ROMÉO: Ooh I love that part.
LINDEN: I wanna watch it again straight away.
KAREN: Why am I nervous?
[chuckles]
JESSIE: What's up y'all! Welcome back to STEEZY's YouTube channel,
it's your girl–
[clears throat]
What's up y'all it's your–
[nani?!]
What's up y'all! Welcome back to STEEZY's channel and–
uh..
[Devin & Kang laughing]
Hello everybody,
and welcome back to STEEZY's YouTube channel.
It's your girl, Jessie,
and today we have ANOTHER episode of Reverse Choreography.
Today's dancer is none other than your Intro-to-Contemporary program teacher,
Karen Chuang.
Her 10-day Beginner Contemporary program is now available on STEEZY Studio
FOR FREE when you sign up for a 7-day trial, right now!
And our amazing producers for this episode,
they're not near, they're FAR...R.
aka Linden Jay and Roméo.
And if you like what you see today, give this video a big thumbs up,
and if you're not already subscribed, hit that subscribe button
so you never miss any videos!
Let's get into it.
KAREN: Hi, I'm Karen Chuang.
I've danced with Lady Gaga,
Kanye West,
Nicki Minaj,
and I currently dance with Entity Contemporary Dance in Los Angeles, California.
The hardest part about making this dance to no music
was- I had infinite possibilities.
I love to create from imagination and fantasy,
so without having something to guide
all of those ideas in terms of what I heard
via the audio was a little challenging.
A lot of my movement is extremely conflict based.
There's a lot of resistance,
there's a lot of tension,
and there's one part in the piece where I really soften my knees,
I really softened my body
and- I wonder how that's going to come out musically.
I'm excited to see what happens!
LINDEN: Hey what's up? This is Linden Jay,
one half of FARR.
ROMÉO: Hi, my name's Roméo,
I'm in a band called FARR with Linden,
I'm from LA,
he's from London.
LINDEN: So the process of making this track
was definitely something different for us.
There was this, sort of like, tense feeling
of- a journey leading towards breaking free.
I really think we had focused on that more brooding feeling
than it being too uplifting and upbeat.
ROMÉO: We just really tried to feed off of Karen's movements.
She's such a lyrical dancer and-
she really gave us a lot to work with.
Linden and I's back-and-forth, I had had him-
get going on the beat and kind of vibe
and we tried a few different things.
It was- it was really interesting.
LINDEN: My favorite moment of Karen's routine
is actually the very, very beginning.
I'm not used to seeing dancers use their facial expressions so much.
I could see the emotion on Karen's face
as well as with her body movements,
and I think from the very beginning that captured my attention.
First thing I did was these two shakers.
Um, it's actually this shaker over here, this little yellow one.
So it kind of sounds something like this
[subtle shaker]
And the shaker kind of gives it this tense energy.
There were certain moments that I couldn't really
enhance more with musical elements.
So I needed to add some sound effects.
For example, right at the beginning,
I needed to build a bit of intensity into that first beat-
uhh when she changes her facial expression,
right here.
So yeah, obviously that really helps-
um, define that moment a bit more.
There's a lot of backing vocals in this arrangement.
So let's dive into here,
what Roméo got up to.
A lot of them work really well with-
the timing of Karen's movements.
For example, here, Roméo did this vocal swell.
Check it with the visual.
[Roméo's vocal swell]
That moves exactly with her movements.
[Roméo singing] ♪ Place that I've been.. ♪
LINDEN: Let's hear it with the lead vocal,
just for a little bit of context.
[Roméo singing] ♪ Drowning... ♪
[vocal swell]
♪ No words to say ♪
♪ the place that I've been.. ♪
[Echo: ♪ Place that I've been.. ♪]
LINDEN: It's a fairly straightforward arrangement,
but everything's just like finally tweaked so that it really works in the movement,
and I really enjoyed that exercise.
So, shout-outs to STEEZY for challenging us.
KAREN: Oh my heart's beating..
Why am I nervous?
[chuckles]
Cool...
Nice...
Cool.
Wew!
KAREN: Whoaaa!
[laughs] I wasn't expecting that at all!
