Lesson 4
Building A Story
Now that you've done the Creation Development portion of the intensive; Song Map, Mood Board, Descriptive Paragraphs, Messaging, Improvisation Focuses, now we move on to build a story. A story isn't just about an imaginable plotline to give you emotional fuel, it's about planning out your piece so that it has a beginning, middle, and end, and that all of this is used effectively to convey your message and your desired artistic perspective.
Have you ever read a book or watched a movie that started off really slow... and just kept going slow...that didn't develop or draw you in... or confused you completely to that point that it stopped being enjoyable? What are the chances you forged on ahead to finish that book or movie? Imagine that book/movie is your performance, what percentage of the audience do you think is going to stay with you to the end without effectively communicating your story/message? Or more importantly, how are you going to effectively convey your message without these development aspects?
All stories, all fables, are communicating a message. As a dancer, you need to use your movements wisely, to make that communication clear, and ACHIEVE a successful TRANSMISSION of your message.
FUNDAMENTAL Sections of A Story
INTRODUCTION
The beginning and introduction to your performance are critical. It's your first impression to your audience, you are setting the stage (figuratively) the pace and the theme for the rest of your performance. We disseminate a lot of information in these first few seconds, just like a movie does in the first 5 minutes. Everything from the environment, the clothing, the energy, the facial expressions, the simple one-liners that are conveyed, they all give us information about who we’re watching and what they’re trying to communicate. We need to do the same thing with our piece.
One important thing to be aware of is that you already do ALL of this, whether or not you realize it, or take control of it. You give a first impression, you set the pace, you set the stage for your personality, you give context for your technical ability, all of it. It is in your best interest to think analytically about what you want to express in these few brief moments because that is everyone’s first impression of you and your piece. By being thoughtful and mindful, you are better able to convey your message through the introduction of your story.
Ask Yourself
“What is the first impression that I want my audience to have of me and of my piece?”
”How can I best set the stage for my message?”
DEVELOPMENT & EVOLUTION
Now that you've established your opening, start into the meat of your message, but don't go full blast. Pace yourself and let repetition and composition help you evolve combos into different dynamics. You want to keep things "dynamic", not "all over the place". You want a piece to feel cohesive. This is the real section of the song when you truly start to elaborate on your message and make a strong case and argument for your point of view.
If the Introduction is the setting of the stage, the development and evolution are the heart of your argument. While your Introduction sets the stage for your message, the Development and Evolution sections are where you make it clear. Use these sections to dig into the nuances and strength of your message. Depending on the message, that can be focused on musicality, lyrics, staging, personality, theatrics, etc.
Ask Yourself
“How am I going to use this section to express my message?”
“How is that different from previous or following sections?”
CLIMAX(ES)
All songs are different, but the climax generally occurs shortly before the conclusion. If your song doesn't have a musical climax, it's your job to create a climax of shorts through physical movement and/or expression of your message. It’s important that your piece builds, escalates, and then concludes. Focuses on creating this dynamic can make the difference in how people enjoy your piece, how you maintain their interest and how your message comes across. Many songs have these elements built into them, think of how this applies to your song specifically, where is the climax? height? build? Does your song have multiple climaxes? This also isn’t uncommon. If your song has a lot of hills and valleys, these hills may be leading you towards climaxes.
This section is important because it's basically the last defense of your message, your final stand so to speak. You want it to be the strongest moment before you enter your conclusion. There are also many different kinds of stories, sometimes the climax and the conclusion happen at the same time, sometimes the climax is very sudden or lasts longer. Sometimes the development and evolution sections lead right into the conclusion, which means you can try to create a feeling of a climax before you conclude with your movement and energy choices.
Ask Yourself
“Is there a natural climax(es) in my song?”
”Does my song build and develop and then conclude?”
“Does it make sense for me to create a climax if there isn’t one built into the song?”
