Lesson 3 - What is your message?
Let’s decide, shall we?
It’s important to know what you want to say with your performance. This information will continue to help guide you through your choreographic decisions. You can keep coming back to “Does this express my message? How so? Would something else express it better?”. As we develop as performers, dancers, artists, we develop an artistic voice and perspective (or we should). The choices we make, the choices we don’t, our communication on stage through our art, it starts to take on characteristics and we develop a reputation.
If you’re not sure what this is, think about how people describe you as an artist/performer. Are you known in your community or by your dance friends for anything? Are you the bubbly one? The high-energy one? The dramatic one? The crazy party one? The sweet and demure one? The technical master? The flashy boomshell? What persona have you taken on? These things are not set in stone, we can evolve them, change them, morph them into something new.
(I used to be a very technically proficient dancer, that was incredibly stoic while performing. Now I don’t think people think stoic when they see me dance ;) but it took me time to develop different aspects of my message as a performer and artist.)
These characteristics refer to your general message and artistic voice, what you are communicating as a whole, regularly as an artist. We want to hone in even more and think about what you want to express for this specific piece. What do you want this piece to communicate to your audience, what impression do you want the audience to have of your performance?
WHO ARE YOU AS AN ARTIST/PERFORMER?
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO COMMUNICATE TO THE AUDIENCE?
WHAT IS YOUR MESSAGE TO YOUR PUBLIC FOR THIS PIECE?
People spend their entire career trying to answer these questions for each project, each performance, every evolution, and then figuring out how they will then convey that message. Thankfully we can narrow it down to this current choreography at hand.
YOU’VE ALREADY ANSWERED THIS QUESTION
Through the creation of the Song Map, the Descriptive Paragraphs, The Mood Board, the questions that you’ve been answering through Lessons 1 & Lesson 2, you’ve already been developing the answer to this very important question. You have all the information, now you just need to look at your work and decide what the general message you’ve been developing is. You can also realize that you want to express a message that your Song Map and/or your Mood Board aren’t really expressing. This is not a bad thing to realize, it’s useful, don’t feel like you failed. You’ve just realized that you want to express something and you are not doing so clearly in your previous creative work. Now we know what you want to communicate, so what would you change about your creative development work so far?
Defining your message does not need to be overthought and it doesn’t need to be overly complicated. You do not need to express something completely nuanced or make a political statement with your work unless you want to. All answers are valid! Everyone's approach to their performance and their art is personal. Something else to consider is what is it that YOU want from this choreography when you perform it? How do you want to feel? How does that relate to your message?
Messages can be as simple as, “I want to share the joy and love that I feel for this piece with my audience”, “I want to express the depth I feel in the music”, “I want to convey the sadness and loss of the song”, “I want to express the musicality nuance and expression of this piece”, “I want to be authentically myself on stage”.
Be specific! It's like doing makeup, you have to pick a focal point that you want to highlight. If you try to highlight every aspect on your face, none of it ends up highlighted, and your message is lost.
CHECK-IN
Looking at the creative work that you’ve developed so far (Song Map, Descriptive Paragraphs, Mood Board, Etc.)
How clear is your message?
MY MESSAGE IS CLEAR! My message is obvious, clear and I see how I want to direct and focus on my piece.
Next Step - If this is where you’re at, move on forward. Think about those textures, emotional and expressive qualities and how you want to start developing them in yoru piece. What improvisation exercises are going to help you develop this? Make a list and keep them handy for when you’re working on your piece.MY MESSAGE IS MIXED… I realize that what I want to communicate isn’t exactly what I’m saying in my Song Map, Mood Board, etc. and I need to find clarity. OR My message isn’t reflective of my material and I need to modify my message to reflect better my creation ideas.
Next Step - If this is where you’re at, take a short work session to clarify the connect between your creation material and your message. How can you make your creation material better reflect what you know you want your message to be? Or, how can you modify your message in order to reflect the creation material? Once you’ve done then, keep your message on hand. Maybe write it on your notebook, one the mirror where you practice, make sure your message is clearly present with you when you’re creating. What improvisation exercises are going to help you express your desired message?MY MESSAGE IS OFF… I realize that I don’t have a message, my message doesn’t reflect my creation material (or vice versa), or I’m not sure what it is that I want to communicate…
Next Step - If this is where you’re at, never fear! Go directly to the Feeling section of your Song Map. What is the overall feeling that the piece gave you initially or that you wrote down that you wanted to express? Looking at your Mood Board is if someone else created it, what does it communicate to you? What is your gut feeling about what you want to communicate in your performance OR what do you want to convey about the music you’ve selected? Try and create a clear statement as your message, that you feel comfortable with and that you feel reflects your true desire about how to represent this piece. THEN think about what improvisation exercises are going to help you express that message? Make a list and keep them handy whenever you start to work on your piece.
MOVEMENT APPLICATION VIDEO
CONVEYING A MESSAGE
now KEEP CREATING!
