The Casual Dance Teacher's Podcast

Welcome to the Casual Dance Teacher's Podcast. I'm Maia, your host, and today we're talking about some of my favorite games to play and little activities to do with your class when you need to clean up choreography, but the same old, same old is getting a little stale. Let's talk about it.

Welcome back, everyone. So I've mentioned before that we are getting into that time of year where we're starting to work on recital choreography, and we can very easily fall into the trap of running choreography over and over again, and getting a little bit tired of it ourselves, maybe getting our dancers a little bit tired of it without really moving the piece forward from a technical standpoint or an artistic standpoint. So I've developed a number of different games and activities to try to spruce things up a little bit.

I feel like I can always tell when the dancers get to that point where it's not that they don't like the dance or they don't like the choreography, but they've done it so many times and they've spent so much time working on it that they just start to get a little bit bored or a little bit exasperated with doing the same things over and over again. I started out with the same like one or two basic ideas that I kept going to over and over again. And over time, I realized that that was not cutting it and I needed to be a little bit more creative.

So that's where some of these came from. So I'm just going to throw these out brainstorm style. I know we all probably do at some point in the season when we're working on choreography, breaking up the class into two groups and everyone partners up and they watch their partner.

And that gives them an opportunity to watch the steps back and also share some feedback. That's a good one. I got nothing against that.

It gives them a little rest. And again, they can watch and see the choreography, which is always helpful. But first of all, there are certain groups of dancers that I do not trust to give appropriate feedback.

I know that that's something that is a valuable teaching moment to be like, okay, these are ways that you can give feedback in a constructive way. And that's important to teach dancers. So I'm certainly not against doing that.

But there's just certain groups. The dynamic is just not there for me to be like, okay, they're going to be able to do this without feelings getting hurt. And that's where I like to sometimes revert to some other ideas.

Plus, when you have young dancers, partnering them up and having them be able to actually express any kind of feedback that's helpful is pretty tricky. So with younger dancers, especially, I like to do the freeze dance game with their choreography, where I play the music, and they're expected to do their choreography as they would on stage. But I will pause the music periodically, and they have to freeze.

This really helps with making sure that dancers are roughly, you know, depending on how advanced they are, sometimes you got to kind of work with what you got with the little ones, but roughly where they're supposed to be, and roughly with arms and heads and feet and all of that in somewhat the same configuration. So freeze dance is really helpful, especially if you have mirrors that they can then look and you say, okay, look in the mirror, are all of your arms in roughly the same position? Look in the mirror, does everyone have a window that they can see themselves? Because if you can't see yourself in the mirror, the audience can't see you. So freeze dance is really fun, especially for the little ones.

As I get a little bit more advanced, I've also developed a game that I personally call beat the teacher, which sounds very violent and not like something that we would want, but it's beat the teacher as in, it's me against you. The goal for the more advanced students is for them to get all the way from the beginning of their dance to the end, without me stopping the music. So yes, I still use freeze dance for my older dancers, because especially when you're trying to get tight unison, freeze dance is really good for that.

Even if they're your most advanced dancers. But with beat the teacher, I'm stopping the music anytime I see someone out of sync, or anytime that I see someone, you know, weird facial expression, adjust a leotard strap or anything, I will stop the music. Anytime I stop the music, they have to go back and start from the beginning.

Now occasionally, your beginning of your dance, especially if you start teaching it from the beginning might be much cleaner than the later parts. So it might be like you have to go back to the beginning of a certain benchmark that you set in the music. But I try and make it so like, they really don't want to go back to the beginning.

Like there's really high stakes for them to try and get all the way through. So I'm not saying like, oh, you just have to go back 10 seconds and start from there. It's usually like you got to go back to the beginning or at least pretty close to it.

And their goal is to get all the way through and if they get all the way through the entire dance start to finish without me stopping it, then they have beaten the teacher. So they really like that, especially like middle school age, I feel like loves the concept of like coming out victorious over Miss Maya. So I really like giving them that challenge.

