Journal 14: Changing Roles to the Choreographer

Last week at my recital I choreographed my own dance in the show. This experience was extraordinary and really opened my perspective on the dance world. I choreographed a duet piece to a spoken word poem I wrote for my grandfather who passed away from cancer earlier this year. I believe this helped me see how my passion grew in dance from not only dancing but now creating a piece of my own. Yet just like dancing I did encounter many obstacles and successes that I thought would be beneficial to reflect on to compare it to my obstacles of dancing for my passion project: Throughout this journey as a choreographer there were many challenges and triumphs I encountered. However when it came to the recital day I felt as if everything went as planned and ran smoothly to give our best performance onstage. I was pleased with the outcome of the music, lightning, dancing, costuming and the overall execution of my dance. Yet before this day there were obstacles I had to overcome to make this dance happen on stage.

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First Obstacle:

The first obstacle I encountered was having another duet partner. When choosing my partner in the dance I picked my best friend Maria Savoie. I wanted her to be in this dance because she has been in my life since I was 2 years old and experienced some memories I had with Albert. I though this was an important choice or my dance because she felt the same emotional attachment as me to his passing and would portray the story emotionally on stage. To match our emotion execution helped relate the importance of our storyline and draw the audience in.

Relation to Passion Project: This connected to my evolution as a dancer to develop my emotional execution on stage. Before when I was younger I would just dance the moves as I practiced when it came to the show. Yet when I began dancing when I was older I learned that the meaning of dance was to portray a story on stage and a part of doing this was showing emotion through facial expressions and body language. I also think learning how to give emotion on stage made my passion for dance greater because I was able to express any sadness or anger I was facing in the outside world on stage and release it from my body. This became one of the main reasons I loved to dance.

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Second Obstacle: The second challenge that occurred was trying to make my vision of the dance come to life. Before even choreographing I went through weeks of preparing aspects like the spoken word poem and the props to add an essential affect to my piece. Here I needed to take various aspects into consideration like creating a backdrop and the words to my poem that would demonstrate my idea for the message in my dance clearly and effectively. Relation to Passion Project

This second obstacle of preparation ahead of time relates to my passion project by the deeper understanding of all the practice that goes behind the scenes in the dance world. Watching a dance routine for 3 short minutes does not seem like a lot of work but putting the piece together, thinking of costumes and the overall execution of the dance takes a lot of preparation. I also examined this effort by reading my passion project novel Bunheads since it gave me an inside view on all the constant rehearsals, intense routines and performances the ballerinas had to go through. When creating my own dance I explored the struggle of preparation the choreographers go through and gave me a new perspective on another aspect of dance (the choreography) for my passion project.

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Third Obstacle:

The third obstacle I faced with choreographing to the style of dance of contemporary. I knew that this style of dance best fit my piece because it was able to portray my story best through the movements of our bodies. Yet at first I found it challenging to not cross the border to put in lyrical moves which I was used to. Exploring this style of dance took a lot of research to learn how to use moves that weren’t necessarily technical but gave a literal meaning to show the theme in my dance. Relation to Passion Project

I found this made me expand my knowledge as a dancer to explore a new kind of dance I wasn’t originally familiar with. Usually during all my solos I danced the genre of lyrical which I was very familiar with the moves and how to put a dance together. However this style of dance is different than contemporary because contemporary portrays a more serious message through body movements opposed to just matching the words of the music. Having this challenge to explore a new style of dance made me grow as a dancer. I was able to research new techniques and try new moves out that I wasn't used to. I think this relates to my passion project because it shows how my passion of dance can still develop today even after all my years of training. There is still a lot that I can learn and develop through new styles of dance like I had to when making my piece.

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In conclusion, this experience of being a choreographer has changed my perspective on how important it is to prepare before putting together a routine because there are many challenges that can occur. Preparing things like rehearsal time, trial and error on props and the style of dance allows for a more efficient transition to grasping your vision for the piece. I learned this through reflecting on my passion project to why I love to dance and how these challenges have made me expand my previous knowledge of the dance. Having this outside involvement of not only dancing in my piece but creating it changed my view on the dance world and the time and effort that goes into each dance.