Choreography – Mariza Dance

Category: Choreography

Choreography Creation: Floor Mapping

Posted on October 3, 2019October 14, 2019 by Mariza

I’m going to blog along as I work on a choreography to “Andah Aleik” for my duo, io. Feel free to leave a comment with your process–I’m curious to know how people approach choreography. I’m going to take it step by step! Except sometimes I don’t always follow these steps. Whatevs. I hope it will be useful to you as you work on your own choreographies…or I hope you find it vaguely amusing. 🙂

So, you’ve got your sections. Now what?! It’s time to map out your floor patterns so you know where you’re going on stage.

TL;DR:

Draw a floor map or pattern for each section, which represents how you will travel on the stage. You can note how many counts per “leg” of the pattern
Film yourself walking–just walking–the floor map to make sure you aren’t spending too much time standing around, ending up in weird areas of the stage, etc. Adjust as needed

Choreography Creation: Song Mapping

Posted on September 22, 2019September 26, 2019 by Mariza

Step 2: Song Mapping

Truth time: I don’t always do the FULL SONG MAP EXPERIENCE(tm). A lot of section description/energy level stuff is just sort of in my brain and I don’t always write it out. But now I’ve got a blog to update, so… 😉

TL;DR:

Section out the song based on musical changes
Write down the counts and timestamps of each section
Name or briefly describe each section
Give each section an energy level out of 10

Choreography Creation: Prep Work

Posted on September 15, 2019September 26, 2019 by Mariza

Go on a choreography journey with me! I’m going to blog along as I work on a choreography to “Andah Aleik” for my duo, io. Feel free to leave a comment with your process–I’m curious to know how people approach choreography. This is just “an” option and sometimes even I don’t follow these steps, depending on the project. I hope it will be useful to you, or if nothing else, vaguely amusing.

I’m interested to document this particular project because I’m envisioning a more collaborative effort as opposed to prescribing the entire choreography and applying it to somebody else, which is what I’ve usually done. This is a new approach for me!

Step 0: Research

TL;DR:

Look up the lyrics of your chosen song, if applicable (even if you’re doing an instrumental version)
Search around for the song in general (any history, famous renditions, etc). In the case of modern or pop songs, I would also look for music videos
Watch how other dancers have treated the song