Lesson 8 - Character,
Energy & Projection
We’ll now be taking a look at the characters that we’ll be playing in our pieces, the energy that we put into them physically, and how we project that towards our audience to create the desired effect. All essential aspects to communicating our message.
Character
One of the most important aspects of your performance is your personality and the character you choose to play. Many dancers find performing an outlet to express attitudes and personalities that they don’t normally have the option to express in their day-to-day life, other’s represent a more amplified version of themselves. Choreographies can be used to express love, loss, desire, regret, hatred, sensuality, nostalgia, flirtation among many other options. While picking the right “character” for your piece is important, overall the most important thing is that you have a character. Personality, charisma, emotion, these things are often more important to your public than technique. Most audiences prefer watching a dancer with plenty of charisma and personality but that lacks technique, to a dancer with flawless technique but is lacking personality. Not that I want you to throw technique out the window, but it does need to be balanced with the character you want to portray and the energetic ways that you project it.
Activity 1 - Character Identification
Based on the Message that you decided on in Lesson 3, what personality and character traits do you feel are appropriate for your choreography? Maybe you have multiple characters or personalities that you’ll be bringing to your piece, maybe you have one, maybe it’s one base character that goes through a series of emotions. It’s not important which you have, it’s important that you identify what they are. If you’re not sure (which you probably are by this point) feel free to go back to your song map for a reference of the words and textures that you used, the muses you’ve picked, and how you’ve envisioned your piece.
BE INTENTIONAL
It’s important that this character is defined instead of being a neutral version of how you perform. That’s to say, don’t think “Well, I’ll just perform, and however I normally perform, that’s my character. I don’t know how to define that, it’s just me.” Don’t do this. Why shouldn’t you do this? Because you’re not actually identifying the qualities that you want to express, you’re leaving it up to whatever you might do naturally, it’s not intentional. With some performances, you might get away with it, but if you ever want to pick a personality or a character that isn’t just your natural disposition, you will be at a loss for how to express it. At that, you probably won’t think about how to elevate your “natural” charism and natural personality, you won’t develop a range of expression or control over what is natural to you in the first place.
It’s important to use movements that correlate with your personality and character approach for your choreography. Think about what kind of qualities of movement and feelings are appropriate for your choreography. Beyond this concept, you want to design your choreography to highlight your personality. If you have a dramatic movement, don’t cover your face and turn your body away from the audience unless that’s the message. If you’re trying to be flirtatious you don’t want to spend too much time looking at your own body, you want to give and take away. Think about how you can highlight your character like you would highlight a special move, because its a just as important aspect of your presentation.
Optional Activity 1 - Experiment with different Personalities
Pick a section of your choreography and decide on 3 potential personalities/emotions that you could use or explore. Do a run through of the material with each personality separately, film each round and then watch. Which one do you like the most? Is what you’re doing coming across on film? How can you amplify or give nuance to the personality you want to move forward with?
Optional Activity 2 - Sections You’re Unsure About
Repeat the previous activity with sections that are still undefined or that you’re unsatisfied with. Often putting on a personality, picking an emotion can help us see our movement in a different way, or propel us to move in a way that we actually like. Always film yourself and watch. Don’t be afraid to get dramatic, and really push your comfort zone, you’ll probably see cool things happen ;)
Energy & Projection
Now, we need to project and pump energy through the veins of this choreography!
ENERGY IN YOUR BODY
The visual look of each movement and our bodies themselves largely depends on the energy we apply. Just because something is soft or fluid doesn’t mean there’s no force behind it, just because a movement is big doesn’t mean it’s energized! The contraction and release of muscles is extremely important, and the lack of that will have the effect of making your movements look flat. You want the movements to have feeling, energy, life. That life comes from your muscles, your intention, your exertion through your body!
When you see an amazing dancer perform, they’re probably working extremely hard physically to create the visual effect you see, even if it’s not a “hard” move. Just because the move is easy, doesn’t mean they’re not giving 100% to that move through their entire body. We don’t see that because they’re a pro, but sweat doesn’t lie ;)
Dancing a piece full out is always different than how you normally practice. The energy you put into the movements is considerably more, and for that reason, it tends to cause mistakes if you don’t practice like that enough. You tend to put more emphasis into things than you wanted to, you arrive early to steps, you finish early, you over-rotate turns, you add MORE, so its important to control that and practice your choreography with your full energy and projection as much as possible as you’re working through the choreography and once it’s completed. This will help prepare you for what your actual performance will feel and look like.
