Picking up choreography

[sarahw]

I wonder if anone has any tips about picking up and remembering choreography quickly? My dd feels she is slow at it.

 

She is 14. Has a good academic memory.

 

Any ideas or tips gratefully received! 

[Bluebird22]

Sing the steps in your head! 

[ArucariaBallerina]

I had this problem for a long time, what takes me 2 minutes to remember now took me 2 months (I kid you not) 2 years ago! Just keep practising and focussing, at home and in class. Figure out whether you remember by seeing the choreography, or hearing the choreography... Try to apply the one you find easier! Write down the steps, make a rhyme of song..... Anything that works for you!

[MayKwok]

Some of the things that has worked for me, whether in a class enchainment or variations or rep:

 

Group steps into phrases, and give them names. Take the Bayadere gamzatti variation for example, you've got the opening jumps across, relevés en tournant, grand jeté en avant in attitude. Then balancé attitude turns back on the diagonal. Run to the other corner for diagonal of turns. Then downstage left to start the manége. Etc etc. This way an entire variation is broken down into roughly 6 bits. Easier to remember 6 bits than an overwhelming bunch of steps. You can then zoom out and remember an entire ballet this way.

 

In rehearsal, find the points when you always have a mind blank. Now find a mental cue to help remind yourself what comes next at that point. So when you next rehearse hopefully you'll remember the cue and be able to link the sections with fewer and fewer mind blanks the more time you do it.

 

Play the dance over in your head outside of rehearsal studio. Imagine yourself doing the dance in your head, whether during the commute, in the shower, brushing teeth, last thing before bed etc. Then next time in the studio your brain is better prepared. Especially useful while doing an intensive course when you want to conserve body energy and not want to overdo things, or when injured.

 

When marking something in studio, I find it best to mark only legs but use arms and head full out. Using arms and head full out brings your centre of gravity closer to what it will really be like when danced full out, versus what my teacher calls "marking with chicken arms". When the centre of gravity is right you'll get the "feel" of the choreography more. Sometimes dances are choreographed where the body wants to move naturally so when weight is in the right place you'll stand more of a chance. When the choreography goes NOT the way your body wants to naturally go, you'll find out during the mark and better prepared when you do it for real.

 

Hope this helps. I'll add more when I remember more.

 

S

[Canary]

My tap teacher always said (many, many years ago!), "if you can't say it how can you tell your body to do it".

 

I always play the music saying / singing the steps as you go and then the music will tell you what to do even when nerves kick in,

 

Grade 2 tap routine about 1973 - to the tune from Oliver, you've got to pick a pocket or two, it went like this :-

Tap step, heel, tap step, heel, tap step, ball change, brush, hop step,

repeat,

repeat,

tap spring, tap spring, tap spring, tap spring, tap spring, tap spring (travel) tap spring, tap spring

 

I could actually sing you the whole routine still. 

[TYR]

8 hours ago, select*from said:

Some of the things that has worked for me, whether in a class enchainment or variations or rep:

 

Group steps into phrases, and give them names. Take the Bayadere gamzatti variation for example, you've got the opening jumps across, relevés en tournant, grand jeté en avant in attitude. Then balancé attitude turns back on the diagonal. Run to the other corner for diagonal of turns. Then downstage left to start the manége. Etc etc. This way an entire variation is broken down into roughly 6 bits. Easier to remember 6 bits than an overwhelming bunch of steps. You can then zoom out and remember an entire ballet this way.

 

S

 

This sounds like the cognitive science concept of "tagging and chunking". It's a strategy to get around the fairly strict limit on how many things you can keep in working memory by making each "thing" a pointer (the tag) to a much bigger chunk of memory. I recently read a paper that argued a lot of the difference between elite performers and the rest of us is: bigger chunks, and more use of chunking.

 

Those of us with programming/computer science experience (presumably including you, going by your handle) will of course notice that this is a really common pattern - aggregating stuff into bigger higher-level units is often a performance optimisation for things like virtual memory paging, CPU instruction primitives, filesystem block sizes, Ethernet jumbo frames, TCP maximum transfer units, radio carrier aggregation, probably more stuff I've forgotten.

