Category Archives: choreography

Choreography: Iterations

Aug 2

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On Sunday, I banged out what turned out to be a kind of very rough first draft of the choreography for an upcoming Lyra performance that opens with a bunch of ballet.

I video-ed the initial draft choreography and discovered that, at least for me, video is a really useful tool for the choreographic process. It let me analyze my own dance from an audience perspective (only one: the person sitting at the corner of audience R, heh), which in turn helped me figure out what worked and what needed to change.

Today, I worked the ballet part again, and I think I’ve resolved some of the problems I ran into with the first draft — particularly the excessive repetition and the fact that I’d boringly choreographed everything down the same diagonal and back.

I didn’t record video today, but instead wrote the choreo down by hand. This is progress; I used to have trouble doing that because I couldn’t always figure out what to call intermediate things.

Now I just write “step through in coupé” (or short-hand “step thru coupé) or whatever best describes the action if it doesn’t have a really discrete name.

Also, I no longer get my Eighty-Seven Cardinal Directions of Ballet confused (thanks to Company B), which makes it soooooo much easier to write out the instructions.

I just realized, though, that for some reason I dropped one of my favorite sequences (your traditional:

pique arabesque – chassée – tour jeté – something else

…So maybe I’ll put it back in on the next iteration, with or without the interesting little pivot that kept appending itself to the landing of the tour jeté.

That said, I also added a tombé – pas de bourrée – glissade – Pas de Chat Italien into a balance à la seconde.

~

This iterative process feels very comfortable, which surprises me.

As a choreographer, I’m apparently quite happy to just bang out a very rough initial draft.

By contrast, as a writer, my initial drafts tend to feel pretty finished because I work into the diction and sound and feeling and imagery of the writing so much.

This means that my initial drafts as a writer take foreeeeeeeeevar, while an initial choreographic draft can be accomplished in a few minutes for a short piece (obviously, you’re not going to choreograph a 3-act ballet in 10 minutes, unless each act is like one minute long).

I think we have another Open Fly session tonight, so I might shoot some video of the second draft of my choreography, and possibly also the lyra choreography, if I’m feeling up to it.

Maybe this time I’ll remember to bring an external speaker so I can have video and sound AT THE SAME TIME!!! O.O

I think I will, in time, post my various iterative videos here. I haven’t ported the first two (both first-draft videos, but recorded in two separate phrases) over to the YouTubes yet, though.

~

In other news, yesterday’s rest day went well, and I learned that one of my favorite dancers and instructors is also an incredibly good cook. Like, somehow, in the midst of teaching and rehearsing and generally being amazing, he also found time to make two really good pie crusts from scratch and fill them with amazing savory pies also from scratch.

I already knew that he was a really lovely human being … only, now I’m not so sure that’s accurate.

Specifically I am not entirely sure he’s actually a human being; he might really be a unicorn in elaborate biped drag.

Posted in aerials, balllet, choreography, cirque, performances, video

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Modern Monday, T… I Got Nothin’ For Tuesday

May 17

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Yesterday (Monday) began not-so-well and ended brilliantly.

Modern class was, on average, more or less a wash. I had trouble waking up, and while my floorwork was good, I simply couldn’t remember much of the across-the-floor sequence.

I suspect some of that was sleep- and medication-related. I have been having trouble sleeping for …  well, for reasons that I hope are sorted now via some very blunt communication with our housemate (in summary, “Yes, I sleep that lightly; no, I cannot afford to stay up later at weekends, so Quiet Hours After 10 PM really, really means just that, or I will eat your face, kthxbai). My circadian rhythm had crept back to its natural 2-or-3-AM-is-bedtime pattern, so I finally just knocked back an Ambient on Sunday night.

I got some much-needed sleep, but I don’t think my brain was 100% online until after lunch.

That said, a post-lunch choreography session went really well (once I wrestled technology to the ground, anyway) and produced some useful material — and the extra edition of Killer Class (Mme B subbed for M BeastMode) went brilliantly.

First of all, I did all the freaking turns the right freaking way. There were no backwards turns. There were no just l-plain-failed-to-turns.

I was not channeling Derek. Zoolander.

image

Don't be this guy. (Shamelessly stolen via teh Googs.)

Second, I adaged like a boss.

