My how the weekend flies
Nov. 7th, 2005 10:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bethlakshmiWell... got a lot done:
- studied for midterms, finished reading
- face/mouth healing nicely
- Folkwear Flamenco Dress - found the right size (large), got fabric, 2/3 done cutting fabric
- saw![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jezebelpussycat, always pleasure
- did Baby Dolls Practice on Sunday
DIDN'T do a few things I really should have:
- pay bills
- finish Carolingia webpage transition
Planning to do the latter at lunch, and the former after class (bleh), even if it just means I've started. Reminding self that playing with shiny faux silk is super-fun, but I must be a grownup. Bleh.
Got lots of sleep - very important, and lots of friend-time in - also important. Am daunted by the number of people I care about that I HAVEN'T given time to. Sigh. And also that I probably won't do any yoga classes with the November Baby Doll Show flying at me as quickly as it is. Must find a way to balance my current dance classes, and Baby Dolls...
Baby Doll Practice Thoughts
This was our first practice that wasn't tightly scheduled. For Out for Blood, we ran a 3-hour schedule of:
- 10 minutes trickle in
- 20 minutes stretch with historical notes from Miss Mina
- 30 minutes of Miss Mina School for Young Ladies ;) - Mina teaching some moves from classic Burlesque repertoires
- 1 hour of Finale with Hayley Jane
- 1 hour break into the two other group numbers, thankfully they don't share people.
A very clear, very organized agenda. And there's no arguing it's necessity. You can't learn a group number without lots of practice in a group. You CAN work out a solo choreography with little work in a group. So the pre-OFB rehearsals were undoubtedly important.
Now that we are done with the big show, I think we are in a place were we can start to establish norms for being a "troupe", and not a collection of featured dancers. Up to now, solos have been worked on largely alone - with only Scratch or Mina seeing them pre-dress rehearsal (which, in Axis, is the night of). As we have only done 2 Axis shows - pulling from audition peices for show #1 and OFB peices for show #2, dancers have always had the luxury of working more or less without a group dynamic.
So... this practice was kind of interesting. Since it wasn't publicized as "mandatory" and didn't have a very clear schedule - we had about 60% of our troupe attend, and not everyone was particularly sure of what we were doing - two folks arrived w/out music... (one had the music in the car), and it took a bit of staring at one another uncertainly. We eventually established a vague you, then you, then you, paradigm, where each person used the CD player, while the others watched. But it was awfully odd feeling.
Finally my personality intruded. Somewhere between trying to get every second of useful goodness out of my private classes, being an interested and involved member of Anne's troupe, and working on being an involved grad student (helps to keep me awake in class!), I find it nearly impossible to be in a learning/practice setting and not offer commentary. But it was kind of scary... I'm used to having Anne around, who manages to temper criticism into constructive ideas, and serves as a very good moderator, so one person feels overwhelmed by "construction". As I can be pretty critical (I hope I manage to keep it in my own brain), I was worried about not having someone reigning me in.
After the first series was done entirely without commentary and it felt a little weird... I decided to try Anne's model for solo choreography development - I don't know if this is standard, I've only ever done solo choreography work with that gang... Aparna feeds me precise choreographies, and other classes never did solo work at all... Our structure is this:
- We have a generally accepted "front" view in the dance space. Soloist angles herself in light of that direction.
- Non-dancers sit along the wall (taking up minimal space), serving as actual audience.
- Cueing of peice is done as needed (start music before entrance, pre-pose, intro speaking, etc) - of note, choreographies are usually not in "brainstorming" at this point, so at least a partial plan is formed.
- Dance is done, audience tries their best to react in a supportive and appropriate manner - for ME dance, this includes zagareet cheers for very energetic cool climaxes, hisses for sexy/slinky stuff, laughing where it's funny, or other cheers. I think we all actually *try* to enjoy the peice to our utmost - being the easiest audience we can be, we start by assuming we will fall in love with the dancer and the peice. It really helps to make a cautious dancer into a great dancer to have that kind of reverberation.
