Ok look so I struggle to bring out my ‘chill’ in my choreography. When I complete my choreography, I’m literally dying because Miss Full-Out-Central over here likes to go 100%… 100% of the time. Oops… NOW I’m a little wiser in my dance career, obviously I learnt over time that this is not the way to go, and making your ‘chill’ look purposely ‘chill’, instead of looking ‘lazy’ is actually an extremely hard but beautiful thing to be able to do.
It will separate your performance from someone else’s in any situation, purely because of your understanding, musicality, control… having a lil ‘chill’ in those quieter moments so you can attack the FULL OUT’s in contrast is how to create those amazing TEXTURE that make us all good ‘uhhhhhhhh’ when we watch an amazing performance.
Sitting in those beats, right in that pocket with the right level of ‘hit’ will change the game people!!
Going hard is fun to watch and powerful yes, but seeing that switch flick in dynamics right in those perfect moments gives me chills! Musicality and understanding at it’s absolute finest! This will make your routine look 10X more exciting, you’ll be taking your audience on a journey and keep them watching, instead of breezing over that same one tone throughout your performance. Know what I mean?
Plus, give you a chance to BREATHE to keep your energy up right until the end. It is OK to BREATHE you know!
So, are you a full out dancer (like me) and you want to improve your textures?
TRY THIS at home with choreography that you have learnt:
- Start with 20% intensity and each time up it by 10% to 100% full out
- Still have all the ingredients within the routine, but dance it at just 20% (e.g. levels, light & shade, performance etc.)
- Film yourself each time so you can clearly see where your minimum and maximum is and get a clearer understanding of your percentages.
- Repeat this until you are up to 100% (9 TIMES)
- You should then have 9 videos doing the same choreography, but increasing the percentage each time (1 at 20%, 1 at 30%, 1 at 40% etc…)
- Watch each video after and look at the difference in percentages then perfect them. You’ll be surprised how different a ‘percentage’ can feel compared to how it looks.
- Do this exercise every day!
Eventually you should be able to learn how your percentages work for your body, what they look like and understand your body much better to make those quick and smart decisions in class. Check out this video to watch what I mean.
PS this can completely work the other way round too, work on getting that energy up by pushing to 100% on camera and asking yourself if that’s really your hardest? Does your ’20%’ look like a clean 20% or does it look tired and messy? There’s a difference! Got questions on this? Come to our classes and try this for yourself. BOOK HERE.