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Choreography: When is My Dance Done?

February 12, 2013 by 4dancers

double edge theatre
“The Grand Parade” by the Double Edge Theatre, Photo by Maria Baranova

by Lauren Warnecke, MS

So you’ve managed to make a dance.  How do you know when it’s really finished?  When your music runs out?  After about 20 minutes?  When you run out of “moves”?

Rule number one in finishing a dance is a narrative arch.  This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to tell a linear story, but each dance must have a clear beginning, middle, and end.  Where you choose to place arches within these sections is largely up to you, but they are important for guiding your audience along the journey.

Once your journey is up, so is your dance, but choreographers often find themselves dissatisfied and wondering if the dance is, in fact, finished. The Grand Parade, created and performed by Double Edge Theatre at The Dance Center of Columbia College last Saturday is a piece with a strong narrative and massive production elements that include a fury of projections, mannequins, rigging for aerial circus arts, and perhaps a few hundred props.  Yet, even with all these things going on, Double Edge’s history of the 20th Century in 55 minutes is a work they insist is not yet done.  Seeing The Grand Parade reinforced my view that no work is ever, really, done.

A colleague of mine once said of her work, “It’s not done, but I’m done with it.”  She viewed a performance as a slightly more formal Works-in-Progress showing… with fancier lights.

I think her point speaks to the idea that dance is a living, evolving art form.  Dances have a transient nature that is unlike, say, visual art.  The Sistine Chapel will always be the Sistine Chapel, but Peptipa’s choreography will be ever changing to a certain degree based on the venue, the dancers, tempo choices, costume, etc.

On a more contemporary note, sometimes it is only through live performance that you truly learn about a piece and see what it needs.  You might figure out that your ending is really awkward and the audience doesn’t know when to clap.  Or you might discover that you want the whole thing to be presented in reverse order to what it is.  The stage is a beautiful place to discover these things, but that’s not to say that everything is stage-worthy…

Ultimately, you’re asking patrons to pay money to watch your product.  Most people wouldn’t fork over $12 to see an unfinished movie, and besides, that’s what free or inexpensive WIPs are for.  But given the inevitable stages of development a dance undergoes, it may need to be presented multiple times, in multiple iterations.  Each iteration that takes to the stage, however, should a finished quality that is worth paying for.  These are a few things I look for in a “finished” dance: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Making Dances Tagged With: choreography, double edge theatre, making dances, petipa, the rockettes, work in progress

4dancers Turns 2

November 24, 2011 by 4dancers

What began for me in November 2009 as a very part-time, “side thing” to practice blogging for my writing site, Freelance-Zone.com has almost become a full-time job. For those of you who don’t know, I started 4dancers on a whim. As I developed the site, to my pleasant surprise, I found that there is a pretty amazing audience of dancers, dance teachers and other dance lovers out there on the web.

When I began the blog, there weren’t as many sites out there dedicated to dance. Nichelle, with the popular site, Dance Advantage  was one of the biggest out there (and still is!), and there were other fun dance blogs I discovered along the way too. I had no idea at the time how rich the online dance world would become. Now I am fortunate enough to be in the good company of sites such as Tights and Tiaras, Tendus Under A Palm Tree and Move. Create. Educate, all of which are featured for 2011 in the new column, “Dance Blog Spotlight”. I’ll be adding to that list in 2012–there are plenty of sites out there to highlight!

Today 4dancers has a network of 2000+ Twitter followers, a stable of 11 amazing Contributors, and because of you–the readers–this blog will be my primary focus in 2012. I’ve found “home” here in the online dance community, and since 4dancers is turning 2 this month, I thought I would take the time at Thanksgiving to say a big thank you to each and every one of you that have supported me and the other writers here along the way.

After all, this site isn’t for me–it’s for you.

In the coming year you can expect to see more interviews with Joffrey ballet members, information on the upcoming documentary “Joffrey-Mavericks of American Dance“, interviews with members of Ballet San Jose and other companies (TBA), more on The Rockettes, teaching tips, products and video. There’s plenty to come!

If there is something in particular you would like to see on the site, leave a comment, or shoot me an e-mail at info (at) catherineltully (dot) com. Over the next month I’ll be putting an editorial calendar together, and I’d be happy to include some things with input from readers.

Once again, my most heartfelt thanks for visiting this site. Have a lovely Thanksgiving holiday, and check in on Monday to see the first interview with a member of Ballet San Jose.

– Catherine

Filed Under: Editorial Tagged With: ballet san jose, dance advantage, dance blogs, dance teachers, dancers, joffrey mavericks of american dance, maria's movers, the joffrey, the rockettes, tights and tiaras

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