Energy is also how hard you are working while you’re on stage. After a 4-5 minute performance, if you’ve given it your all, you should be covered with sweat when you step off. This sweat should come from the exertion of putting every ounce of energy and enthusiasm into your performance, not just adrenaline and anxiety from being about to perform. If you’re not breathing hard and sweating hard, you’re probably not dancing at your personal 100%. We all have different levels of technical ability, but everyone has the ability to dance at their own 100% and give it everything.
WHAT DO YOUR ENERGY AND PROJECT SAY ABOUT YOU?
Projection is an extremely important aspect of your performance because the body language you consciously or subconsciously display is communicated to your audience whether or not you are trying. Projection and energy is maybe more easily understood when thinking about superstar performers that pour themselves into their movements and constantly give to the audience.
Examples of types of dancers, the energy and projection types they exude, and the effect on their audience:
The Show Dancer: This dancer is fearless on stage, constantly open to the audience, constantly feeding their energy and emotion into the audience, and occupies their choreography with a tremendous amount of audience connection and confidence.
The Star Quality: This dancer gives their energy on stage, their personality is expressed through their projection and openness to the audience, they can take movements that are seemingly easy and boring and keep you entertained and engaged. This dancer usually also has a unique approach, style, or shtick that is associated with as performers.
The Lacking Confidence: This dancer will not be as comfortable attacking and exuding out their energy to the audience, their energy will be cut off because they lack openness, intention, and projection in their movements. They will look “away” or down often to avoid audience contact or will turn their back to the audience or profile and cut off facial contact.
You probably know dancers like these descriptions, or see parts of yourself in them as well. This short list are just ideas about how dancers can communicate on stage with personality and energy, and how that feeling is communicated to the audience. There are many dancers that don’t fall clearly into one category. Most dancers are neither fully Lacking Confidence/Unprepared nor Show Dancer, most fall somewhere in between. The point of this description is not to judge yourself, or label yourself or another dancer, but to identify the qualities in yourself or others that give them stage presence, energy, and projection that allows them to be strong performers.
Optional Activity 3 - What kind of performer are you?
Think about what qualities you might have as a performer, might not have, or might wish to develop to become a stronger performer. Can you think of any dancers that inspire you? What qualities do they have?
Projection is about sending your message out into the world, it’s about opening your performance up to others fearlessly and vulnerability. Projection is about body language that allows others to receive the messages you are sending without inhibiting the connection by insecurity, lack of confidence, or poor body language.
MOVEMENT APPLICATION VIDEO
FEEDBACK, CRITIQUE
& CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM
Remember to apply the theory from this lesson as well as from all of the other lessons.
Each Feedback video compounds ideas from the previous lessons, so keep that in mind.
QUESTIONS
How are energy and projection used in this video to present the character?
Is anything lacking from the use of energy, projection, and character?
How does Energy, projection and character affect the communication of the message?
LESSON 8 ASSIGNMENTS
DUE ON TUE/WEDS JAN 31 or FEB 1ST
These to be turned into amandaroseonline@gmail.com
Character Concept - Submit a brief paragraph describing your character(s) that you are taking on during your piece.
Energy, Projection, Eye Contact - How do you want to use energy, projection and eye contact in this piece to convey your message?
Video Submission - Send a video of all of the sections of the choreography that you’ve developed. You can treat it like a “Talking Walk Through" and walk and talk through the sections you do not have, and then perform the choreography in the sections that you do have. You can also submit different sections in multiple videos, but not multiple videos of the same section.
Combo of Section for Group Critique In Live Group Session - Prepare to share a section of your current piece that you are working on and have hit a roadblock or want suggestions about. Prepare the video to be edited to include only the part of the choreography you want to share. Explain to your fellow participants what your overall Message is, what your focus is for this section, and what you want help with? We will be sharing in small groups in the next live session.
Feedback, Critique & Constructive Criticism - Answer the questions and submit.