- When the dance is done, one of two things happens:
- the dancer mentions things she knows she's having trouble with, that can be a variety of things:
- technical move issues
- "space for rent" - lack of ideas on how to fill a verse or so - because Anne encourages movement - even when you are clueless - sometimes it's not clear that the space is still for rent!
- overarching issues - mood, tone, a certain body part or prop causing problems, etc.
- if the dancer has specific issues, usually the response is from the group - not Anne specifically - Anne will usually handle technical drills, and her opinion holds a little more weight, but anyone with a plan is welcome to chime in an enunciate it.
- if there's no actual issues from the dancer, people will usually chime in with:
- stuff they loved
- ideas to improve. It's a very strong norm that we don't say things we "hate" about the peice. We say "you know what would make this even better? Doing this....", and sometimes the dancer will come back with "but not doing that was intentional", at which point, it's usually dropped, unless Anne has a specific thought on why the dancer might want to reconsider... Often, delicate diplomat that she is, Anne can make both choices sound good, or come up with yet another idea that makes the conscious choice even better-looking.
In all cases, there's a lot of group involvement. I find that this shared development approach is extremely helpful. Knowing I'm expected to occasionally render a thought or have an opinion keeps me focused, when I'd be tempted to tune out because I don't have to be "on". And yet, the group feel keeps me from taking over with my admittedly strong personality.
I also tend to learn a lot. In Anne's troupe we have a very wonderful variety of body types, personalities, dance backgrounds and personal styles. Other people's moves don't always suit my taste, or aren't always things I could use - but seeing something I wouldn't choose to do challenges me to see the good parts, and to figure out how to make it better, while keeping it within it's own context. The more I watch, the more I tend to think about how the dance brings out the dancer, and not how the dance does or doesn't suit my own style. Then I really get to think about how this or that technique would make the dance even better. By thinking about it in terms of other dancers, I get to expand beyond what looks great for a big ham like myself, with plenty of hip and boob, long legs and a short waist.
Meandering back to original topic
So... taking that sort of format, I started chiming in on the dancers. I think it worked well - we are all very different in this troupe, too - different body types, different backgrounds, different personalities. And we had very different states of progress. One of us likes a firm choreography, and she's pulling from a peice she's seen, so she's got some parts that are very solid and some that are completely "space for rent". Another has a definite "style" in mind, but is still hashing out how she will do her "character" and move about the stage. A third only just picked the peice, and is feeling a bit lost for moves. So my commentary ended up all sorts of different for each person. It felt kind of weird, as I was the only one offering thoughts. I'm not sure if that's good or bad.
Me? I'm in between, too. For my solo (to "Cuban Pete", from The Mask soundtrack) I have music picked out, and I've heard it a few times, but I need to really learn it. I can improv well enough that you won't know I'm improving, so I think it looks more developed than it is... I'm happily working in a very familiar medium - Salsa moves (yeah, it's a Rhumba, but they won't know the difference) and Middle Eastern dance stuff - easy peasy. But I find myself repeating more than I'd like, and I'm hurting for lack of dress. And I think I want this to be tight... but I might be too pressed for time to be really, really tight. I begin to realize that I'm lacking a key feature I saw in Immodesty Blaize - precision and assurance of hitting that precision correctly. Unfortunately, I do not have the luxury to practice it sufficiently for this... but it is on mind that one of the next steps for me is to work out a piece enough ahead of time to be really solid by show time.
I'm also doing a two person bit with Pinky - our shortest Baby Doll. It's a girl/girl jitterbug to Jump Jivin', slightly funny, definitely fun. We did a bunch of brainstorming. Pinkie is pretty willing to let me take the lead, but she's good about offering ideas, and has some good ones. So... I think it is my job between now and our practice Wed. to develop A Plan so we can get this down pretty firmly.
I have a general idea of perhaps teaching a "Choreography Development" class. There are certainly many ways to develop a choreography - everything from Lynne's spectactular non-symmetric, move to nearly every note, spot on every dime peices, to Safira's "beserker" approach of learn music really well, play with some moves, and ignite with sponatenous fabulousness upon seeing audience. And they can be as much a part of one's personality and mental learning style as they are about the type and style of the dance peice.