I was pleased with that, because the strength of my legs is uneven at the moment (though improving every day), which mostly translates to left-supporting-leg balances being wobbly. (Y’all, it is so frustrating to pull off a really long attitude balance on the right, then barely manage one at all on the left because your hip is all loosy-goosy).

Third, I did do part of the petit allegro incorrectly on the last repeat, but only because my brain skipped over the easy part in order to get to the less-easy part.

Also, my left split is back, now that my sacrum is no longer jammed on the opposite side.

Even better, after nearly four hours of dancing, I felt sufficiently tired to sleep without pharmaceutical guidance.

Today, I played on the lyra and got stuck in the silks in Mixed Apparatus Lunch Meeting Class. The silks thing was kind of hilarious. We were practicing figure-8 foot locks one at a time up the fabrics, and (because my legs are super-strong and flexible because ballet) I climbed right up to the ceiling … Where I proceeded, somehow to get my left foot tangled while stepping out of a foot-lock.

At ground level, this is merely embarrassing. You hop around on the free foot as you extract yourself.

Fifteen feet in the air, it’s a little more complicated.

I should simply have put my right for into a foot-lock, but by the time I realized that, I’d been desperately hanging there, alternating between single short-arm hangs, until I’d already exhausted my arms. I was, at that point, freaking out not about the prospect of falling, but about the prospect of being caught by that one tangled foot and breaking or straining something.

My brain was like, “NONONO, WE NEED ALL OUR FEET FOR DANCING.”

So instead I called to Denis for help, and he reached way up and flapped the tail of the silk around until we managed to free my foot.

Silks, you guys. Sometimes, the struggle is really real.

Incidentally, I now enjoy a much healthier sense of empathy towards fishing-industry by-catch.

This miniature disaster was mitigated by a very enjoyable Flexibility & Mobility class tonight — it turned into the equivalent of a knitters’ Stitch-n-Bitch (complete with off-color jokes) as we foam-rolled ourselves into oblivion.

After, in open fly, Denis & I worked on the timings for our performance and ran through the piece several times. I ran mine on both sides, just because — it works well either way, so I can adjust as needed according to how the apparati are set up.

I’m still just really excited about the fact that I can make it through several successive runs of my trapeze routine in a row, even with the timing changes that force me to hold gravity-defying positions for ages.

I’m also happy that I feel confident running my routine on the second-highest of our traps (the ropes on the highest one are too short for the iron cross segment).

FWIW, I’ve now practiced this piece, or sequences from this piece, on four of the five trapezes that are most often rigged in our studio. Woot.

Tomorrow, it’s my usual Killer Class, so I hope the fact that I took my Ambien early will help reduce the duration of the “hangover” effect. Then I’ll be working around the house until it’s time to go to Trapeze class.

Speaking of Ambien, mine has decided that I will sleep now — so I’ll close this here.

Posted in aerials, balllet, choreography, class notes, modern

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Good Days, Bad Days

May 15

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Today, we rang bells for the last time this year. For me, it might be the last time for a while, since next year I will be really drilling down on dance stuff.

We played three pieces, all of which were pretty easy for me with the exception of a small bit of very quicbell-juggling — and even that wasn’t difficult, just less easy.

So we rocked right through the prelude piece (one which, I’ll admit, I could ring in my sleep) without a hitch and came off feeling quite good about ourselves, and I expected the same from the communion piece.

And then we began to ring, and I was startled by a wrong note.

…And then I realized that I was the one playing the wrong note (egads!).

…And then I figured, “Oh, hmm, must’ve swung the wrong hand.”

But when next I rang that note — a G — I swung the correct hand (which was, incidentally, also the right hand).

And then a kind of horror broke through me.

I shifted my bells. Rang again.

Still wrong.

Grabbed the bell that was still on the table. Rang that.

Still wrong.

…And, finally, I just put them all on the table, looked down, and picked them up all over again, in the correct hands.

Needless to say, although my wrong notes somehow managed not to sound too off (my part, in that section, was practically a bagpipe drone), I was flustered. Mortified. Frustrated.

Much the way I felt in class on Saturday, when I dropped in on Essentials because Ms J was teaching and proceeded to dance well enough that my fellow students concluded that I knew what I was doing and that they should just follow me … At which time my brain decided it would be a good plan to start doing the turns on the left side of a very simple combination backwards.

