Choreography: My first experiences

Good evening!

How has your day been? It’s been really sunny again and I had more energy during the afternoon for some reason so I did a full body workout to burn my last bits of energy and I feel so good after the cold shower I just took! Sometimes a really cold shower after sweating is so pleasant and it actually makes you feel how your muscles relax and recover.

Today I’m coming with subject that’s still quite a new thing to me: choreographing.

I've always been interested in choreography and it's actually one of the paths I might take when I'm not able to dance anymore. I think movements can sometimes be even more powerful than words and it's such a beautiful feeling seeing your creativity on the bodies of different dancers and how they can portray your thoughts through movement.

In the last year of the Bachelor education in my academy we have an improvisation exam were we must present a choreography that we’ve done for other persons that are in our class. Last year we had to do this choreographic work as well but we choreographed a solo for ourselves.

Last year I was very lucky and my solo got chosen to go to the official school performance program with some other solos from my classmates and the same can happen this year with our choreographs. But I’m not here to say that I really want my choreography to be chosen or not; I’m here to talk about the process that I’m living this year and how different is it from choreographing for myself.

Picture of my solo "Ell" that I'm dancing 

during this year's performances

Back in Spain, I also had the chance to choreograph my own pieces and present them to do separate performances that would just have the chosen choreographs and that we would represent in different theaters around Catalunya. I got to do a solo and another choreography were I acted and recited a text next to two girls that did a modern choreography. It was a wonderful experience all in all and I also choreographed other things that either I never got to present or were made for other class works out of these performances.

Picture of my first own choreographed solo

"Milonga del Ángel"

When I came to Germany, I’m pretty sure I was one of the only ones that had some experience choreographing for myself and others but I still had a lot to learn! The solo was easier to choreograph as I could put myself as many challenges as I wanted to and also show my personality but this year it has been a whole different story.

I had a music chosen since last summer. I found it browsing through Spotify playlists and when I heard it I knew it would be the one. It evoked me a lot of things and when I showed it to my family they all agreed that it had potential. I usually get inspired by music and then I can build an idea around it depending on what gives me.

The music I chose is this live version of "Omie Wise"

by Eighth Blackbird

This track gave me a feeling of crescendo energy wise. I thought I needed to use it to do a strong piece and that I would need quite a few people. I always wanted to challenge myself a little and during summer I went through choreographing the piece more or less so when I started the year I could rehearse as soon as possible and finish it early so I could have time to clean it properly and also be able to change steps and so on. It all looks fabulous on paper but in real life it might not be that easy.

When we started the year I decided to tell as soon as possible to the people I wanted if they wished to participate in my choreography and luckily they all agreed. I then started rehearsals (maybe I did two) with the idea of having chairs, cool lifts, boys partnering each other, girls partnering each other, etc. I was very much inspired by Ohad Naharin, Cayetano Soto and La Veronal works as a beginning and I think the idea wasn’t bad. But then Karlsruhe rehearsals came and also life issues came as well for me and my choreography members. I’m not saying that’s bad, but it’s something that sometimes we forget and everyone has different timings and goals and as a young choreographer I must respect them and help if possible.

There was a day were I sat down with my group and we talked about the things that were going wrong and I tried my best to solve them. Sometimes sitting down and talking can help you realize things that you maybe weren’t aware at first and it teaches you how to work in the future without having problems and still progress in the creative process.

More problems came and for me they were the worst and probably were the detonator for me to go cray afterwards and lose some motivation. My improvisation teacher said to me that chairs weren’t allowed in the choreography, that I needed to cut the music and that I was probably risking too much by choosing five dancers. I agreed to the no chair situation in the end but that obliged me to change the full choreography almost from the top and I ended up cutting the music although it doesn’t sound as good as it used to. I was very lucky with my group as they picked up the new choreography very fast and they were also quite supportive.

Sneak peaks of my choreography's videos

Today we did a first full run through and I was very glad actually! There’s lots to work on, of course, but for a first run it wasn’t bad at all and although it’s a pretty fast choreography I think they were very solvent and they defend it quite well.

Now what’s left is cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. I’m happy they told me they liked my movement and my idea and that was one of my number one priorities when choreographing: that they really liked what they danced and that they felt comfortable in a new movement flow out of their comfort zone.

I’m excited for what’s to come and I’m sure that they will do an amazing work during the exam and whatever the result is, I’m already more than happy to have worked with them and to do a full five persons choreography for the first time.

Before I forget! My choreography’s title is «Fierce» and it has to do with speaking up for what you think and believe. It’s about freedom of speech and not being scared to get out of limits that society may mark.

I hope you like today’s post and I’ll keep you updated with how everything is going.

I wish you a lovely evening and I’ll see you tomorrow!

Love,

Muriel