Clean Choreography

By Diane Gudat 

Make your dancers sparkle onstage by emphasizing classroom fundamentals.

You have worked long and hard on a competition routine, and still something is wrong. Why doesn’t your group look as sharp and clean as some of the others? How can you get your dancers to look their best?

The strongest protection against any problem is prevention. Being diligent in the classroom with technique and details will make cleaning competition routines less of a necessity. One of the most important things you can do is to devise choreography that’s consistent with the technical level of the students. Contrary to popular belief, judges do not look for specific skills in order to place a group in high standing. Multiple turns, tricky jumps, and complicated steps done poorly are always a mistake. Choreography that contains clear, clean steps that the students can do well and with confidence is always the best way to present young people onstage.

Where to start?

Start by standardizing the arm positions in the classroom. Teach your students exactly where to place their arms in second position or how to make a perfect high fifth. Define the exact position of the arms in a pirouette. Hyper-extended elbows, lifted shoulders, overly bent elbows, and drooping wrists are problems that can be attacked in the classroom, making their appearance onstage a rarity instead of a given.

The best place to check for these arm details is at the ballet barre, but clarity in all of your students’ classes, from all of your staff, is important. You will, of course, design special arm positions for your choreography, but the arms will always move through these basic positions.

I always ask students to feel their fingernails, to send invisible energy out through the end of their fingers, to stretch their elbows away from each other, and to use the mirrors to check their arm positions and match the other dancers. Showing the students not only how you want the arms to move but exactly where you want them to end is important. Check the path the arms take to their destinations. Many times they will begin and end at the same place, but the path they may travel to get there can vary. Be specific about how the arms move up or down and whether they are open or closed.

Pay close attention to the hands as well. Utilize a wide variety of hand shapes and insist that your students use the correct one. For example, when the hands are on the hip, are the thumbs in front or back? Are the fingers together or apart? Are the elbows held back or pressed forward? When the arms are overhead, specify whether the palms face each other and what the elbows are doing.

Remind the students to place, not throw, their arms into position. Check the position and path of the arms in preparation for leaps and while in the air, so that the audience’s focus remains on the legs. Arms that drop during preparation, or are flung during the leap take the focus away from the work.

Insist that your dancers use energy in their arms and learn to dance with conviction. Students who do not dance at full speed during class and rehearsals can cause problems onstage.

Next, look at your students’ leg positions. Standardize them as well. How wide do you want second position to be? Are the legs completely together or slightly apart? Are the legs and feet parallel or turned out? Parallel turns require a parallel preparation. Turned-out turns require a turned-out preparation. Be specific about where you want the students to place the passé for the turn. Is it parallel or turned out? Is it held at the ankle, calf, knee, or higher? Are the ankle and foot stretched or flexed?

Students that spot together turn together

Do not allow your students to spin! If there are two turns there must be two spots. Remember that a perfect turn has three parts: the preparation, the turn, and the spot. The spot determines where the turn ends. Determine at which point in the turn the entire group should spot. I have my students’ yell, “Spot!” during rehearsal to make sure they are all thinking about it and doing it at the same time.

Bodies that rotate together are the goal. Judges are always much happier with a single turn finished cleanly with a beautiful spot than two or three turns with students hanging on by the skin of their teeth.

The eyes have it

Give specific directions about where the students should direct their gaze. Focal assignments give a clean edge to the choreography. Roaming eyes or inconsistent use of the head makes the group appear confused. The eyes should remain looking forward; direct the entire head so that the eyes don’t appear to roll back or shift side to side. The direction of the dancers’ gaze helps determine where the audience’s eyes will go.

Facial connection

Facial expressions must be as consistent as possible. Overly animated faces are distracting and rarely uniform throughout a group; one or two students who overdo their expressions create a distraction. Define what the students should be doing with their faces. Sit the group down in front of the mirror and design the facial look of the piece. (It should match the tone of the music.) Have an improvisational session with your performance group to define several facial expressions they can use to convey feelings like happiness, sadness, nervousness, anxiety, joy, and hope.

For most work, encourage natural, full-faced smiles. Encourage the students to activate their eyebrows to engage the upper portion of their facial muscles. Students who are together onstage should actually look at each other. Teach them to be comfortable sharing the stage.

Where’s Waldo?

Do not hide your male students. The audience will look for the males wherever you place them. Make sure that their costumes, arms, and hands are appropriate. For the sake of symmetry, if you have only one or a few boys, try to center them in the work regardless of their ability level.

Who’s the boss?

Here’s an important tip: Decide who will be the “boss” of each part of the routine. In order for a group of dancers to work together, they must cooperate and allow the person in the leadership spot in the choreography to be the boss—in other words, we’re talking about teamwork! Dancers should not be allowed to lead the group from the center or back row even if they are the strongest performers.

The boss is in charge of timing and body angles. All the dancers must keep their shoulders and torso on exactly the same diagonal as the boss’; their arms must rise and fall at exactly the same time. All turns are timed off the boss’ preparation. The boss also keeps the energy level up and places the group correctly onstage.

For each segment of the choreography, choose the dancer who cannot see anyone else to be the leader. When the group is facing the corner, the dancer in the front corner is the boss. She cannot see anyone else and therefore must be in charge. When facing front, the center front dancer is in charge. The center dancer in each horizontal (stage right to stage left) line is in charge of keeping the line straight and determining its position onstage. The front dancer in each vertical line (upstage to downstage) is in charge. For moving groups, choose the dancer around whom a line will rotate or formation will center.

In the course of one routine, there will be several bosses. Make it clear who these dancers are and insist that they take responsibility and that the others cooperate. Dancers must cooperate with the boss of each section, particularly in lyric dances, in which each dancer often will feel the music slightly differently, causing the synchronization of the group to be off.

Limit unison dancing

All dancers are built differently and bring different talents and challenges to the stage. Rarely will a large group look clean when doing long sections of a routine in unison. Use a variety of lines and formations to move the dancers around onstage and present them from a variety of different angles.

Layers and levels in your choreography will disguise differences in talent and body size and shapes, plus they’ll keep the work visually exciting. Create contrast between groups by using different levels and tempos. Use canons, have groups move through or around other groups, or splinter dancers off one group and move them into another. All these devices are great ways to keep your audience engaged.

Choose the right costumes

Think long and hard about your costume choices. Students who are not comfortable in their costumes will not perform with confidence. Consider the body type of your entire group as well as the age level and the theme of the dance. The most attractive costume in the catalog could turn into a nightmare on the wrong student and cause a huge distraction.

Get a second opinion

Have another staff member or dance friend critique your routines. Be open to constructive criticism. Listen to your competition tapes and make changes when necessary. Watch videotapes of your students’ performances, by yourself and with them. Make rehearsals positive experiences for your students by offering equal amounts of praise and constructive criticism. Most important, keep winning in perspective by focusing on the consistent improvement of your group, not the outcome of a particular competition.

Photo captions: Diane Gudat cleaning her students' choreography.