…Thus leading these tender, innocent new dancers into error (seriously, Ms J remarked on that when my group finished).

I knew what was supposed to happen. I even knew how to do the thing that was supposed to happen. I saw the wrong thing happening: and yet, once again, I was forced to watch in horror as my Ballautopilot hosed things up — only, this time, said Ballautopilot generously hosed things up for everyone. (Father forgive me, for I know just what I do, but not how to stop myself doing the wrong thing anyway?)

As such, the lesson of the day for the Essentials class was, “Know the choreography, and the choreography shall set you free. Also, don’t follow that one guy just because he looks like he knows what he’s doing.”

The lesson for me, on the other hand … Eh. I guess, “Sometimes the power steering breaks at the worst time,” or something like that. At least I remained physically committed to my own special variation and made it look good.

My ego is salved (at least where ballet is concerned) by the knowledge that I, too, have in my time been led astray, sometimes by company members who presumably are much better at this stuff than I am :}

But, yeah. Ballautopilot: the struggle is real?

At any rate, it’s good to be dancing again. I shall be doing a great deal of it over the next few weeks in preparation for the Cinci workshop.

So, there you have it. Good and bad days at the same time, sometimes in the very same combination.

~

PS: After my ignominious defeat by the communion piece, we rang the postlude piece like professionals.

Posted in balllet, choreography, class notes

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Modern Monday: Strangely Enough, Injuries Are Distracting

May 9

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I think this might not be as true in an improv setting — but working technique, I really wrestled with it.

There was a lot of, “Can I do this?”

Or, well —”Should I do this?”

Can hasn’t been the problem, generally.

So we really focused a lot of, basically, the falling down part of modern — the safety release, wherein you fall through a roll over a sickled foot  and, amazingly, A) your ankle doesn’t break and B) Agrippina Vaganova does not appear in a cloud of sulphur to drag you away to the place where Bad Ballet Dancers go. Mainly because, let’s face it, she doesn’t countenance modern to begin with.

So I managed both to lay down some impressive bruises on the metatarsophalangeal joints of both my feet and to finally lay down some nice safety releases, even in the ones falling from a standing position, which make my inner Russian completely foam at the mouth.

Beyond that, I couldn’t remember a sequence to save my life today, in part because of the ever-present fear of exacerbating my injury (so confuse — very distraction — wow) and in part because, I dunno, wrong phase of the moon, or what have you.

Sadly, even Modern T eventually caught my Sequence Learning Disorder, and we all got pretty confused.

Fortunately for Modern T and my fellow student, R, however, I had to stop before we really worked the final sequence.

Ah, well.

The afternoon’s choreography session became more like a planning session with dancing, and that was fine. It is really hard to remember to turn off the turnout. On the other hand (other foot?) we percolated some cool stuff that involves one dancer in a more modern style (with strong ballet lineage) partnering another who uses a strictly classical ballet style.

It yields an effect like two people speaking two dialects of the same language, sometimes with great harmony and sometimes with miscommunication — which, in turn, really works for the production we’re hatching.

We also made some programming changes, which is fine. Little by little, we’re creating a thing that is coming to have a shape and a structure. Elements of the actual choreography are beginning to gel, so for the next few sessions I’ll be selecting a couple of pieces of music for each so we can begin to create more detailed sketches.

Some will be a challenge to implement because we have two dancers and not six (or twelve) — but we can begin to lay down paths and shapes, and that will be a good start.

I also blood to regard my current injury not as a frustrating in this process, but as the kind of limitation of uses to challenge one’s self.

I need to think, “Okay, I shouldn’t jump right now — what can I do here instead?”

Tomorrow I’m back.to the aerials studio, though with limitations and with and supervision by my charming PT/husband 🙂

Posted in balllet, choreography, injuries, modern

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Actual Video, Finally

May 8

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So Denis totally shot this last Tuesday, and I am definitely pretty tardy in posting it. We’ve been having some internet connectivity challenges that have made larger uploads (and downloads) difficult.

I think I look pretty tired in this video, as I’d just run through this routine four times in a row, but all of the choreography is there. Next, I’ll work on adding timings (synchronizing the routine to the music) and polishing the movements to add musicality and elan.

That is, once I’m allowed to get back on the trapeze 😛

The voice in the background is Aerial K, one of our instructors, who was working with one of our friends on the lyra.

