- Hey friends! I'm actually really really
excited for today's vlog. I feel like I say that for every vlog, but I am excited for all of them. But I've been thinking of
doing this one for a while I just wasn't sure how
to structure it but, today I'm gonna be teaching
you how to choreograph. So, you can be someone who honestly is not really a dancer, or
you just started dancing, or you have been dancing
for 25 years, 20 years like me, but even then, I still get stuck. I've been choreographing for forever and there's still some times when
I just stare in the mirror and I'm like, girl, what are you going to- there's no movement coming into my brain. So there's a couple different techniques and strategies that can help you. So I'm gonna walk you through those today. Okay, so the very first
technique is called a Lyric Study and it's
exactly what it sounds like. You take the lyrics of a
song and you study them. And that can mean you're looking for the meaning behind the lyrics, or, you're just taking the words, literally, exactly how they are, at face value. It kinda just depends on your artistry and the way you wanna express, but I thought we can look
at Go Solo by Tom Rosenthal who I'm obsessed with, shout out Tom. But seriously, his music is beautiful and I used it for my August video with my dancer, Kyleen, and the lyrics, here, I'll show you. Okay, I need to show
you my background first, this is Antony from Queer Eye. Antony, if you're watching, I love you. So much, okay. Anyways. So, lyrical, is literally
what it sounds like, you're focusing on lyrics. Now, the lyrics, in my opinion, give you this beautiful base
to create movement off of. So, the very beginning, he says: "They say it's a matter of time/ "A thousand days and the sun won't shine" So, what I would do with that. Now, "they". What could "they" be? "They" is people, "they" is this like, group of humans, whatever. So maybe you're reaching
out to them, "they". So picture there's a group
of people over there. The next word is "say". So what do you use to talk? You use your mouth. So, "they say", it can
come into your mouth. Right, so you're using the
words to generate movement. "They say it's a matter of time". So we have, reaching out for "they", coming into your mouth on "say", "it's a matter of time". Maybe you go to your watch, right? So, that's kinda the idea,
as you're studying the words and you're letting the words
create movement for you. So, "they say it's a matter of time". We now have "They say it's a matter of time". "A thousand days", so a thousand is a big number, right Bray? - [Bray] Oh yeah. - A big number, so you
wanna reach, and it's a huge, huge, big movement. Does that make sense, guys? So you're interpreting these words, right? "They say it's a matter of time/ "A thousand days", maybe you're in like, I know it's days, as in
like, days, weeks, months, but, maybe it's like
you're in a hazy daisy, so you start to get, maybe, dizzy. "They say it's a matter of time/ "A thousand days" ,
you're a little bit dizzy "and the sun won't shine". So, sun, light, right, we go big. So I'm kinda making the
sun with my arms, okay? Oh my Gosh, what do we have so far? Okay, "They say it's a matter of time/ "A thousand days, and the sun" What were the words? Tom? He says, "won't shine". So, we'll go, okay. Won't shine is kind of like
you're in the dark, right? Well, light's not shining, then it's probably dark around you. So, we'll do this, we'll cover our eyes. And look at that, you
already have a whole phrase of movement just off of
this one line of music. So, "They say it's a matter of time/ "A thousand days and the sun won't shine". Yeah, so that's kinda the
idea of the lyric study. You're just taking the words and you're letting it create this beautiful movement for you. Yay! Okay, now we're on to our
second choreographic technique which is Room Reading. Not Room Raiders, the MTV
show, but Room Reading. This one is super cool
because you can never run out of things. So the idea is that you read the room. What is in the room. So in this room I have some, what are these called, Medicine balls? The little, squishy, exercise balls? Then, you have a door. We have a ladder, we have some lights that are shining. Trophies, a window. So that's kind of the
idea, as you just gather all of these things. Now I know you're like, Auti,
what are you talking about, and what does this have to do with dance? But I promise I'm gonna show you. So, for example, there's a door. How would I close that door? I'd probably hit it, and push it. And that's a movement right there. Okay, then the medicine ball. What do you do on medicine balls? You sit on them, so I
would sit to the floor. So I've now read in the
room, two different objects. So, I hit the door and close it, and I sit on the medicine ball. Now I'm on the floor and, like, okay where do I go? So there's a fan over
there, and fans spin, right? So if I'm on the floor,
what can I do to spin? Maybe I could do a spin
like this to stand up, or maybe I could do a roll. That's kind of a spin, and stand up. So I now read three
different things in the room. Bray, did you like the
spin or the roll better? - [Bray] I like the roll. - The roll, okay, he has spoken. So we go, close the door, punch, sit on the medicine ball,
roll like a fan, stand up. Now, as I'm standing up,
what do I see over there? I see a curtain, so, a
curtain you would push, right? Maybe when I stand up,
I push the curtain open. So, this is super cool
because I'm in one room right now and I just
read 4 different things. I could go to a completely different space and generate completely