 

So why don't I use this in class and never forget a combination again? (Actually I kind of did for performance stuff in modern - break at each change of direction or transition onto or off the floor - and that worked reasonably well.)

[Colman]

The problem with this approach (for me at least) is that it requires knowing the precise names of all the steps. ? (Or for that matter, when in class above my pay grade, knowing what the steps are! "We do *what*?")

 

It is, however, helpful to tag the steps to the musical cues. (Hm, maybe marking through without music isn't very helpful at all.)

 

Story helps too: martial arts kata are much easier to remember when you know what your imaginary opponents are meant to be doing and where they are. It provides a high level structure to tag the movement to. 

Edited April 27, 2017 by Colman

[Legseleven]

Definitely saying the steps inside your head, hearing the accompanying music alongside it, for me. It was always how I remembered choreography, even without realising it; I can still say 'pas de basque and heel and peep' and hear the music for the RAD grade 2 Breton dance and do the same for each RAD grade up to the senior grade variation - and for tap. 

( I can also still say the loathsome RAD elementary adage inside my head but it needs dragging...it was never and could never have been a favourite....;) )

[sarahw]

Thank you everyone for those useful tips and for giving such detailed replies. I will pass these onto dd.

[taxi4ballet]

Doing lots of workshops and non-syllabus / free work is the key. You get all sorts of steps thrown at you in different combinations from what you are used to, and loads of experience of having to do that will really help a lot, especially for any auditions.

 

Oh, and I've often seen my dd and others standing watching, and marking the steps with their hands as well as feet. 

Edited April 27, 2017 by taxi4ballet

[MayKwok]

Ooh and a tip I learned from a jazz teacher at a one off jazz workshop.

 

On the occasion where things are technically above you, in a class / audition situation where you have have 15 seconds to work it out before you have to do it, and you realise that you'll have no hope of remembering the steps let alone actually doing it properly...

 

Turn your focus to try to get the directions and up/down. Especially if you are in a large group.

 

If you are the only one moving left when everyone is going right. Or when everyone is crouching down and you're up. You would really stand out, but maybe not for the right reasons...!

[Kate_N]

I'd second doing open classes, or classes with some free work. And "chunking" - there are several combinations which are pretty standard: in the centre, for example, chassé, pas de bourré, pirouette; or chassé, pas de bourré, glissade, big jump. And so on.

 

And yes, Select*from's advice is great: if I'm struggling with petit allegro (or rather, when I struggle, there's no if about it!) I try to get the directions and the rhythm. I try to get the "bigger shape" of the combination, then gradually work back to the details. It also means I don't get in other people's way!

[Bluebird22]

Might not work for your dd, but on the run up to my students last vocational exam, the students picked the exercise they were struggling most with, videoed it and then taught the exercise back to the rest of the class the following week. Some of them found it really helpful, some didn't, think it very much depends on your learning style.  

[sarahw]

Thanks all - keep it coming! 

[TYR]

4 hours ago, Bluebird22 said:

Might not work for your dd, but on the run up to my students last vocational exam, the students picked the exercise they were struggling most with, videoed it and then taught the exercise back to the rest of the class the following week. Some of them found it really helpful, some didn't, think it very much depends on your learning style.  

 

Explaining it back to yourself (or others) is often a great way to learn things - at least I think so.

[Guest]

19 hours ago, taxi4ballet said:

Doing lots of workshops and non-syllabus / free work is the key. You get all sorts of steps thrown at you in different combinations from what you are used to, and loads of experience of having to do that will really help a lot, especially for any auditions.

 

Oh, and I've often seen my dd and others standing watching, and marking the steps with their hands as well as feet. 

Yes my dd said this. Particular favourites have been BRB workshops in current repertoire and UKmaster class in London (14+ years). She also advised watching lots of dance videos and copying them. Oh and free enchainements (? spelling) the more the better. Its about building muscle memory apparently.

[sarahw]

She does a lot of non syllabus already. Watching videos is a good idea...