Update: Oh, and the little thing where I flap my feet to find the bar after coming down from the Iron Cross/Egg/Stag/Switch sequence is pretty hilarious.

Posted in aerials, balllet, choreography, video

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Choreography Workshop #1

Apr 24

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But first, a few thoughts on teaching.

I gave our Sunday class an exercise with temps-lie (in open fourth) today, and they rocked it out.

There are a billion reasons to love and to use temps-lie — it’s great for teaching how to transfer balance, it helps students figure out how to use their feet, it feels dance-y, etc, etc. Today, though, I discovered one that I’d never thought of: it helps you spot students who are struggling with turnout.

Temps-lie in fourth with turnout is an unusual motor pattern.

In parallel, it’s actually a pretty common kind of movement — you’ve probably done something similar balancing yourself on a moving bus, train, or boat, for example, or reaching for something on a high shelf.

In second, even with turnout, it’s still not terribly unfamiliar.

The combination of turnout and open fourth, however, can make for a really challenging kind of movement. Suddenly, a student faces the potentially brand-new problem of shifting weight through their center of mass while continuing to rotate the hips open.

Students who are still developing the ability to maintain turnout from the rotators and intrinsic muscles at the tops of their legs tend to start to turn in, particularly on the leg that’s passing the weight along — that is, in temps-lié avant, the back leg may tend to turn in as the body is carried over the front leg, for example.

Those who are doing a little better but still not quite on top of the turnout problem will tend to roll the arches of their feet as their knees travel out of alignment. Their thighs may not appear to turn in much, but the rolling arches are a dead giveaway. (The turnout issue becomes more readily apparent when you look at these students from the side.)

Hands-on corrections can make a huge difference in both these situations: first, to indicate which muscles a student should activate to keep turnout going; second, to gently guide the movement of the knees so they track correctly.

Some students may initially feel like passing through temps-lié in fourth without rolling in at the knees is impossible, but it’s not (as long as they work within the purview of their natural turnout). Gentle hands-on guidance can usually solve that problem pretty quickly.

Some of our Sunday students are still finding their turnout, period, which is fine. Given that they’ve only been at this a few weeks, for the most part, I think they’re coming along rather swimmingly.

Next: Choreography Workshop #1

Today, most of us who have submitted acts for the Spring Showcase met to discuss our ideas, get a better sense of how getting-to-the-Showcase will proceed, and so forth. Denis brought his printed spreadsheets of our act, which more than one person found impressive. Heck, I’m still impressed.

After the group discussion, we broke out and worked on our pieces. This was the first time I got to try most of the sequenced choreography for my part.

I must say, I’m quite impressed with the work Denis has done: not only do the moves hang together well (there’s only one spot where the transition isn’t essentially automatic, and I worked out a graceful solution today), but there’s a natural coherence to everything. Incidentally, the moves also sync with the music really nicely, which is a bonus, since Denis’ only music-specific concern was trying not to make the whole thing too freaking long.

Evidently, I also look good doing my part of the act, which is nice. There was a conversation going on about my lines that culminated in someone asking me how long I’d been dancing. That was pretty cool 🙂

I ran through the core of my routine about a dozen times or so — enough to really make the choreography start to gel, since I probably won’t be at the aerials studio again until Tuesday.

All told, between dance and trapeze, I spent about two and a half hours doing physical stuff.

For some reason, I seem to be very hungry. Hmm. Wonder how that happened.

Posted in aerials, balllet, choreography

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Momentary Gratitude

Apr 13

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When your brain is wired bipolar-fashion, it’s not always possible to do the whole “attitude of gratitude” thing consistently.

But it does happen, for me, sometimes, and now is one of those moments, so I think it might be good to record here a few specifics, so maybe I can refer back to them later.

So here we go.

I am grateful for the strength and adaptability of my body, which allow me to do amazing things.

I am grateful also for the weaknesses of my body, which keep me humbler and more human than I could be without then.

I am grateful for the path my life is on, as strange and hard as it is sometimes, and for the messengers in my life who remind me that control is an illusion and that not all who wander are lost.

I am grateful for the path my life has taken, through dark places and through bright, because it has brought me here, and here is pretty good.

I am grateful that I am able to feel that way, at least right now.