But... it seems to me there might be some common threads and some simple techniques that hang around in the intersection between music theory, building an encyclopedia of dance moves, theater, and the general practice of group sharing and critique-ing for any art - that might be useful for a class that is independant of a given style.
Thoughts for an outline:
I - Picking the Music
- where to look for good music
- things to look for in music for a particular goal - rhythm, mood/style, vocal v. instrumental, length, etc.
- styles - a brief look specific to genre (belly dance, burlesque, etc, of what music descriptions mean - like "drum solo", "big band sound", "retro", "arabic pop", etc)
II - Learning the Music
- basics of rhythmn, measures, and key signatures
- music composition & basic terminology
- listening for tracks - horn, percussion, strings, vocals, etc
- breaking down moves and music
III - Building Moves
- Picking moves to go with beats & Building a move encyclopedia
- Ways to build sets - moving from measure to verse
- Stage movement - how to cover space, how to work in various types of space (nightclub, formal stage, theater in the round, etc)
- Overall map of song
- A way to annotate moves (Lakshmi's Anal Retentive Choreography Spreadsheet)
IV - After that
- abhinaya, storytelling, theater tricks
- finer details
- stage presence generalities
- costuming choices, working with your costume
- prepping for a given show, mostly a checklist
- adapting for repetition
- promoting/communicating your peice when you don't have just one promoter
V - Collaboration Techniques - how to share your dance with dancers
- constructive criticism techiques
- things to look for when reviewing another's dance
- things to ask for help with your own dance
- a format for a "dancer's circle"
- ways to learn and communicate about dance
Not sure where the right venue is... this stuff is nothing new to the Dancing Ladies, although we've learned it over time... it's general enough that it could be an SCA class (and probably already has been), it could be done among the Baby Dolls, it could be done in a public venue... if I was willing to really polish it into something formal.
Just something to think about if I'm ever looking for a class to run... It's neat to think that I feel confident enough in my own skills that I might be willing to teach something like this.
- studied for midterms, finished reading
- face/mouth healing nicely
- Folkwear Flamenco Dress - found the right size (large), got fabric, 2/3 done cutting fabric
- saw
jezebelpussycat, always pleasure- did Baby Dolls Practice on Sunday
DIDN'T do a few things I really should have:
- pay bills
- finish Carolingia webpage transition
Planning to do the latter at lunch, and the former after class (bleh), even if it just means I've started. Reminding self that playing with shiny faux silk is super-fun, but I must be a grownup. Bleh.
Got lots of sleep - very important, and lots of friend-time in - also important. Am daunted by the number of people I care about that I HAVEN'T given time to. Sigh. And also that I probably won't do any yoga classes with the November Baby Doll Show flying at me as quickly as it is. Must find a way to balance my current dance classes, and Baby Dolls...
Baby Doll Practice Thoughts
This was our first practice that wasn't tightly scheduled. For Out for Blood, we ran a 3-hour schedule of:
- 10 minutes trickle in
- 20 minutes stretch with historical notes from Miss Mina
- 30 minutes of Miss Mina School for Young Ladies ;) - Mina teaching some moves from classic Burlesque repertoires
- 1 hour of Finale with Hayley Jane
- 1 hour break into the two other group numbers, thankfully they don't share people.
A very clear, very organized agenda. And there's no arguing it's necessity. You can't learn a group number without lots of practice in a group. You CAN work out a solo choreography with little work in a group. So the pre-OFB rehearsals were undoubtedly important.
Now that we are done with the big show, I think we are in a place were we can start to establish norms for being a "troupe", and not a collection of featured dancers. Up to now, solos have been worked on largely alone - with only Scratch or Mina seeing them pre-dress rehearsal (which, in Axis, is the night of). As we have only done 2 Axis shows - pulling from audition peices for show #1 and OFB peices for show #2, dancers have always had the luxury of working more or less without a group dynamic.
