Blog Five - Problems and Solutions within the choreographic process

What problems have you encountered so far through the choreographic process and how have they been resolved?

One problem in rehearsals was pathways and spacing. This occurred within 'the emotions' section in which no one was filling the left half of the stage. We resolved this by having the people travelling to that side including myself space out more, so I adapted my movements to be bigger to travel across the stage more. We also had an issue with pathways in the fourth section the 'bad memory' this problem caused collisions and occurred between Jess, Taylor, Olivia, and myself. This was because I was too far over to the left for the section before and did not have enough time to travel to the other side for the bad memory. To resolve this we changed the formation of the good memory so I swapped positions to be closer to where I needed to travel. Another problem we faced was we never had an outside view as everyone was performing in the piece. For example for one part of the choreography we were divided into two groups, one in the centre and the other spaced around them in a semi-circle, at this point we all felt that both groups dancing at the same time could look overcrowded. Therefore to resolve this we had one person sit out and watch the choreography, it was then suggested the people in the semi-circle should stay on a lower level to keep the main focus on the central group.

Could you develop these resolutions into a plan going forwards? 

For these problems that we have encountered, we discussed how we could think about these problems when choreographing material at home before teaching it in the studio. For instance, thinking about changing pathways to avoid collisions and making time within our sections for a transition into someone else's choreography to reduce taking up unnecessary time during class.

How have you managed your time and how can this be adapted in the future?

Currently we have taken responsibility for choreographing our own individual sections for example, I have chosen to choreograph the split section before the fight and the fight with the inner self. This is to reduce time taken in the lesson and gives everyone a chance to incorporate their choreography. In the future when teaching it is better to teach the choreography with clear counts and refine details later on so the choreography can be completed sooner. Having clear counts also saves time in the cleaning process.