My initial reactions are definitely surprised
in a really GOOD way.
I wasn't imagining lyrics at all.
I think what FARR did a really amazing job was to capture-
the soft qualities.
There's something so-
INTIMATE about the way that the singer is singing
and it feels really up close and personal.
And that intimacy, to me,
is definitely something that really stood out to me.
There's a moment where I kind of TENSE in my body,
and kind of- um, taking-
emotions in and being aware of the space,
and then there's this moment of-
surprise for myself, and I think that also clicks in musically.
You don't envision something that starts so smooth to have that little bite in it.
The song really ignited in me,
a completely different sense of fantasy
and a completely different imagination and scenario
so I- I really can't wait to dance to it and try something new...
ROMÉO: Ooh this new lighting is-
is vibey..
LINDEN: It looks nice.
LINDEN: Ooh.
ROMÉO: Whoa..
ROMÉO: Ugh!
ROMÉO: Ooh!
LINDEN: Ooh..
it's way more charismatic.
Ooh..
ROMÉO: Yeah-yeah-yeah, it's SNAPPY..
However they shot this is crazy!
LINDEN: Whoa.
LINDEN: Yeah the movements are like, so much bigger.
ROMÉO: Yeah yeah,
they're a lot more like, committed to the words and stuff too.
ROMÉO: Ooh I love that part. LINDEN: I like that.
ROMÉO: Yeah..
[Linden chuckles]
ROMÉO: THAT.
KAREN: Yeah, it's got way more bounce to it.
[chuckling] ROMÉO: Yeah..
I love that movement, it's so like-
interesting-
LINDEN: Oh I want to watch it again, straight away.
I feel like I like, missed so much of it.
[Linden laughs]
LINDEN: Yeah that was sick.
ROMÉO: That whole 'that' movement– [Linden laughs]
LINDEN: Yeah the shoulders! You hit 'em with the shoulders, y'know what I'm sayin'! ROMÉO: That move was.. nice. I like that!
[Linden & Roméo laugh] ROMÉO: The shoulders were movin' NICE.
LINDEN: I think- making the track to the dance,
we hit the key moments, but-
there was a lot of in-between stuff that didn't lock in the same way.
So having her hear the track now,
all the little nuances and little moments, everything was right in sync.
Just locked together a lot better.
ROMÉO: I know I keep going back to the shoulders,
but the shoulders, like-
it just felt so like primal..
I don't know, there was something about it that just like, caught me.
And also "I get so high up", she did like, this thing,
and that was–
it was like the simple things, but they were just so like, perfectly on.
LINDEN: It seemed like that was more fun in it.
It- it was a little more flow-y and she just seemed like
she was just like- seamlessly just like,
having a better time doing it.
ROMÉO: We couldn't have really asked for like a better dancer
to give us something to work with.
It was all very easy to feed off of all of her energy
so she was-
she was a GREAT collaborator..
and we- we need to meet her at some point, I guess.
Thanks STEEZY!
Y'all are crazy.
LINDEN: Thanks y'all.
BrrrrrUu!
ROMÉO: Brrah-brrah-brrah-brrah! [Linden laughs]
JESSIE: Thank you so much to Karen and FARR for being in today's episode,
you can find them on social media right here!
Now, we have a SPECIAL surprise for you today!
You know the piece that you JUST watched Karen do?
You can actually LEARN that on STEEZY Studio!
And if you don't consider yourself a Contemporary dancer or a dancer at all,
you can actually start by taking Karen's 10-day Intro-to-Contemporary program.
Click the link in the description box
to sign up for a free 7-day trial so you can start learning for free!
And remember,
if you want to see MORE of these videos, be sure to subscribe to the channel..
–and..
hit the notification bell!
Okay- baii~!
KAREN: Contract- ONE, two..
arch it- THREE..
and-a DOWN..
Soften.. six, now wrap your left,
a-one, up-TWO..
three..
Focus on the energy of your hands.
Yeah- notice the distinction between when we throw,
and we release,
and ESPECIALLY when you're in the air.
[wiggles fingers] Don't forget about these guys..