- Hey friends!
I'm actually really really excited for today's vlog.
I feel like I say that for every vlog,
but I am excited for all of them.
But I've been thinking of doing this one for a while
I just wasn't sure how to structure it but,
today I'm gonna be teaching you how to choreograph.
So, you can be someone who honestly
is not really a dancer, or you just started dancing,
or you have been dancing for 25 years, 20 years
like me, but even then, I still get stuck.
I've been choreographing for forever and
there's still some times when I just stare in the mirror
and I'm like, girl, what are you going to-
there's no movement coming into my brain.
So there's a couple different techniques
and strategies that can help you.
So I'm gonna walk you through those today.
Okay, so the very first technique is called
a Lyric Study and it's exactly what it sounds like.
You take the lyrics of a song and you study them.
And that can mean you're looking for the
meaning behind the lyrics, or,
you're just taking the words, literally,
exactly how they are, at face value.
It kinda just depends on your artistry
and the way you wanna express,
but I thought we can look at Go Solo by Tom Rosenthal
who I'm obsessed with, shout out Tom.
But seriously, his music is beautiful
and I used it for my August video
with my dancer, Kyleen, and the lyrics,
here, I'll show you.
Okay, I need to show you my background first,
this is Antony from Queer Eye.
Antony, if you're watching, I love you.
So much, okay.
Anyways.
So, lyrical, is literally what it sounds like,
you're focusing on lyrics.
Now, the lyrics, in my opinion,
give you this beautiful base to create movement off of.
So, the very beginning, he says:
"They say it's a matter of time/
"A thousand days and the sun won't shine"
So, what I would do with that.
Now, "they".
What could "they" be?
"They" is people, "they" is this like,
group of humans, whatever.
So maybe you're reaching out to them, "they".
So picture there's a group of people over there.
The next word is "say".
So what do you use to talk?
You use your mouth.
So, "they say", it can come into your mouth.
Right, so you're using the words to generate movement.
"They say it's a matter of time".
So we have, reaching out for "they",
coming into your mouth on "say",
"it's a matter of time".
Maybe you go to your watch, right?
So, that's kinda the idea, as you're studying the words
and you're letting the words create movement for you.
So, "they say it's a matter of time".
We now have
"They say it's a matter of time".
"A thousand days", so a thousand is
a big number, right Bray?
- [Bray] Oh yeah.
- A big number, so you wanna reach, and it's
a huge, huge, big movement.
Does that make sense, guys?
So you're interpreting these words, right?
"They say it's a matter of time/
"A thousand days", maybe you're in like,
I know it's days, as in like, days, weeks, months,
but, maybe it's like you're in a hazy daisy,
so you start to get, maybe, dizzy.
"They say it's a matter of time/
"A thousand days" , you're a little bit dizzy
"and the sun won't shine".
So, sun, light, right, we go big.
So I'm kinda making the sun with my arms, okay?
Oh my Gosh, what do we have so far?
Okay, "They say it's a matter of time/
"A thousand days, and the sun"
What were the words?
Tom?
He says, "won't shine".
So, we'll go, okay.
Won't shine is kind of like you're in the dark, right?
Well, light's not shining, then
it's probably dark around you.
So, we'll do this, we'll cover our eyes.
And look at that, you already have a whole phrase
of movement just off of this one line of music.
So, "They say it's a matter of time/
"A thousand days and the sun won't shine".
Yeah, so that's kinda the idea of the lyric study.
You're just taking the words and you're
letting it create this beautiful movement
for you.
Yay!
Okay, now we're on to our second choreographic technique
which is Room Reading.
Not Room Raiders, the MTV show, but Room Reading.
This one is super cool because you can never
run out of things.
So the idea is that you read the room.
What is in the room.
So in this room I have some,
what are these called, Medicine balls?
The little, squishy, exercise balls?
Then, you have a door.
We have a ladder,
we have some lights that are shining.
Trophies, a window.
So that's kind of the idea, as you just gather
all of these things.
Now I know you're like, Auti, what are you talking about,
and what does this have to do with dance?
But I promise I'm gonna show you.
So, for example, there's a door.
How would I close that door?
I'd probably hit it, and push it.
And that's a movement right there.
Okay, then the medicine ball.
What do you do on medicine balls?
You sit on them, so I would sit to the floor.
So I've now read in the room, two different objects.
So, I hit the door and close it,
and I sit on the medicine ball.
Now I'm on the floor and, like,
okay where do I go?
So there's a fan over there, and fans spin, right?
So if I'm on the floor, what can I do to spin?
Maybe I could do a spin like this to stand up,
or maybe I could do a roll.
That's kind of a spin, and stand up.
So I now read three different things in the room.
Bray, did you like the spin or the roll better?
- [Bray] I like the roll.
- The roll, okay, he has spoken.
So we go, close the door, punch,
sit on the medicine ball, roll like a fan, stand up.
Now, as I'm standing up, what do I see over there?
I see a curtain, so, a curtain you would push, right?
Maybe when I stand up, I push the curtain open.
So, this is super cool because I'm in one room
right now and I just read 4 different things.