Now you keep moving forward! You can always refer back to the information and improvisation exercises to get ideas about how to improvise and think your way through this choreography. Small bit-size steps are going to be the key. Remember that this piece is most likely going to look a mess for a while and that’s ok, don’t stress out about it. Clarity and development will come in the coming weeks, in the meantime, keep developing those little sections, and improvising your way into phrases and moving forward.
Use the feedback that you’re given after each video submission, keep working on those sections and also, move forward. A section doesn’t have to be “done” before you move on to something else. Allow your work to evolve bit by bit. You can come back to unfinished or “dysfunctional” sections with new energy and ideas later.
KEEP YOUR MESSAGE PRESENT
It’s important to keep your message present, so let’s do it physically and visually. Write down your message (or messages) on post-its, on the mirror where you practice, on a paper inside your notebook. It’s important that this idea stays present with you. You may have different messages for different sections, write them down. When you have moments of “ugh, I dunno what to do here”, “I don’t know what I want to do here”, “I could do any of these things”, think about your message. Think about which movements, which ideas are express of that message, and make a selection.
FROM A MESSAGE TO A CHOREOGRAPHY - EXPLORE, EXPERIMENT, PLAY
How are you going to use your message to direct and focus your expression to your song? The following are some ideas about how to take your ideas and translate them into exercises or activities that will prioritize your message as you create.
Don’t confine yourself, give yourself the space to express new ideas and do new things (even if you think you don’t like them ;) Emphasis on Explore, Experiment & Play!
IMPROVISATION - Pick specific improvisation exercises that will hone in on your message, and use them to small sections of your music. Record yourself and see what happens. Choose things that you like and then develop around the move/moment, then record again. Look at it critically and ask yourself if the message is being communicated. If not, why? Make those changes.
GESTURES AND LYRICS - Focus on your lyrics and your gestures first and foremost. Improvise around those ideas, making them the principal factor in your phrase.
PRESENTATION & EMOTION - After you have your base combo or phrase, then think about how you integrate the presentation and communication of your message and emotion on top of it like we’ve done in the Movement Application Video. Don’t be afraid to create something as a base, and then apply your “mood” or “personality”, just make you do practice this application and don’t wait until the choreography is done. Video this and see if it’s reflective of your message, if not, how can you change it to communicate it better?
TECHNIQUE & MOVEMENT VOCABULARY - Make a list of specific movements and techniques that express your message. Keep this handy when you’re working and improvising, and return to this list when you’re lost or need inspiration. You can start with one of these movements as you “moment/movement” and then develop a phrase around it, or add it to a base combo/phrase and see how it emphasizes your message.
CONCEPTUAL - If you have an abstract or specific concept that you want to use, focus on this as you improvise. If you want to use traveling to convey confusion, stage blocking to create distance and closeness with your audience, minimalist movements to express (fill in the blank), floorwork to (fill in the blank). Take these conceptual expressions into improvisation exercises and see what they express.
CONSULTATION - Experiment, explore and play with these ideas freely, don’t be afraid to fail. If you’re trying these out and you’re hitting a roadblock, reach out to me! I’m a resource for you to engage with, so if your exploration activities aren’t giving you results, get some feedback and support!
Remember that recording yourself is so so helpful. Record and record again!
FEEDBACK, CRITIQUE
& CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM
Thinking about our theory from this week’s lesson, and the previous 2 lessons, give me feedback on the integration of my Creative Development Ideas translated into my Message, and how that Message is conveyed in movement in this video.
MY MESSAGE: I want to convey the joy and fun that Baladi represents, technically execute a culturally grounded style, while being true to my own artistic voice that is a bit more modern and Western.
Was I able to communicate my message in this video? If yes, how so?
What was present of my message? What was missing?
What suggestions would you give for improvement?
LESSON 3 ASSIGNMENTS
DUE ON TUES/WEDS NOV 15 & 16
These to be turned into amandaroseonline@gmail.com
Your Message - Tell me what your message is by providing a one sentence message. (If you want to describe the message in more detail you can offer a longer descriptive message in addition to your sentence).
Message Clarity - Was your message Clear, Mixed or Off when you started this Lesson? How did you resolve that? What exercises did you decide will help you with message clarity and development?
Video Submission - Using the feedback that you are give from your Lesson 2 submission, keep working on developing your piece based on the guidance you receive and how you want to move forward with the piece. Send a video of the section(s) that you start working on, do not send the entire song, focus on the parts that you’re putting together which should be a few, not many in most cases. You can submit different sections in multiple videos, but not multiple videos of the same section.
Feedback, Critique & Constructive Criticism - Answer the questions and submit.
Private Lesson? - Do you need support? Are you falling behind or trying to catch up? Would you like to get together and troubleshoot your ideas? Schedule a private lesson! (I am quite busy in Feb & March so schedule those private lessons!)