And usually I will let them beat the teacher at some point, like they're never going to do the dance perfect, right? As dancers, like even if you're with a professional company, you're never gonna come out perfect where it's like flawless, I have nothing, no notes. But usually, you know, I'll give it to them if it's close enough that they can get all the way through without beating the teacher as long as there's nothing egregious. But it does give me the opportunity to look out for little nitpicky things when we're close enough to recital time that they know the steps, but they got to work on like their performance quality, staying super in unison, clean, all of that.

Another one that all ages seem to really like, especially younger ones, but this one's actually good for the older students, too. I kind of came up with this on a whim one time, so I was just like, out of, I was gonna say something inappropriate, but out of cares to give, we'll say. So I was like, Okay, I just don't have it in me.

So I said, Okay, we're gonna do smile police. Now this one, you do break up into two groups, but even little ones can do this because all they have to do is watch their partner for smiles. If they're not smiling in the dance, then it can be for like, whatever facial expression, but I call it generally smile police.

And you partner up and you're watching your partner and they must smile the whole time. And if they don't, then you have like a little you put your hand up and kind of wave it like smile, please, you have to smile. And it gives them that reminder, kids love this because it's just fun to have that interaction one on one with a partner where you're smiling for somebody as opposed to just like smiling into the great unknown.

And they really do like to challenge each other, but you're not being like critical, right? Because all you're doing is saying like, hey, smile. So that's a really fun one. And then again, as they got older, hopefully with your more advanced dancers, you don't have to partner up just to smile, but you could call it arm police.

And your partner is just watching for a correct placement of the arm. In real time, as you're doing the dance, your partner can put their hand up and wave at you as a reminder if your arm starts to fall a little bit or get out of place. But then at the end, you also have a brief opportunity to share feedback and say, hey, just as a reminder, you're going to want to pick up your arm more at this point in the dance, etc.

Again, when you're getting up into a little bit more advanced dancers that you really want to be nitpicky with, this has been mentioned, first of all, this is not my original idea. This has been mentioned in so many previous episodes, with all of the greats that I've spoken with, okay, I've spoken with so many super talented choreographers and educators with amazing, amazing titles for themselves and their dancers. So don't just take it from me, but all of them recommend using video.

And especially if you can video and have the dancers watch it back in slo-mo or pause it at certain points to check in, hey, were we in unison for that? Let's take it in slo-mo. Let's pause it right here, see if all our legs were at the same height. Doing that right in class, video and then immediately watch it back so they can see is a very valuable tool.

If the dancers need a little break, I'm talking physical or mental. This time of year, it just seems like everyone's going to need a break at some point, right? So this is actually really challenging, but it's a break in sort of that routine of doing the choreography over and over again, how the dancers sit down and just do the arms, even if they're simple arms. That's great for the young kids and it helps them tap into the music more.

Aside from just doing the arms, I also like to have my dancers sit with the music, not just the very first time they're listening to it, but periodically throughout the season, even when they know the whole choreography and it's looking really good. And you're again, just working on nitpicky things, take that step back and have them just sit with the music, close eyes and meditate. Sit with the music and journal, sit with the music and just do the arms or sit with the music and free dance or freely move your arms.

Sit with the music and just challenge them to all. First of all, I would say all face away from each other because they might get uncomfortable. But could you have all the dancers face a different direction? They're not facing anybody, they're facing a wall, but tell them to just listen to the whole piece of music and just react with their face.

Naturally, how does their face move and react when they hear different things in the music? Because especially when you're getting into a little bit more mature dancers, they're typically not going to have a smile just plastered on their face. With younger kids, they can get away with that. But even if it's a very happy and upbeat dance and they're smiling, you don't want that plastered smile.

You want a natural, I'm having fun, I'm having a great time type of smile. So letting them go back to doing free dance and letting them go back to just using their face and like, how do I really feel inside my soul when I hear this music is just as valuable as having them do the steps over and over again. It can help you get to that next level of performance quality.

So you don't always have to be doing the steps over and over to benefit. And you don't always have to have someone watching to benefit, letting them do a little bit of their own thing facing away from each other where there's like no judgment after they've been in like judgment, judgment, judgment, pick apart every little thing zone for many, many weeks can be so helpful. Now thinking more big picture again, not just steps, not just technique, but more big picture with the dance.