So... this practice was kind of interesting. Since it wasn't publicized as "mandatory" and didn't have a very clear schedule - we had about 60% of our troupe attend, and not everyone was particularly sure of what we were doing - two folks arrived w/out music... (one had the music in the car), and it took a bit of staring at one another uncertainly. We eventually established a vague you, then you, then you, paradigm, where each person used the CD player, while the others watched. But it was awfully odd feeling.
Finally my personality intruded. Somewhere between trying to get every second of useful goodness out of my private classes, being an interested and involved member of Anne's troupe, and working on being an involved grad student (helps to keep me awake in class!), I find it nearly impossible to be in a learning/practice setting and not offer commentary. But it was kind of scary... I'm used to having Anne around, who manages to temper criticism into constructive ideas, and serves as a very good moderator, so one person feels overwhelmed by "construction". As I can be pretty critical (I hope I manage to keep it in my own brain), I was worried about not having someone reigning me in.
After the first series was done entirely without commentary and it felt a little weird... I decided to try Anne's model for solo choreography development - I don't know if this is standard, I've only ever done solo choreography work with that gang... Aparna feeds me precise choreographies, and other classes never did solo work at all... Our structure is this:
- We have a generally accepted "front" view in the dance space. Soloist angles herself in light of that direction.
- Non-dancers sit along the wall (taking up minimal space), serving as actual audience.
- Cueing of peice is done as needed (start music before entrance, pre-pose, intro speaking, etc) - of note, choreographies are usually not in "brainstorming" at this point, so at least a partial plan is formed.
- Dance is done, audience tries their best to react in a supportive and appropriate manner - for ME dance, this includes zagareet cheers for very energetic cool climaxes, hisses for sexy/slinky stuff, laughing where it's funny, or other cheers. I think we all actually *try* to enjoy the peice to our utmost - being the easiest audience we can be, we start by assuming we will fall in love with the dancer and the peice. It really helps to make a cautious dancer into a great dancer to have that kind of reverberation.
- When the dance is done, one of two things happens:
- the dancer mentions things she knows she's having trouble with, that can be a variety of things:
- technical move issues
- "space for rent" - lack of ideas on how to fill a verse or so - because Anne encourages movement - even when you are clueless - sometimes it's not clear that the space is still for rent!
- overarching issues - mood, tone, a certain body part or prop causing problems, etc.
- if the dancer has specific issues, usually the response is from the group - not Anne specifically - Anne will usually handle technical drills, and her opinion holds a little more weight, but anyone with a plan is welcome to chime in an enunciate it.
- if there's no actual issues from the dancer, people will usually chime in with:
- stuff they loved
- ideas to improve. It's a very strong norm that we don't say things we "hate" about the peice. We say "you know what would make this even better? Doing this....", and sometimes the dancer will come back with "but not doing that was intentional", at which point, it's usually dropped, unless Anne has a specific thought on why the dancer might want to reconsider... Often, delicate diplomat that she is, Anne can make both choices sound good, or come up with yet another idea that makes the conscious choice even better-looking.
In all cases, there's a lot of group involvement. I find that this shared development approach is extremely helpful. Knowing I'm expected to occasionally render a thought or have an opinion keeps me focused, when I'd be tempted to tune out because I don't have to be "on". And yet, the group feel keeps me from taking over with my admittedly strong personality.
I also tend to learn a lot. In Anne's troupe we have a very wonderful variety of body types, personalities, dance backgrounds and personal styles. Other people's moves don't always suit my taste, or aren't always things I could use - but seeing something I wouldn't choose to do challenges me to see the good parts, and to figure out how to make it better, while keeping it within it's own context. The more I watch, the more I tend to think about how the dance brings out the dancer, and not how the dance does or doesn't suit my own style. Then I really get to think about how this or that technique would make the dance even better. By thinking about it in terms of other dancers, I get to expand beyond what looks great for a big ham like myself, with plenty of hip and boob, long legs and a short waist.