different movement. You can either go outside, it doesn't have to just be limited to an indoor space. So, let's put these together. We room read, we room read the door, the medicine balls, the fan and the window. Okay, here we go. And door, medicine ball, and fan and curtain. Yeah, and that's a whole
phrase right there. So you could literally
create even without music, just using different objects and different things that are in the room. Alright, so we're now on to our third choreographic technique, or a C T, I just made that up,
don't use that in class, it's not a real thing. Anyways, it's called the
Retrograding or Retrograde. To be honest, it confuses me sometimes, but the idea is that you're
reversing the movement for exactly where you just came from. So, I'll show you. So I just made up this little phrase, this is the original. Reach, elbow bends, extend an arm, turn, stretch, plié, okay? So that's my version, I'll
show you one more time. Arms reach, elbows
extend, lengthen your arm, turn, plié. Now, the retrograde of that would be, plié, stretch, turn with the arm, back to the elbow, over. So you're essentially
reversing what you just did. Now this is super cool
because it can create this very beautiful through line, this through thread throughout your dance. So, if I'm in this big,
beautiful group piece, and I have my original phrase in, a little bit later in the dance, I could do the retrograde and it's not gonna look exactly the same but it would have some sort of mirroring of that original movement you had in. So it creates cohesion
throughout the whole piece. So I'll show you one more time. Here's my original: reach, elbow, arm, turn, plié. Now the retrograde is plié, stretch, arm, elbow, push down. Now, another idea is to have, if you had maybe two or three dancers, have one of the dancers do the original, whatever your original choreo is, and have the other dancer
do the retrograde of it. So it looks similar but it still looks really different. So this is when you're kind of like, Oh my Gosh, I can't think of anything, but I want something
that would still blend into the piece that I already have, retrograding comes in handy. So, that's another idea. Twit twit! Hello, who am I today. Okay, we are doing the fourth technique, and the fourth technique
is Texture and Imagery. So this is kind of, you really have to use your imagination
and you can't be afraid to look kind of dorky
or to just work through some weird movements. So texture is, like, if
something is prickly, or, maybe something is really smooth. Imagery is, you're creating
images or pictures. Like you're dancing in a cloud, so how would you move if you
were dancing through the air. Or, maybe you're really cold, there's snow around you
and you're shivering. So that's kinda the idea
of Texture and Imagery. I'll show you a couple, 'cause I know it's kind
of an abstract concept. So, I used prickly, right? It's like you haven't shaved
for a couple of weeks, ladies. Prickly, right, so you wouldn't just put your hands down on a cactus, there would be like, oh! That's sharp, that's hurting me, right? Or maybe you hit your elbow on it and you come back, some
things are sharp that way. Another texture is smooth. So, if something is soft,
you probably just wanna graze on it, probably
feels good on your skin, so it's soft, right? Then, you combine those. So you have your prickly, into your soft. Okay, so that's kind of a texture idea. The other one was imagery, right? So this, there are no rights and wrongs with choreography and I think
that's the coolest thing. It's your style, it's your artistry, so don't be afraid to just
kinda push your limits and just go for it. There is one that I love to do and I like to have my dancers coming
from the bar forward, and, I have them pretend
that they're underwater. Okay, so when you're underwater, like you're in a pool, or the ocean, you wanna think about the temperature, you wanna think about other
fish swimming around you, like, are you freaked out. You wanna think about
the weight that water has on your body, like, you
can't just move around the ocean like this, and if you can, that's really cool. But, usually, it's a little
bit more heavy, right? So, imagery. I'm underwater, in a pool,
there's weight on me, maybe I'm cold, maybe
I sink to the bottom, but then come back up,
because I want to live, look out of the water, feel the sun. So it's a little bit more gooey, right? So, let's go through that again. I feel the weight of the
water, I'm a little cold, I sink to the bottom
of the water, come out at the top, and look at the sun. So you can see how you're already creating really cool movement that way. So we can combine some of it. So we have our prickly
texture, into a soft texture, into our water, and we're at the bottom, and we come up at the sun, and then maybe we're cold, led to end. Yeah, so that one's really fun because you can just, there's no limits with your imagination. So that's our forth and final one. Okay guys, I hope that those were helpful, I know how frustrating it can be when you're at the studio,
or in your living room, and you're like, I don't know what to do! So, these are the kinds of techniques that can help you get out
of that choreographic, or choreographer's block. Okay, so something exciting
that we're gonna do is, if you create movement
using these techniques and you post it on your Instagram story, tag me, which is @missauti
and I'll take a look, and I'm gonna repost some of my favorites. So I'm really excited, I would love to see what you guys create using these ideas. So, remember that we have a new dance vlog every single Wednesday and a new choreography video the
last Friday of each month. Love you guys, thank
you so much for watching and I'll see you next week! (bright pop music)