I could go to a completely different space
and generate completely different movement.
You can either go outside, it doesn't have
to just be limited to an indoor space.
So, let's put these together.
We room read,
we room read the door, the medicine balls,
the fan and the window.
Okay, here we go.
And door, medicine ball,
and fan and curtain.
Yeah, and that's a whole phrase right there.
So you could literally create even without music,
just using different objects and
different things that are in the room.
Alright, so we're now on to our third
choreographic technique, or a C T,
I just made that up, don't use that in class,
it's not a real thing.
Anyways, it's called the Retrograding or Retrograde.
To be honest, it confuses me sometimes,
but the idea is that you're reversing the movement
for exactly where you just came from.
So, I'll show you.
So I just made up this little phrase,
this is the original.
Reach, elbow bends, extend an arm,
turn, stretch, plié, okay?
So that's my version, I'll show you one more time.
Arms reach, elbows extend, lengthen your arm,
turn, plié.
Now, the retrograde of that would be,
plié, stretch, turn
with the arm, back to the elbow, over.
So you're essentially reversing what you just did.
Now this is super cool because it can create
this very beautiful through line,
this through thread throughout your dance.
So, if I'm in this big, beautiful group piece,
and I have my original phrase in,
a little bit later in the dance, I could
do the retrograde and it's not gonna look
exactly the same but it would have
some sort of mirroring of that
original movement you had in.
So it creates cohesion throughout the whole piece.
So I'll show you one more time.
Here's my original: reach, elbow,
arm, turn, plié.
Now the retrograde is plié, stretch,
arm, elbow, push down.
Now, another idea is to have,
if you had maybe two or three dancers,
have one of the dancers do the original,
whatever your original choreo is,
and have the other dancer do the retrograde of it.
So it looks similar but it still
looks really different.
So this is when you're kind of like,
Oh my Gosh, I can't think of anything,
but I want something that would still blend
into the piece that I already have,
retrograding comes in handy.
So, that's another idea.
Twit twit!
Hello, who am I today.
Okay, we are doing the fourth technique,
and the fourth technique is Texture and Imagery.
So this is kind of, you really have to
use your imagination and you can't be afraid
to look kind of dorky or to just work through
some weird movements.
So texture is, like, if something is prickly,
or, maybe something is really smooth.
Imagery is, you're creating images or pictures.
Like you're dancing in a cloud,
so how would you move if you were dancing through the air.
Or, maybe you're really cold,
there's snow around you and you're shivering.
So that's kinda the idea of Texture and Imagery.
I'll show you a couple,
'cause I know it's kind of an abstract concept.
So, I used prickly, right?
It's like you haven't shaved for a couple of weeks, ladies.
Prickly, right, so you wouldn't just
put your hands down on a cactus,
there would be like, oh!
That's sharp, that's hurting me, right?
Or maybe you hit your elbow on it and
you come back, some things are sharp that way.
Another texture is smooth.
So, if something is soft, you probably just wanna
graze on it, probably feels good on your skin,
so it's soft, right?
Then, you combine those.
So you have your prickly, into your soft.
Okay, so that's kind of a texture idea.
The other one was imagery, right?
So this, there are no rights and wrongs
with choreography and I think that's the coolest thing.
It's your style, it's your artistry,
so don't be afraid to just kinda push your limits
and just go for it.
There is one that I love to do and I like
to have my dancers coming from the bar forward,
and, I have them pretend that they're underwater.
Okay, so when you're underwater,
like you're in a pool, or the ocean,
you wanna think about the temperature,
you wanna think about other fish swimming around you,
like, are you freaked out.
You wanna think about the weight that water has
on your body, like, you can't just move around
the ocean like this, and if you can,
that's really cool.
But, usually, it's a little bit more heavy, right?
So, imagery.
I'm underwater, in a pool, there's weight on me,
maybe I'm cold, maybe I sink to the bottom,
but then come back up, because I want to live,
look out of the water, feel the sun.
So it's a little bit more gooey, right?
So, let's go through that again.
I feel the weight of the water, I'm a little cold,
I sink to the bottom of the water, come out
at the top, and look at the sun.
So you can see how you're already creating
really cool movement that way.
So we can combine some of it.
So we have our prickly texture, into a soft texture,
into our water, and we're at the bottom,
and we come up at the sun,
and then maybe we're cold, led to end.
Yeah, so that one's really fun
because you can just, there's no limits
with your imagination.
So that's our forth and final one.
Okay guys, I hope that those were helpful,
I know how frustrating it can be
when you're at the studio, or in your living room,
and you're like, I don't know what to do!
So, these are the kinds of techniques
that can help you get out of that choreographic,
or choreographer's block.
Okay, so something exciting that we're gonna do is,
if you create movement using these techniques
and you post it on your Instagram story,
tag me, which is @missauti and I'll take a look,
and I'm gonna repost some of my favorites.
So I'm really excited, I would love to see
what you guys create using these ideas.
So, remember that we have a new dance vlog
every single Wednesday and a new
choreography video the last Friday of each month.
Love you guys, thank you so much for watching
and I'll see you next week!
(bright pop music)