Meandering back to original topic
So... taking that sort of format, I started chiming in on the dancers. I think it worked well - we are all very different in this troupe, too - different body types, different backgrounds, different personalities. And we had very different states of progress. One of us likes a firm choreography, and she's pulling from a peice she's seen, so she's got some parts that are very solid and some that are completely "space for rent". Another has a definite "style" in mind, but is still hashing out how she will do her "character" and move about the stage. A third only just picked the peice, and is feeling a bit lost for moves. So my commentary ended up all sorts of different for each person. It felt kind of weird, as I was the only one offering thoughts. I'm not sure if that's good or bad.
Me? I'm in between, too. For my solo (to "Cuban Pete", from The Mask soundtrack) I have music picked out, and I've heard it a few times, but I need to really learn it. I can improv well enough that you won't know I'm improving, so I think it looks more developed than it is... I'm happily working in a very familiar medium - Salsa moves (yeah, it's a Rhumba, but they won't know the difference) and Middle Eastern dance stuff - easy peasy. But I find myself repeating more than I'd like, and I'm hurting for lack of dress. And I think I want this to be tight... but I might be too pressed for time to be really, really tight. I begin to realize that I'm lacking a key feature I saw in Immodesty Blaize - precision and assurance of hitting that precision correctly. Unfortunately, I do not have the luxury to practice it sufficiently for this... but it is on mind that one of the next steps for me is to work out a piece enough ahead of time to be really solid by show time.
I'm also doing a two person bit with Pinky - our shortest Baby Doll. It's a girl/girl jitterbug to Jump Jivin', slightly funny, definitely fun. We did a bunch of brainstorming. Pinkie is pretty willing to let me take the lead, but she's good about offering ideas, and has some good ones. So... I think it is my job between now and our practice Wed. to develop A Plan so we can get this down pretty firmly.
I have a general idea of perhaps teaching a "Choreography Development" class. There are certainly many ways to develop a choreography - everything from Lynne's spectactular non-symmetric, move to nearly every note, spot on every dime peices, to Safira's "beserker" approach of learn music really well, play with some moves, and ignite with sponatenous fabulousness upon seeing audience. And they can be as much a part of one's personality and mental learning style as they are about the type and style of the dance peice.
But... it seems to me there might be some common threads and some simple techniques that hang around in the intersection between music theory, building an encyclopedia of dance moves, theater, and the general practice of group sharing and critique-ing for any art - that might be useful for a class that is independant of a given style.
Thoughts for an outline:
I - Picking the Music
- where to look for good music
- things to look for in music for a particular goal - rhythm, mood/style, vocal v. instrumental, length, etc.
- styles - a brief look specific to genre (belly dance, burlesque, etc, of what music descriptions mean - like "drum solo", "big band sound", "retro", "arabic pop", etc)
II - Learning the Music
- basics of rhythmn, measures, and key signatures
- music composition & basic terminology
- listening for tracks - horn, percussion, strings, vocals, etc
- breaking down moves and music
III - Building Moves
- Picking moves to go with beats & Building a move encyclopedia
- Ways to build sets - moving from measure to verse
- Stage movement - how to cover space, how to work in various types of space (nightclub, formal stage, theater in the round, etc)
- Overall map of song
- A way to annotate moves (Lakshmi's Anal Retentive Choreography Spreadsheet)
IV - After that
- abhinaya, storytelling, theater tricks
- finer details
- stage presence generalities
- costuming choices, working with your costume
- prepping for a given show, mostly a checklist
- adapting for repetition
- promoting/communicating your peice when you don't have just one promoter
V - Collaboration Techniques - how to share your dance with dancers
- constructive criticism techiques
- things to look for when reviewing another's dance
- things to ask for help with your own dance
- a format for a "dancer's circle"
- ways to learn and communicate about dance
Not sure where the right venue is... this stuff is nothing new to the Dancing Ladies, although we've learned it over time... it's general enough that it could be an SCA class (and probably already has been), it could be done among the Baby Dolls, it could be done in a public venue... if I was willing to really polish it into something formal.
Just something to think about if I'm ever looking for a class to run... It's neat to think that I feel confident enough in my own skills that I might be willing to teach something like this.