CONCLUSION
This is your moment to tie it all together, make references to your story and bring your message to a close and find a sense of closure for your piece. This is normally a good point to pull from everything you've already done and create a feeling of cohesion, not a feeling of development. You don't wanna pull out a brand new style of movement in the conclusion, this is the moment to reflect on what you've already done and create a cohesive feeling for your story and your audience.
Ask Yourself
“How can you best conclude the message of your piece?”
”What kind of movement and body language best represent the conclusion of my story?”
”How can I create closure for my story?”
VARIATION
Not all songs and art are created or designed equally. If you have a different idea, or a different path, feel free to explore that. This storyline of intro, development, evolution, climax, conclusion is a basic and comment development that will help guide your piece and keep fundamental aspects present while you’re creating. This is not meant to limit you, it’s meant to give you a sense of support to guide your piece towards effective messaging, clear communication, and an energetically engaging performance.
AN EXPRESSION OF ENERGY
Keep in mind that what we’re really talking about it how you express energy through out your piece. High energy, low energy, and how you bring your audience along with you for the ride. Do you want your performance to feel like a sprint? A marathon? A journey with hills and valleys? Think about how you are expressing that use of energy in your pieces by creating that introduction, development, evolution, climaxes, and a sense of conclusion.
Song Map Development Continued
Normally this process of story development is viewed in terms of energy and emotion, which are very important aspects of your performance. But, I want you to give a serious amount of thought about how you would develop a plotline of movement. All too often it is overlooked how and when we relinquish information, and this is a very powerful and important tool. How are you going to use your music and movement vocabulary to purposefully state and convey certain ideas? How are you going to distribute movements throughout your choreography to convey your message in a controlled fashion? Better yet, what movements will you abstain from using or withhold from the audience in order to convey your message? Where's the surprise? If you do your best move in the first minute.... Then what...? Where do you go from there?
I will give an example that is easy to visualize and understand. When you see a burlesque dancer, the majority of the time, their game is hiding and illustrating their body, their personality, etc. At the end of their performance, many finally take off their last bit of clothing, or their bra to reveal pasties. Imagine that same dancer took off that last bit of clothing at the 2nd minute mark and had 3 minutes left to go... The game is up... The illusion and mystery has gone. It's not about the fact that she'll be almost naked, it's the suspense in how she makes you wait while she's getting to that point, toying with you and drawing you in, and that's a well developed plot up to a climax which is her reveal. While this is a completely different style of dance, think about how that applies to performance in general, storytelling and plot development.
ACTIVITY - SONG MAP CONTINUED
You can add information to your song map as is or you can add another column for Vocabulary To Use and Vocabulary Not to Use. Think about what it is that you want to show as you go through the piece. Are there any flashy or special movements? Are there any styles that you want to stay away from until later? Ex. I’m going to safe Ooey Gooey movements for the Accordion section.
Vocabulary to Use, Vocabulary to Not Use & Context
Vocabulary to Use (OR add to Types of Moves): in this section, write the specific movement vocabulary you want to use in a section. You don’t have to have an issue for each section, but if you have a couple of moves or ideas that are specific, reference them.
Vocabulary to Not Use (OR add to Notes): in this section, write the movements that you are going to avoid, withhold, abstain from.
Again, you don’t have to know this for every section, but you can think about which sections you know you want to apply this concept to.
Context: Here I want you to write WHY. Why are you going to use these moves in this section? Why are you going to abstain from these moves? Why are you going to use this moment to use one of your best or flashiest moves?
This is just an elaboration of this section from the original song map work. This section is very cognitive but can really help you think through your piece and WHY you’re making certain decisions.
TRUST IN YOUR IDEAS AND ABILITY TO RELINQUISH
ENERGY AND MOVES AT THE RIGHT TIME.
MOVEMENT APPLICATION VIDEOs
BUILDING A STORY
Kareaht alfengan - Choreography Example
This is an example of my work that uses the approach of story building as well as the other concepts we’ve discussed so far in this series. This song has a storyline from the lyrics which I largely use as a focus as well as creating and disseminating the energy that I wanted in order to create build, climax, and conclusion.
