How to execute movement and choreography
Do you ever watch someone dance and get how it's done... but can't seem to execute movement yourself?
In order to execute movement, you have to understand and practice moving your body in different ways.
The better you execute different types of movement, the better you can perform a piece of choreography.
You'll also have more freedom to be creative when you freestyle because your body can actually do the thing you want it to!
Read on to learn more about how to execute movement – the way you want to!
1. Execute movement: Sticking
A "stick" is when you tense up and hold a picture.
To practice this, play a song, and stick a pose on the 1st and 5th counts.
Count it like this:
[STICK] 2, 3, 4, [STICK] 6, 7, 8
2. Execute movement: Hitting
When you flex and loosen your muscles, you are creating a "hitting" effect.
Think about how you'd literally hit something – you put all you power into the move, then let go.
Understand Hitting better: Learn How to Pop (or Hit) With Your Body
Practice how you execute hitting with these tips.
- Hit with the RIGHT amount of energy
- You don't want to be too soft and undersell the move, but you don't want to go TOO full out and overkill it.
- The goal is to become/embody music, not to compete with it!
- Imagine your energy levels as following the pattern of an audio visualizer.
- The louder the sound, the higher the level, and the stronger your hit!
- Be aware of the body part you are hitting with
- Pay close attention to how your body parts feel so you can recreate that movement when you dance.
- Drills to practice hitting can be found here: 7 Exercises To Boost Your Popping Fundamentals From Charles Nguyen (Poreotics)
- Be careful with timing
- Practice your timing by hitting ON the beat, not before or after it.
3. Execute movement: "Milking"
"Milking" is commonly used to describe movement in in-betweens of pictures – the "pathway" between A and B.
Here are a few ways "milking" is used
- At the end of a move, instead of "putting a period" on it by stopping the movement, think of it as a "..."
- You're dragging out that move, to extend its pathway past "B," what would've been the stopping point without the milking.
- Or, you can milk from one picture into a completely new picture.
- To practice this, set 2 poses.
- Every 4 counts, change your position.. but here's the challenge!
- Use a different pathway each time, to slowwwly get your body where it needs to be.
- Think of milking as a change in acceleration (ooh, physics terms!)
- Really, all moves are some sort of slowing down, speeding up, or stopping with your body.
- Milking is just the term for gently stepping on your brakes.
4. Execute movement: Speed control
As mentioned in the previous section, learning how to manipulate your speed is going to play a huge role in shifting dynamics and textures.
To practice speed control, pretend that your arms are hitting a "wall."
But instead of stopping at this wall, that wall is the checkpoint at which you change your speed. Go from fast and hard hitting, to completely "milking."
This variance in speed will help switch up the mood and "textures" of a piece.
These were some basic tips on how to execute movement. The best way to get better at executing movement though, is to do it!
In the next section, we'll apply these execution notes as you start training your fundamentals in different dance styles.
