me to learn & pick up on. in that way i'm lucky. however i would also like her to offer some improv instruction or how to come up with a choreography to challenge us.

Originally Posted by alia t

I have come to dislike teaching choreographies in class, even though students like them a lot.

Why? Because when a class focuses on choreographies, students quickly become less creative and more anxious about "doing it right." Like, it's scary.

Since my goal is for my students to become creative artists in their own right (at whatever level), I have reverted to teaching combinations and choreographic fragments (which is how I was taught), so there is something different every time. It better prepares students for personal expression, and they learn a lot more stuff more quickly.

I also focus on teaching how to choreograph (dance composition), on developing collaborative group choreography, and on honing performance skills (along with mega improv technique and musical interpretation).

It is fine to learn and perform choreos, and I do still teach choreos sometimes (because I enjoy making dances, and it is nice for a show), but usually in a separate, specific class.

What she said.

I think that you can tell a lot about a teacher by how hard she pushes choreographies. As a generalization, teachers who don't teach anything but canned routines tend to be weak at improv. Many of them are also very Western in their approach--not just stylistically in terms of the way they move, but in their attitude toward the dance. If a student is interested in capturing the real "native essence" of the dance, a teacher who presents choreography as anything other than "We're just doing this as an exercise to get the feel for this concept" (as opposed to "The choreography is both the means and the end") may not be of much help.

Obviously, it is possible to be "authentic" while relying on choreography, but Western teachers aren't usually channeling Mahmoud Reda. When Western teachers construct everything on a rigid framework, they can miss the point that Reda's approach was atypical. The dance evolved from being performed spontaneously to improvisationally played music, conditions that don't lend themselves well to choreography. The object is not to collect enough square pegs so that some of them will eventually fit in the holes the music offers, but to connect organically, emotionally, and sensibly to your music. Over-reliance on choreography creates black boxes, not moments.

OTOH, most students cannot learn how to create a good performance from scraps of combos and watching. Choreography provides a structure to understand how to dance. I'd argue that most teachers don't do a very good job of explaining the theory of choreography, and don't cultivate good "assembly" skills in their students. Teaching ten of your own choreographies mostly teaches ten ways you think. It doesn't encourage the student to think independently, and not enough teachers have the conversation about why move X or Y makes sense and move Z doesn't at a given point in the music. Choreography has a valid place, but it needs to be presented in a context that helps to build good new dancers; otherwise, it just creates copies of the teacher. At the beginning of the educational process, choreographies make sense because the student really is mimicking the teacher. As the student's skills evolve, choreography should become less important, unless she or he is training to be in a professional performing troupe that requires them for stage.

I "grew up" on choreographies from one of the most brilliant minds in bellydance today.

I've been asked to teach a weekly choreography class for intermediate level and up, and I inherited as students many of my peers. The choreographies I put together for them are either riddled with new-to-them technique, full of rhythm changes they must listen for and use as markers, structured to incorporate some improvisation, designed to make them think about stage patterns and the effect staging has on the audience, or all of the above.

In the choreo class we:

warm-up
drill related & known technique
explore & drill unknown technique, combos or concepts
put the sequences together & run choreo several times
cool down/stretch

When we are working toward a student recital this is the format each week, since it is a choreography class and only one our long, but I also like to find different versions of the song we are working with to let students improvise to something that is similar but not routine/mapped out completely by someone else. Stuctured improv within some choreos also helps to bridge the gap, though I still have some (newer) students that freeze up at this point.

The whole time, I attempt to explain why I chose each step/concept/direction so students understand the choreographic concepts behind it. It's important for students to realize that choreography is how you learn the music, not how you dance the music.

Great discussion - I loved Nasila's comment about choreography = how you learn the music, not how you dance the music.

Brilliant!!!

Also, Tourbeau's phrase, "assembly skills."

I think that's a strong concept, isn't it? Because that's saying ok we have these building blocks and this is how we put them together, which makes a combination, a sequence, ultimately helps form a dance.

So working from this idea, of creating "assemblies," or flow, I try to use the idea of the body, the core, and the concept of energy as it crosses through or spirals around or grows from within the core. Using the idea of a neutral position and a weight shift is one way to express the idea of transitioning. Visualizations help, because if people can "see" a star, a circle, a u-shape, an "8", then they can alter it.

Music is always present even if it isn't playing. So working with tempo changes - we do that right away - some of the most striking choreography - whether designed or improvised - seems to be just simple steps varied according to speed.

Look at the Bedouin family of dancers in Bobby Farrah's "Rare Glimpses," and how the mother/lead dancer uses a strong hold of her hands and arms above her head - count - two - three - four - then releases down - letting the movement fall rapidly - into the earth - it's a visualization of gravity really, so simple and so powerfully effective.

I agree with mostly everyone's responses. Choreography is a very important element to teach students. They need something that will visibly show their improvements and what they're accomplishing. However, in my classes, I make sure to teach the choreography and emphasize that each person will have their own unique interpretation and style in the dance. They are encouraged to add their own elements to the dance. Group syncronization is important to certain extent if you're paid to perform, however, they should still feel free and have fun with it!

Even if you are not paid, a group choreography is a different beast than a solo. Unless the choreography is designed for individuals to have mini-leads within it, nine times out of ten, the overall look deteriorates into a hot mess when people start adding personal flair. The point of group choreography is to have a coherent, collective presentation, which means everybody agrees arms are up here or down there, not where each person would have held their arms if they were dancing alone.

From the audience standpoint, it's chaotic and confusing to have too much individuality on stage at once. Occasionally professional choreographers working with professional performers may design big, busy melange scenes with everybody doing something different on stage, but even then, they often have a plan for how they want the audience's attention to track what's happening. When we have a stage full of dancers doing their own thing, it's usually poorly rehearsed amateurs who aren't getting taught proper stagecraft skills. It does a disservice to students to teach them that group choreographies are nothing more than a herd of dancers doing simultaneous solos.

I also want to mention there's an element of respect that rarely gets discussed in terms of choreography. If you are performing someone else's work, unless they have told you you're free to mess around with it, you are submitting yourself to their creative vision, and you owe it to them to present what they want, not what you want. As a discipline, we do such a weak job of developing students as artists, that we sometimes pretend taking liberties with someone else's creative work is just as good as making your own, and that isn't always the case. We're fortunate in that rarely do we have a situation where a choreographer demands, "My way or the highway." We're usually more flexible, but that doesn't mean students shouldn't be made aware that this is more the exception than the norm in the larger dance world. Usually the director's or choreographer's word is law, not the performer's. You're a means to bring their ideas to life, which is an equally valid--but different--artistic challenge to do well.

Yea maybe I should have clarified what I said. When I tell students to add their own personal flair, I mean facial expressions. I'm very picky on timing and where they place their arms, so all of that has to be syncronized. I just emphasize that their face needs to reflect how they feel about the dance (unless they're terrified and then I encourage them just to smile ) Lol