Introduction - I wanted to make a bang, I wanted people to pay attention to me right away. This was a performance in a big festival in France, I wanted to stand out. Focuses; powerful, charismatic, grab their attention, pull them in immediately.
Development :50 - You can see how I worked through similar movements in these sections. I didn’t add new ideas constantly, but I worked within a framework and played around with it. It feels cohesive and not all over the place. You can still see my focuses expressed in these sections: powerful, charismatic, grab their attention.
Song Map Application 1:22 - In this section, I largely focused on ONLY the Ney musicality and I keep it mainly in my upper body. I kept it in this range, ney and upper body, and the whole section pretty much stays there. This focus makes this section feel slightly different than the other sections which creates diversity and a change in dynamics. This is an example of how I identified the musicality I wanted to represent, and then the movements that I wanted to use with it, and applied it without straying too far.
Lyrics & Gestures 2:00 - In this section, I worked based on gestures first and then added movements that fit well underneath them. My objective was to reflect the story so I made that the focal point by highlighting gestures and expression over movement. I wasn’t afraid to be minimalist, I didn’t want to overpower the vocals.
Evolution 2:51 - In this section, I start to add in new ideas along with previous movements that I’ve already done. Common themes continue; turns, hair, sharp hipwork, and some flashy leg or athletic movements. My personality goes back to how it was in the opening, regardless of the previous emotional section, this is upbeat and I reflect that. I also continue to use lyrical references throughout this section, though if you do not speak Arabic, they would be easy to see as just dance movements that are seamlessly part of the movement vocabulary.
Climax 1:55, 4:30, 5:05 - There are multiple moments of climax throughout the piece which makes sense because a lot of these classic songs are done in parts and each part has its own energetic storyline. I give them all a similar energy but try and increase a bit of intensity and change the dynamics softly as I move forward through the piece. I still use similar movement ideas, turns, hair, large flashy and athletic movements, as well as heave influence from the lyrics to express the moment.
Conclusion 5:05 - The conclusion overlaps with the last climax, it ends on a high intense note. I use similar movements from previous climax sections as well as my movement themes from throughout the piece. I don’t introduce completely new ideas, I evolve the ideas I’ve already presented, giving a sense of cohesion and closure to the piece.
Hopefully, this gives you an idea of how I’ve applied these concepts in my own work and how they reflect in a fully developed piece.
DEVELOPING & EVOLVING A PHRASE
FEEDBACK, CRITIQUE
& CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM
Thinking about our theory from this week’s lesson and give me feedback on the application of this theory into my Baladi piece.
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.
QUESTIONS
Did I control my introduction to my audience? If yes, what impression did I give?
Was I able to develop and evolve material in the “meat” of my message?
Was there a climax? If so, how was it experienced?
Was there a conclusion or closure to the section?
How did my story or lack thereof affect how you as the audience experienced my performance?
LESSON 4 ASSIGNMENTS
DUE ON TUES/WEDS THE 29TH OR 30TH OF NOVEMBER
To be turned into amandaroseonline@gmail.com
Building Your Story - Please describe how you plan to apply the Building a Story approach to your piece. Describe your piece, you can reference the questions in the Theory section of the lesson to describe how you will control and expression the following sections in your piece; Introduction, Development & Evolution, Climax, Conclusion. Add in any additional sections or information you find important.
Song Map Development Continued - You can resubmit your song map with the development from the above activity, or you can simply list out what your ideas are about To Use Vocabulary, Not To Use Vocabulary and Context. You don’t need to have an idea for every section, but a couple of ideas throughout your piece will help you build around them. (Employing the building around a moment/movement approach).
Video Submission - Using the feedback that you have been given up until this point, keep working on developing your piece. You’ve done a lot of Creative Developemnt, now spread your wings and dig into the creation fo your piece. Don’t forget to use improvisation exercises and activities offered throughout the lessons. Send a video of the section(s) that you start working on, focus on the parts that you’re putting together. 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 will be unavailable for the second half of July so keep that in mind for scheduling purposes)