I've had groups that have struggled with memorization in the past. And one thing that I felt helped was getting out my old trusty felt board. Talked about that before as well.

I like using a felt board for a variety of different activities and practicing choreography is right up there. So one way that I've done that is this is especially I think valuable for younger kids. Again, they might just be learning shapes and they might just be learning what shapes are and their dance probably does not have a whole bunch of crazy formations and changes in their placement.

They might start in a circle, go to a line, and then end in a scattered group, for example. So making a circle out of felt, a line out of felt, and maybe a rectangle out of felt or a number of dots out of felt and placing those up on the felt board in the order that they do those formations in the dance can be really helpful in reminding them the order of those formations. If you're really feeling ambitious and you have the means, you could use either dots or X's or any kind of shape or even like a felt version of a paper doll, like a physical body cut out where the dancers place themselves up on the felt board in the formation that they're in.

That kind of abstract representation of their placement in space probably isn't going to work for your youngest dancers, but for dancers that are in the phase of learning about spatial representations and up to more advanced dancers where they understand that, having them place whatever it is their shape or their doll up on the felt board in their proper formation is a great reminder for dancers that might learn visually in that way of, okay, this is where I'm supposed to be. And when they get to that formation with their physical body, they're going to be picturing the felt board and remembering to be really intentional about their placement. This next one also might not work for your youngest dancers, but is actually especially valuable for the higher levels in my experience, which is when you get to the phase of choreography where not everything has a name.

There's some, I can just think of so many like TikTok videos that I've seen and things where it's like dancer talk and it's like, right? So we all know what we mean when we say those things. But sometimes it's confusing for dancers when all they're hearing is like, and you go five, six, seven, eight, and you go, and they have a hard time processing it, which is totally understandable. So taking some time, first of all, it's like a fun bonding activity.

And second of all, it can again, help dancers that process in an auditory way, let the group together, come up with silly names for certain moves or certain sequences. You can be like, okay, this section of the dance from one minute to one minute and 30 seconds, maybe there's some through line there where the dancers are in one formation for that entire period of time, or maybe it's like a cross through or something. So let's come up with a name for this section.

Okay, can we come up with a silly name for this move? Can we come up with a silly name for this? And then write that if you have like a whiteboard or, you know, if you can use dry erase markers on the mirror, or if you can write them even on a piece of paper or on a piece of poster board, write down the order of the crazy names that they come and let them be silly and goofy about as long as they're being appropriate, like you can let them come up with whatever you want. But write those down like, okay, first, we do the silly squirrel, and then we go into the flying unicorn. And then we go into the paper plate, you know, whatever it is, it gives them another frame of reference.

And you can keep coming back to that and coming up with those silly names is like a great mnemonic for those that are having trouble with just the muscle memory alone. And maybe that's how they learn. And that's going to give them something to help them memorize.

I think that's all I have for my brainstorm today. I know there's probably a gazillion more out there. So if you could, please join me if you're not already there in the casual dance teachers network on Facebook.

Let's dump some more ideas because I'm sure like I said, there's so much more out there. And there's so much more that we can be doing and sharing with each other, keeping the students really engaged and really excited for recital time. While you're at it, if you haven't already reviewed the podcast, and you could go ahead and leave a review on whatever platform you're listening on, that would be so appreciated.

I really want to make sure that we engage more dance educators too. Because again, when I was a little baby dance teacher, I did not have all of these tools in my tool belt. It took me the past like 10 to 12 years to build up multiple different activities and games to keep my students engaged.

And I wish that I had been a better dance teacher right from the beginning. I mean, I know that's like impossible because you always are going to learn and grow as you go. But if there's a newbie dance teachers out there, or just dance teachers that have gotten stale in their own training or their own ideas or just are wanting more, and I can help them by sharing this podcast, that would really mean the world to me.

And that's really why I do this. So leaving a review is a huge help and not joining the network on Facebook and just sharing the podcast in general is so helpful in helping me fulfill that mission and making sure that every student studying dance out there is getting the best education they possibly can. Now with that, I do want to thank GB mystical for the theme music.

Thank you for listening. And I have a really short and sweet, but I think perfect quote to end out today's episode. This one is from Rob Marshall.

When movement isn't enough, you dance.