Thread: Methods for Creating Combinations

Teachers and choreographers - what are your methods for creating new, fresh, and exciting combinations for class and choreographies?

I know we can all go to a workshop or watch a DVD and learn combinations from there. I would like to find out others' methods for creating unique combinations from scratch (so you don't get that "there's a Jillina combo - there's an Aziza combo" thing happening).

Do you keep notes? Do you videotape your practice sessions? What methods work best when you need to come up with something new and fresh?

Additionally, what elements do you try to work into your combinations for class? How do you catalog the combinations you come up with for easy future reference?

I took a workshop on this last summer from a dancer who is highly organized (much more than I am, LOL). She catalogues all her combinations on the computer. She gives them names to help her remember. She uses the idea that you can take 8 counts and divide it up into A,A,A,A, (doing the same move 4 times), A,A,A,B (doing the same move 3 times, then doing a different move), A,B,A,B,. etc. There are an almost endless variety of possible ways to put together moves in 8 counts, you could have A,B,C,D, with four different moves in one combination, for example, and all the variations in between A,A,A,A, and A,B,C,D.

I've used the idea but I don't catalogue them all on my computer, though that is probably a good idea.

A fun thing she had us do in the workshop was devise our own combo based on the lettering system and demonstrate it to the group.

My brain just isn't that linear, though, I had a combo to demonstrate but I wasn't sure which letter combination it was until the group figured it out for me. Turned out it was A,A,A,B, repeated twice, once to the right, once to the left. Only B was different on each side, so maybe it was A,A,A,B, and A,A,A,C - a 16-count combo.

I listen to the music and do what it tells me. Unless I am dancing pop (and I do like pop), I just can't drop in a combo from a DVD in most pieces of music without doing some sort of alteration and still have it be musical. So a way of using someone else's stuff is to just do a freestyle/drill thingy with the focus on dynamics changes and see what comes up. I don't worry about memorizing stuff unless I am usng it for drilling or teaching purposes.

In general I'm not making up combos for the hell of it, I'm doing it for a purpose, whether that's as part of a choreography, or for teaching. So it depends what I need the choreo to do.

For example, if I'm choreographing, I know:
- I've got to fill 16 counts of music,
- I've got to go from facing stage front to left profile within that time,
- I have to start with my weight in my right foot, because that's how the last bit I choreographed ended up,
- I've got to end up with my weight in my left foot, because I need to have my right foot available for the next bit
- It's a choppy piece of music, so I want the combo to be quite percussive, which effectively means hip accents, drops, pops, locks, hits etc,- I want to stay on the spot, because the next part of the choreo is all swishy and movey-about.
It's kind of easier, when you've got rules you've got to follow.

For teaching combos, my lesson plan is giving me the rules to follow- today it's figure 8s, and I want my students to focus on the contrasts between smooth and sharp movements, so they've got a couple of F8 combinations that also use hip drops, and body locks, and these combinations are adaptable for different versions of the eight, so that my students can play with them, and see how the straightforward combo can be done in a variety of ways.

you all are so much more "with it" than i am, lol!
I dance through most of my day and there's a nice big mirror in the bathroom. Half the time, I work out a cool movement combo, it happens in the bathroom when I'm supposed to be washing up. Do it enough times and it eventually works it's way into a choreography all by itself. When I create choreography, I usually just dance the piece a few times and see what starts to stick, then work from there.

As a practice tool, I like to pluck moves out of the air and find ways to connect them. Say (randomly off the top of my head), (A) undulation, (B) omi, and (C) pivot turn. So I'll take these moves and see how I can put them together, maybe a travel step in betwee, add some arms....

So I'd go ABC, then switch it up. ACB, BCA, etc etc. Sometimes some neat stuff can happen. :)

I have no problem coming up with combinations, but remembering them is something else again! I usually put them in choreographies for my troupe if I really want to keep them in mind.

