1. Stay Calm Panicking, or going into fight or flight causes a concoction of hormones and chemicals to be released into your brain. This mechanism is useful in life or death situations such as if you've just stumbled across a bear. However, when you're in this state, your ability to process, learn and store new information is significantly hindered. This is why, even though it's easier said than done, if you can find a way to make yourself relax, you'll find picking up choreography a lot easier. 2. Focus Similarly to staying calm, you also need to focus on the moment. What thoughts go through your mind when you're trying to pick up a new routine? "What's for lunch?", "I like that girl's dance shorts", "I wonder who will be teaching hip hop later?" This is all excess, unnecessary information taking up space in your brain - space which could be being used for picking up the choreography! Every time you notice yourself thinking something other than the movement, try to let that thought go and focus back on the choreography at hand. This may be difficult at first but becomes easier with practice. Also, be especially wary of self-sabotaging or negative self talk such as "this dance sucks" or "I'll never get this". Not only are these sorts of thoughts wasting brain space - they're also getting you into a negative or even panicked state which is not conducive to learning. 3. Figure out what type of learner you are Knowing how you learn best can help you decide what learning techniques you should put in your tool kit. There are 3 or 4 types of learning styles depending on who you talk to. We all use all of the learning styles, but most people preference one. They are: visual, kinaesthetic, auditory and reading/ writing. If you prefer to learn things visually, you may need to stop and watch the choreography or close your eyes and visualise the movements. If you're kinaesthetic, it might help to do the movements with the choreographer as much as possible. Auditory learners could say the movements out loud as they do them and note how each movement connects to the rhythm/ lyrics of the song. Reading/ writing is a trickier learning style to use in the context of dance but it may help to create a story in your mind that the movement tells or to visualize the words/ names of the movements in your mind as you do them. 4. Break the choreography down into chunks Learning a routine or phrase can seem overwhelming at first but breaking the choreography down into bite sized chunks can make it much more manageable. Try focusing just on the first 8 counts and once you have that, then put it aside and focus on the next 8. For smaller pieces of choreography, such as petit allegro (little jumps), try thinking of the exercise as having 2 halves. It may even help to think of the two halves as a call and response. The first half is like a question that feels unresolved and the second half brings you back to a finishing position. This is often how the ballet songs used in class are structured also. 5. Repeat the choreography to yourself as you learn it Often during a class or audition, the teacher will walk you through a section of choreography and then pause to explain something or point something out. Use that brief pause to quickly mark the choreography for yourself or walk it through in your head. This will consolidate what you've learned, help you get it into your muscle memory and reveal to you what you're still unsure of so that you can pay more attention to that on the next run. If you're in a competitive situation, such as an audition, from a simply numbers perspective, this method gives you an edge over those around you because while they've only done that chorey once, you've now done it twice! These are all useful tips which will make a difference straight away to how quickly you pick up choreography. There are also a number of tricks you can use to get better at picking up chorey over the long term:
6. Exercise your memory at home Writing down the choreography after class helps you think through what you've learned, and consolidate the choreography in your mind so that when you come across similar or the same steps later on you'll be able to process them quicker. This might be particularly useful to do if you learn best by reading/ writing. If you're a kinaesthetic learner, you might prefer to simply mark through what you learnt at home. A visual learner could film themselves doing the choreography and watch it back and an auditory learner could recite the steps to themselves. 7. Expose yourself to different dance styles Learning new movements forces your brain to build new neural pathways. The more you do this, the more new pathways you develop and the easier learning new choreography becomes. Also, a lot of modern styles cross over and borrow from one another. You might find yourself in a hip hop class thinking "this move is quite similar to that thing we did last week in Salsa". The more styles you've experienced, the bigger your vocabulary of movement and the more likely you'll be able to relate what you're learning to something you've already learnt - making it easier to pick up. 8. Hours in Picking up choreography quickly is simply a learned skill and like a lot of learned skills, becoming an expert is largely just a matter of putting in the time. If you see people around in class or auditions who pick up quickly, no matter what tricks and techniques they use, one thing they will all have in common is that they've all put in the hours. This doesn't mean that learning to pick up choreography fast necessarily has to take a lifetime but it does mean that it's a process. While it may take some time, it is a skill which can be learned if you're persistent. But do keep in mind that it is a highly specialized skill so you shouldn't be too hard on yourself if it doesn't come to you overnight. In the mean time, be patient with yourself and remember to enjoy the process!
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AuthorI've been dancing since I was little. I've danced with Melbourne Dance Theatre, Look Left Dance Circus Theatre and Lyrebird Dance Theatre as well as and freelancing around Melbourne as a dancer and circus performer. This blog contains some of the lessons I've learned on my journey and some of the things I wish someone had told me earlier! |