I’m grateful for the knowledge that gratitude, like everything else, is fleeting and enduring all at once, and for the knowledge that I’ll lose my grip on it, but that’s okay, because I’ll get it back.

I’m grateful for the freedom to be as I am made, and to live this weird, liminal life, even though tomorrow I’ll lyrically complain both about the way I’m made and the life I’m living. That’s okay, too. I’ll get it back.

I’m grateful for having lived long enough now to know that this moment will pass, that harder ones will follow but that these, too, will pass.

I’m grateful fly the burgeoning ability to take both these kinds of moments and turn them into art.

I’m grateful for a life that lets me do so.

Tomorrow I might be ungrateful and irritable. That will be okay. It happens to the best of us.

Today, right now, in this moment, I’m grateful.for these things, and other things, and for all the people who have helped me see.

Posted in choreography, life

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Finally Back On The Silks

Apr 9

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image

One word: Yasssssss!

We got a great explanation today about getting into this inversion (crossback straddle/v inversion).

Sure, you can try to just muscle it up with your legs, but that’s the hard way (and note the word try, here — many, maybe most, can’t actually invert from the upright crossback straddle just by muscling it up).

The — well, let’s be frank — the less hard way (it still requires a fair bit of strength and coordination, but feels pretty easy once you get it) is to use your abs to contract up through the hollow-body position while pushing the poles of the silks away with your hands (which should be quite high).

Basically, you pull your pelvis towards your face using the core muscles, just as if you were doing a head-tail contraction in Modern dance.

I couldn’t do this with any degree of polish before my recent break-for-illness — not because I was weaker (though I was, towards the end), but because I hadn’t grasped the point about using hollow-body to achieve the inversion.

Today, Tall C explained that, and it clicked. Huzzah! Denis didn’t hear her, and still wound up muscling through it with great struggle. A couple classmates and I mentioned the hollow-body part when he came down (we also mentioned it when he was on the silks, but he couldn’t hear us over the sound of his effort, heh).

He’ll get it next time.

Honestly, since I haven’t been doing silks, I expected today’s class to suck — but it was actually awesome.

We also have video in which I — clearly tired — basically mark my way through a bit of choreography and fumble into arabesque at the end. I’ll post it later. Watching it, I was surprised that my transitions didn’t look like complete crap, given that I was pretty cooked and really not even trying.

Anyway, it’s good to be back at it, and I think my newly-reduced schedule will help immensely.

À bientôt, mes amis.

Posted in balllet, choreography, class notes

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Good Things

Apr 7

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I’m still wrestling my freight train, but at the same time, a couple of really good things have happened this week.

First, I’ve been promoted to Trapeze 2,which surprised the heck out of me, since my formal trapeze training has encompassed about two, maybe three months (it took us a while to pick up Trap 1 after we finished Intro). I do feel confident with the Trap 1 material, though, and I can execute most of the skills with quite a bit of polish and finesse. I’ve also gained a lot of strength, which is nice.

Second, we handed in our application for the Spring Showcase tonight. We want to do a tandem dance trapeze act, if the rigging allows — the defining différence being that dance trapeze uses a single point with a pivot, while truly static trapeze is rigged to two points — dance trapeze can freely spin; static can’t. We want to use the spin in our choreography.

The music will be the Spanish Dance from Swan Lake. I’ve got the opening and the end worked out in my head, as well as some of the skills and transitions in the midst.

B. and I also did some good work on the opening to Simon Crane, which is shaping up nicely.

Also, the opening développés are no longer hard. I really will have to try to video some of the choreography — though the opening is written for ten dancers, minimum, so it would have to be an abbreviated version.

Okay, so that’s it for now. Video of the Dueling Trapezes will be forthcoming!

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Again!

It’s almost 11PM. Hello again, Choreographic Muse.

(In other news, amazing day today. In ballet, Ms. T spent basically the whole class working on me, which is both great and a little disconcerting — like, I don’t want other people to feel neglected. I also nailed the longest attitude balance en rèlevé. It just went on forever. At one point I realized I totally pwning the balance, started to wobbly, and corrected myself. WTF, you guys, when did I learn to balance like — oh, yeah, on Monday in Modern T’s amazing class.

At Suspend, awesome Silks class — I did Iron Cross and it was awesome and then I used it at the end of a combo even though it was the harder option — followed by a great conditioning class and an awesome workshop. So there you go.)

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