As a former cheerleader/dancer, I used to embrace putting together routines because I could think of anything in the world and as long as I had two feet, for the most part I could do it. As a pole dancer, putting together a routine has been one of the most challenging things I have done in a while. Its not the lack of ideas that is the problem, it is the abundance of them and having to fit those ideas into boxes that is making this process so hard.
For one, I have changed the song I want to perform to like 5 times…and even though I’ve told myself I am not changing songs again, there are two more songs that have worked their way into my heart. I love music and when I find different rhythms and lyrics that I relate to I want to capture them all the time. Problem is, when I am working on a piece, I fall in love with the choreo, and as you know, not all choreo goes with all music. You can’t twerk to a lyrical piece. I mean you can, but its weird.
The second problem I find myself having is that all of the tricks that I have learned during this journey don’t necessarily translate well into my blocking for my routine. For example, I had a spin combo that I really loved that was super cool, where I whip around after a drop…and now that is probably not gonna happen because the energy it would take to successfully hit that combo mid routine is hit or miss. As a perfectionist- I don’t want to take the chance of a miss.
This is an aerial combo that I would love to put in a routine, but I'm not solid in just yet...so it stays in the practice bin.
The BIGGEST issue that I have is that the stuff I want to put into the routine to make it fabulous is stuff that I can do, but not cleanly. Like leg hangs and inverts in general. And it’s not even that by themselves I couldn’t work at getting them clean…it’s the transition into them that I am shaky with because it would be so far out of my comfort zone. To try and work on this, I have tried to approach this from two ways: one, I have written out a list of skills that I feel comfortable doing regardless of the day. In my life, I have found that writing things down makes things A LOT easier. Actually seeing what skills I can do allows me to plug and play within my constraints. I can actually test things out because I feel more comfortable in the skills I am trying to mesh together. Second, in class or open practice, I try to work on combos to get me moving more fluidly. One of the challenges in choreographing is anticipating endurance for several sequences, so doing more combos allows me to practice and condition my body at the same time. A twofer! So far, it is helping, but, the next challenge becomes trying to create combos that are dynamic to put into my piece.
Here is my skills list through about 2 years of pole. (I had to add some things after I printed this off because I forgot some of the skills I could do, and only remembered them as I was running my routine through my head. Haha!)
*sigh*
The Struggle is Real.
Thoughts on choreographing?