Choreographing Dance

15/09/14


Dance choreography
- Use of dynamics
- Stimulus
- Theme
- Choreography devices
- motifs


Main three: Stimulus, motifs and choreography devices

Dance is made up of actions such as jumping or turning some others include types of travel and expansion. Dynamics can also be used to change a piece of choreography for example how slow or fast a certain movement is could effect the visual interruption of the dance, other dynamics such as smooth and light dancing can do this also. Another way dance can changed and adapted is through the use of space whether you're dancing upstage, downstage or in most cases your level can be changed too.
Relationship based dance such as duets, solos, group dancing and trios are all dance techniques which can affect the mood and feel of the play, for example one person could represent a single subject or a feeling like confidence or loneliness. Body parts, props and even the audience can also be used to change the dance.

There is a structure to choreographing a movement motif, first you need the stimulus, the feeling, object, event; the thing the dance is about, then you need to apply motifs and apply choreographic devices such as changing the tempo/speed, repetition, retrograde (backwards) or in canon.

In class we watched a dance called RUSH which had the stimulus of free falling / paragliding, they used tempo/speed effectively alongside levels and canon to make the piece look and resemble free falling as much as possible, repetition was also used to exaggerate the main subject the dance was about.