How To Create A Choreography

Even If You Never Made Up a Dance Before

Last issue I shared how to prepare "behind the scenes" (in your subconscious) before you create a dance piece: Intention (writing down your goal), and Conscious Listening (with no distractions).

Now take your Dance Notebook (containing your music breakdown or M.B.), and head for the studio (living room, bedroom, garage; wherever your personal dance space is). By now you KNOW the music intimately inside & out - that's good, because you two are going to "get married" and "have a baby" - your dance!

If you don't have a clue on where to start, then play your music and...

1. make notes on your M.B. about how it makes you feel - section by section (A1, A2, B, C1 etc., as I explained in the Sept./Oct. issue - look here for an M.B. example: www.kawakib.com/Zeina.html)
2. now just get up and dance - pretend you're a child again and "play" at dancing those feelings. Imagine how a child would dance "something happy", "something big" or "something swoopy." Your body knows how to interpret the feelings in the music before your head does, so try it and see what happens. You'll probably catch a few good steps that way - jot down the steps you like on your M.B.; you can clean up the notes later.

To go back to the "baby" analogy, does a woman have to know biology in order to have a baby? Of course not, but it would be helpful if she did. The same is true when one creates a dance, so let's run through some basics of choreography:

• Where's your audience? Yes, your dance has a "front" and a "back"! Imagine your stage or performance area when you dance so you know where you are in space.
• What's your story? The most satisfying stories (whether in movies, books, songs, or dances) have a definite Beginning, Middle, and End. In Kawakib's Dance Tips "Creating the Oriental Solo", I explain that the usual "storyline" of an Oriental Solo is: "Hello everybody, here I am (salutation). This is what the music looks like to me (design) and how it makes me feel (emotion). Goodbye, it was so much fun being here and sharing this with you" (recap & finish). 
  Also remember that in stories, the chapters and even the sentences have this same "beginning/middle/end" structure too - in dance terms it's called a cycle, and the music also has cycles, big and little ones; you can see them in your music breakdown.
• Where are you going, how are you getting there, and then what are you going to do? Dance moves are either done IN-PLACE or TRAVELING. They are DESIGNS (shapes, patterns) on your body, in the air, or on the floor as you travel around the stage.
  
• And how does it fit the music? Does the movement match the music in feeling, or in shape, or in time? The best place to start hooking your dance to the music is in time - the tempo and rhythm. Try changing weight (traveling or in-place) in time with the rhythm and let the momentum flow up your body to affect your hips or torso.
  

The absolute worst way to create a dance is to pull out your class or workshop notes and go, "Hmm, I guess I'll put 4 'Nadia hips' here, then do 8 'mayas' and 1 'paisley turn'. Please!! It's OK to look through your notes for inspiration or to help remember a nice step you learned, but don't "mix & match" out of your combination repertoire and call it choreography. If your music isn't unique enough to deserve it's own representation, then maybe you need different music.

Pay attention to your music breakdown and you'll avoid the dreaded "4 on this side, 4 on the other" kind of "choreography" some dancers fall into. You know the music is more complex than that. If the music repeats, your steps can repeat - but is it REALLY exactly the same? Listen and see if anything is different - changing even just a single beat in a repeated sequence can save it from mediocrity.