Our student choreography audition is a little over a month away, and you still have time to perfect your dance! Atlanta Dance Central offers any and all students to submit choreography to the student choreography audition, which is on Saturday, December 13 at 12 p.m. The piece of choreography must be completed at the time of the audition, and we have some tips to help you improve your choreography for the audition!
Your dance should have a clear concept with a beginning, middle, and end. Some dances may have a story to them while other dances are simply movement based, and both are acceptable! If your dance has a story, you need to make sure the story you have in mind is communicated with the movement you have selected. Make sure your dance shows how the story begins, what changes the story, and how it comes to a clear resolution. If your choreography is movement based, it should still have a structure so the audience can follow the movement phrases and see how they develop.
Develop movement material that follows a theme. Decide what kind of movement you would like to have in your dance, and then develop that material into phrases. You can start with basic gestures or poses, and then manipulate them to make a phrase. Add a jump, turn, level change, or change of direction to help create your movement phrases. When developing your movement, make sure that your phrases make sense together. Changing the style or abruptly changing the movement quality can be interesting, but it can also confuse your audience.
Design your space! In creating your movement you may notice that it all stays in one place, or that it all travels to the right side of the room. When you put your entire dance together you want to make sure the space is designed in an interesting way. Create different formations with your dancers, or change their movement pathways. While sometimes you may be using one corner of the stage, other times you could use the entire stage. Designing your space to help communicate your message or your theme will help make your dance more interesting.
Make your dance dynamically interesting. This idea encompasses all of the other ideas in one. The dynamics of your dance, or the energy your dance has, should change to help keep the audience interested in what is happening on stage. Change the tempo of your dance moves or movement phrases. Some can be slow and suspended while other phrases move quickly. Play with the movement quality the dancers are using. Are they dancing heavy, or light? The movement quality can change within a phrase by using accents. You can also change the dynamics by adding differences in levels, and this can also help you develop different movement. How can your moves be changed so that you are on a low or high level? The most important thing is that your dance doesn't get monotonous. You want the audience to stay interested until the final moment.
Make sure your performers are executing and performing the dance the way you intended. You may have an awesome piece of choreography, but if your dancers aren't confident, or aren't performing the idea behind the dance, the message may be lost. Communicate your ideas to your dancers and allow them to ask questions to help their performance shine. The performance of your choreography is the icing on top of the cake!
We look forward to seeing some real talent at the student choreography audition this year! Best of luck as you put together your dances!
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