Movement Maker

Personally, I have been making a LOT of dance during these uncertain times. It seems that by creating movement and investing in my creations, I am maintaining my own sense of normalcy in a world that currently feels as abnormal as can be.

I’ve ALWAYS been a maker, a doer, a creator. On big stages or in small bodega corners, my mind is always making things. I decided to invest in what it is that I use in my process of “making” and my hope is that it might encourage others to do the same. And, just maybe, we can take a page from each other’s books.
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In the making of things, I am challenging myself and, in challenging myself, I am holding myself accountable by writing these ideas, concepts, and challenges down.

For me, it starts in one of two ways. Either a song “finds me” - aka, I hear it over and over, and take that as the Universe telling me to make up some moves to that song, or I create a gesture or series of movements to a specific moment in a piece of music that I later decide to expand upon. I’ll give some recent examples of both of these that have occurred in the past few weeks. During the first week or two of quarantine, it seemed that every time I went anywhere in the car or came downstairs from my room or was in a place where I was not in control of the music that was playing, “The Bones” by Maren Morris would come on. I just had to take this as a sign to make SOMETHING to it, because why would the Universe keep sending me this song? Another time, I was listening to “Call Off Your Dogs” by Lake Street Dive in the shower and I made up maybe four counts of choreo, and later expanded upon that impulsive idea.

A typical choreography process, FOR ME (and, in no way, do I claim that this is THE way - I desperately want to hear about YOUR ways) looks like this:

• Idea vomit.
  • Improv-ing some movement to the song/audio of choice (after all, how many beautiful pieces have you seen to spoken word?)
• Filming that improv.
  • After taking a few moments to get the groove and vibe of the song/audio, turn on a camera and start recording. 
• Review.
  • Disclaimer: Your movement is going to be messy. Promise to not judge yourself for whatever comes out.
  • Accept whatever it is that your body did and examine how you might be able to use it.
• Editing.
  • Find what sparks your interest, what draws your eye, and the moments that you couldn’t look away from.
  • Use these moments to pass through to the final draft, whatever that may be whether it be a combo for a class you will teach, or just a dance that you make for yourself.

Dance. Film. Watch. Edit. Repeat.

So often, as dancers and choreographers, we are tempted to throw something together just for the sake of getting it done. But the real magic happens in the EDITING. It is only in the watching and the editing that we boil it all down to something we are really certain we want to invest in. 

A few other choreographic techniques that I am teaching myself to implement are:

• Specific counts.
  • I am trying to be better about actually counting out my combos, especially before I teach them to others.
  • It is important to remember that not everyone hears a piece of music the same way, and the clearer your counts are, the more you can guarantee that someone else’s interpretation of your work will be as close to what you are envisioning as possible. 
• Specific lyric.
  • If a lyric has stuck out to me, I START THERE. Make sure you know what your music is saying - there’s nothing worse than making a dance to a song whose message is not aligned with the message you want to spread.
• Specific body region.
  • Oftentimes, when I get stuck in a choreographic rut, I close my eyes and see which part of my body wants to move. It’s almost like allowing your natural instinct to take over unlocks the door to a multitude of new ideas.
• Specific prop/item.
  • In my recent #quareo video of “Whatever We Feel” by Sammy Rae, I gave each dancer a specific prop or story to tell in their 8-count.
  • There seemed to be an emphasis on the prop or item instead of the movement of the body. If we are there to serve the storytelling, then the prop is like our gateway out of “dancer brain 5-6-7-8” and into pedestrian, everyday movement.
• Specific environment.
  • Whether it be outside, on a busy city sidewalk, or on a stage, envisioning where the piece should live helps me to fully invest in the idea.
  • Even if it is just a combo that I am teaching for a class, I try to really think about the environment the dancer/character/human would exist in.

What are YOUR techniques/ideas/impulses when creating movement? 
Will you share them with me?