I am not an instructor, but I have to say the method I've liked the best with creating combinations in a class setting was the instructor putting on a short peice of fun and upbeat music everyone liked. From there we had the whole song once through to come up with some improv moves we thought flowed with the music (instuctor helping the less advanced of course). Then we got in a circle and the song was played again, but this time we each got to do 4 beats of it with our own adlib! We used this to make a fun (short) cheography based on the routines WE made and liked the best.

Some girls wrote them down on paper, while others camera-phoned or video-taped them.

Hope this helps!

Originally Posted by wanabwrestler

I am not an instructor, but I have to say the method I've liked the best with creating combinations in a class setting was the instructor putting on a short peice of fun and upbeat music everyone liked. From there we had the whole song once through to come up with some improv moves we thought flowed with the music (instuctor helping the less advanced of course). Then we got in a circle and the song was played again, but this time we each got to do 4 beats of it with our own adlib! We used this to make a fun (short) cheography based on the routines WE made and liked the best.

Some girls wrote them down on paper, while others camera-phoned or video-taped them.

Hope this helps!

I did something just like this at a performance based workshop the other day! It was a little scary at first, having to try and choreograph something so fast (or at all!!) and then perform it immediately after, but it was fun and I think it's a great way to grow in confidence with dancing!

Originally Posted by taaj

I listen to the music and do what it tells me. Unless I am dancing pop (and I do like pop), I just can't drop in a combo from a DVD in most pieces of music without doing some sort of alteration and still have it be musical. So a way of using someone else's stuff is to just do a freestyle/drill thingy with the focus on dynamics changes and see what comes up. I don't worry about memorizing stuff unless I am usng it for drilling or teaching purposes.

At a workshop I did a few weeks ago, we had to improvise to about five songs the teacher put on, but focus on portraying the feeling behind the music. It was great for both facial expressions and doing what the music tells you to do, rather than just learning a choreography. I'm really quite into the improv stuff now, I'm looking forward to practicing it with a few dancing friends!

Hi Tamrahenna!

Choreography combos for myself or int/adv students are based solely on the music I've chosen. I've always diagrammed the music beforehand- counted it out and grouped the phrases so the "shape" of the music is clear to me and then written down the choreography and blocking patterns. We also tape it with cell phone as we go and share the video to practice at home. Then later if the choreography was successful video-taped it in performance. I find myself re-using movement combinations in new choreographies but not deliberately- sometimes they work again.

Class combos are always based on movements taught or reviewed that class. I try to use one movement "group" for each piece of music used in class: ie. 8's - drill them, use arms with them, syncopate the timing- slow on the right, quick left and right, slow on the left, quick right and left. Then a combo with 8's would involve using them and transitioning from one kind to another. Later in the class I'd put together in a longer combo the shorter ones we've already used.

You could start a notebook of all the combos for each movement "family"( figure 8 combos, undulation combos- however you group movements) and add to it as you create new ones. Then as time goes on you can look back and recycle combos.

I haven't done this but you've inspired me to get organized.

Originally Posted by tamrahennatx

Teachers and choreographers - what are your methods for creating new, fresh, and exciting combinations for class and choreographies?

I know we can all go to a workshop or watch a DVD and learn combinations from there. I would like to find out others' methods for creating unique combinations from scratch (so you don't get that "there's a Jillina combo - there's an Aziza combo" thing happening).

I music first find music that moves me- and I improvise with it for a long time before I try choreography. Take a break from studying other dancers and focus on what you do when you dance then you can infuse yourself into the "Jillina combo" . Also getting out to see other types of dance performance gives a fresh perspective on the possibilities of communicating with movement and new ways to group dancers on stage.

I also recycle choreography if it was successful -as in the dancers and audience enjoyed it- restage it, redo parts of it.... years later it's fun to see what can happen to the choreography when you revisit it with your new experiences and perspective.

Lately, I think about music conceptually instead of catagorically- a dance about water or color or sound instead of "oriental" or "folkloric" or "balady" and that opens up new avenues without sacrificing the traditional aspects of the movement.