Unit 26 - Choreographing dance

Friday 10^th November

Before we went to the primary school today, I met up with my dance teacher to go over what we had choreographed last week for Eve and Toby. We also had a discussion about the possibility of a lift in the dance but we won’t know what we can do until we ask Eve and Toby what they think they are capable of and are comfortable with. We also discussed the ideas which I had come up with in the lesson on Wednesday when Laura was unable to make the lesson.

When we got to the primary school, I took both Eve and Toby through a warmup to make sure that all of the muscles in their bodies were warm especially because we were going to be looking at some lifts in the session today. We then moved onto looking at the routine.

To start with, I went over the solo choreography with Eve. Eve knows this choreography quite well now so this wasn’t a problem at all.

We then moved on to looking at the duet part. Eve and Toby could both briefly remember the choreography but because they only learnt it last week and it has been a week since they have gone through it, they needed a bit of a refresher. Once we had gone through this slowly without the music, we put this together with Eve’s solo part and put it with the music. Then, for the rest of the session we were going to focus on teaching new material.

The main move that we wanted to focus on was the lift. Laura and I talked Eve and Toby through the idea that we had – Eve jumping up and to the side and Toby supporting her from behind. To start off with, we started by getting Eve to just jump as high as she could. Then, Toby stood behind her and gently held her waist as she jumped. As they kept practicing this, they both became more comfortable and Toby began to support Eve so that she could jump even higher. Once they were comfortable with Eve just jumping up and down, I got Eve to try a few different jumps to see which one looked the nicest and fit with the choreography. The first one that I got them to do was where Toby was still standing behind Eve but instead of Eve just jumping up, she would jump up and to the side effectively making a rainbow shape. After we had tried this a couple of times, I decided that it wasn’t quite working and didn’t look very smooth when we put it in with the rest of the choreography. I then had the idea of adapting this slightly by Eve turning 90° so that she was now facing the way that she was jumping. We then did the same jump but this time Eve was able to get more momentum to jump higher and further whilst Toby was supporting her. Toby was unsure of how he was meant to be supporting Eve when she was facing the side but I then explained to him that he should do exactly what he was doing before but just turn his hands slightly. Laura then had the suggestion to make sure that the lift would flow in the choreography, for Eve to leave the ground on 2 feet but then make an arabesque shape with her legs. After I demonstrated the move to her, she gave it a go and it looked beautiful and I was certain I wanted to put this move into the choreography. The first time that she did the jump, she lifted her left leg back which was the front leg which made a beautiful shape. However, after then practicing the lift over and over again, Eve then kept moving the right leg backwards. Because she was struggling to now move the left leg backwards, we changed the lift so that she was now jumping the other way. This meant that she could put her right leg backwards because this was now the leg at the front. After adjusting how Toby was supporting the lift was exactly the same but just mirrored. This lift looks really great and even leading into it from the choreography beforehand.

Once we had finally mastered the lift, Laura and I worked with Eve and Toby to choreograph some moves on the spot to finish off the end of this section of the dance. We came up with a small sequence of moves where they are stood holding hands. The sequence ends when they part, cross each other and run off in opposite directions. We then practiced this through a few times until they could remember it and were confident with it. Here are some pictures of me teaching and taking the children through the choreography:

To finish off the main part of the session, we put everything that we had done together, starting at Eve’s solo and then through to the duet part including the lift. We practiced this through a few times with the music to make sure that they would be able to remember it. Here is a video of them practicing it and me watching and assisting:

To finish off the lesson I took Eve and Toby through a cool down to make sure that they wouldn’t hurt any of their muscles. Here is a picture of us doing some stretches:

I am really happy with the progression that we have made today. We have now finished all of the choreography which needed to be taught to finish off this section in the dance. I am really happy that I managed to choreograph some moves on the spot too because it normally takes me a while to think of moves. We will be coming back into the primary school next week for the last time to really work on perfecting the moves. We will then be back in the new year when we will go over all of the choreography and start to prepare for the show.