Lights are blue. I see a three-two-three formation. I want the energy to get really gritty and end with a simmer effect.
These are some of the things that go through my mind when I hear a song and instantly can visualize what the end product will look and feel like. Dance is and has always been my primary form of creative expression. I love to choreograph new pieces and since being in the dynamic creative space that is FXT Dance Collective, (Wesleyan’s three student-led and choreographed hip hop teams on campus: Fusion Dance Crew, X-Tacy The Collective and Precision Troupe), my choreographic visions, language and execution have been above what I could ever imagine myself being capable of doing.
In my junior fall in particular, during the semester-long project of producing our annual FXT Showcase, my choreography and creative essence was unstoppable. For the first time ever, I choreographed a 15-person, 3-minute-long piece. The piece, called “Black Panther” after the Lady Leshurr song by the same name, was originally supposed to be a 7-9 person piece max. As directors, when we sorted the team into pieces, there were more team members than spots available in pieces, so I willingly stretched my piece’s vision to accommodate the rest of the team. I definitely had my work cut out from me from then.
Usually when I choreograph for a smaller number of people, it’s much easier for me to visualize and keep everything in my head and for the most part I only have to write things down at the end of teaching so that I can make sure I’m holding myself accountable to my authentic vision: where I want people positioned and who I want in the center at different moments. For a piece this big, there was no way in hell that I was going to be able to manage all of those people in my head, especially because I’m a choreographer who loves visual transitions and choreographs moves that can be blended to create different visual shapes on stage.
For my first rehearsal I focused on getting everyone acclimated to my unpolished teaching style and I taught a 30-second count of choreo to see where individuals’ strengths lay: I was interested not in who got the moves perfect but how the moves felt and looked on my dancers and how confident they appeared in the choreo. This information helped me to craft a starting formation and build my entire piece around that.
After that first rehearsal, I reviewed the video and identified dancers who I felt would not only start the piece off right, but also newer dancers who needed a push to step into their role as a dynamic performer. I crafted the beginning formation to have some dancers that I already knew had strong choreo pickup skills but also decided to test out and center a new member on the team as the person who would start the piece and be in the center. From there, I focused on mapping out the lyrics that would be transitional cues for us to switch formations (I am a very lyrical choreographer) and made little notes to myself in my formation map to remind me which moves that I had already choreographed would be the transitional moves.
Black-PantherThis mapping process helped me so much in rehearsal, as I could be more efficient and make sure that my ideas that were only choreographed on one body in my head, could work for a group of 15 people. When I showed my piece at our team’s final showings, it was immediately decided that my piece in both energy and creativity would be the best to close out the show.
By the end of my performance at our second show, the energy I felt was overwhelmingly positive as the piece came together better than I expected and everybody’s strengths were highlighted. Choreographing for that many people is a colossal challenge, but one that I’m glad that I rose to because it pushed me as a choreographer to think outside the box, be more innovative and more intentional about why I choreograph the way I do. Without my formation mapping and my overly detailed process of writing things out, I would have been a mess that semester and my piece would not look as amazing as it did that fall.
