How to make choreography for groups

by Jamie Phalan
(Fremont, California)

So my dance class at school allows us to be a choreographer for 4-6 weeks and teach a group of students a choreography piece. I tried choreographing a dance, but it didn't go well and I ended up switching out of the group. Anyway I want to do a contemporary piece to the song Flower by Kylie Minogue and I was wondering if you could give me any ideas, any stunts? Anything would be fully appreciated. Thank you.

Comments for How to make choreography for groups

Click here to add your own comments

Nov 20, 2013

Maria's reply
by: Maria

Dear Jamie,

As you have chosen your music already, the best thing to start with is analyzing the musical piece. This will let you know how the structure of the choreography will be (i.e. how many parts it may have and the length and dynamic of each part).

After that, an easy way to make group choreography is to first create just one phrase of movement that will be learnt by all dancers. Once everyone knows that phrase, you start making variations of it but using the dancers as a group. For example:

- They all dance the phrase at the same time but each dancer faces towards a different direction.

- Make a canon: dancers start the phrase at different moments in time.

- Distribute the dancers in different shapes over space (lines, circles, triangles, etc...)

- Split the phrase in groups: one group of three dancers dances the first part of the phrase and the rest of the group dances the second part of the phrase. It happens at the same time.

- Make a dialogue: a part of the group daces a fraction of the phrase while the other is in pause, and then switch the roles.

- Coming in and out of the stage: while dancing the phrase, some dancers go out of stage, and then come in and others go out. Play with the number of dancers that do this.

- Etc...

The possibilities of making group variations are endless. If you wish to have more choreographic variety, you can apply this to two or more basic phrases, instead of just one. That way, you'll have more material to play with.

We have a special section about choreography for group at our dance composition page. You may find it useful to read it, to have more ideas. You’ll find that section by scrolling down the following page:

Dance composition

And there’s also a related chat in our forum in which you will find other bibliographic options:

Grammar for group dance

Warm regards,

Maria

Click here to add your own comments

Join in and write your own page! It's easy to do. How? Simply click here to return to Dance Questions About Ideas for your Choreography.

Share this page:

What’s this?

Facebook X WhatsApp

Enjoy this page? You can pay it forward easily. Here's how...

Would you prefer to share this page with others by linking to it?

Click on the HTML link code below.
Copy and paste it, adding a note of your own, into your blog, a Web page, forums, a blog comment, your Facebook account, or anywhere that someone would find this page valuable.