I am currently choreographing an amateur youth pantomime of 'The Wizard of Oz'. In the pantomime I have 11 main dances which all require each performer to be versatile in there performance.
How was I going to achieve this?
When I have used Images in the past?
When I was in my last year at Bird College we did a 'Dance project' that allowed us to work with choreographers from the industry. In one of the weeks we used pictures to stimulate ideas for either a storyline to a dance or take something from a image, like a hand gesture that we liked or to recreate that image and incorporate it within the piece we created alongside the choreographers.
My Mood Boards
As I was targeting a wide range of ages I thought the best way for some of them would be to visually see what I was after rather than me explaining it. So one evening I made small mood boards for different dances which are in the pantomime.
Here are some of the Mood Boards I made;
Flying Monkey Dance - It is dark and intense just to reflect the music.
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| Flying Monkey Mood Board |
Munchkin Land Dance - The music is very chaotic and dark. I was looking at making it very Tim Burton esc.
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| Munchkin Land Mood Board |
These two dances are the main ones that need the most performance and facial expressions. I had originally began both of these dances and tried to explain the type of performances but once I had shown the performers the Mood Boards the change in there performance lifted and created such intense dancers with so much character.
I enjoyed working this way and felt it really benefited me as it gave me ideas for the dance choreography as well. I am going to carry on using this method in the future as it helped me in the past and has worked with 'The Wizard of Oz'.
This was really interesting to read, thank you!
ReplyDeleteI've found that when I'm choreographing new routines for myself I use mood boards but I use them mainly for costume ideas: this blog got me thinking about how much I use them for the style of the act as well (as in, how much does the costume influence the act, or the style I'm aiming for influence the costume?)
It was interesting you mentioned that your dancers performance changed when presented with the mood boards? Why do you think that is? Especially with 'The Wizard Of Oz' which is so iconic and most people will know of.
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I am really glad you enjoyed it. Initially my thought for the mood boards was for costume ideas and to show the children/teenagers how they will be costumed, but then I remember my experience with images in the past at college.
ReplyDeleteI think with the age range of the children/young adults (7 years old to 18 years old), some of them understand my verbal description of the way I want the piece to appear through their performance but others struggled. I could see this as I could tell from each persons performance if they understood what I meant to those who didn't.
I feel that the mood boards gave them an idea and images that they could refer back to and try to mimic whilst performing. It gave them all a reason for the dance and they could all take there own interpretations from the images rather than me giving everyone my own interpretation of the images I have chosen. It also gave them a starting point and then allowed them to elaborate or build on from those images, rather than having to strum up an image straight away.
A good example was a rehearsal I did on the 30th October and it was to the song 'No Good Deed' from the Wicked soundtrack.
I gave them the mood board to look at and then gave the story line to the dance, that way they saw the ideas and how dark the piece was but then to have the meaning for the dance along with the storyline which gave them something to think about as there own character whilst dancing.
Once they had learnt the whole dance I would shout words out whilst they were performing to enhance there performance and get more out of them.
Like you said 'The Wizard of Oz' is such an iconic film/musical for them to get each character spot on but for me PERFORMANCE IS EVERYTHING in anything I create! I love to watch someone who draws me in and takes me on a journey as well as be able to be amazing to watch either dancing, singing or acting. As a dance teacher I love technique and think its vital to have but PERFROMANCE is what brings something to life and makes you a believable performer. This is what I teach straight away.
Thank you so much that really made me think and it was great to know you use mood boards too.
When did you begin to use Mood Boards?
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That's really interesting - because we've been looking at Reflective Practice and Learning Styles and things like that I suppose for students who learn through visual aids mood boards are going to be extremely important aren't they?!
DeleteI agree with you about performance being everything - you can have the most technically gifted dancer but if their face is dead then it's going to be boring: in cabaret a lot of the performers are trained dancers but some of the best aren't even from a performance background yet they just have that x-factor, that quality that makes you watch them!
I use mood boards when I'm creating a costume so my designer can get a feel for the sort of thing I'm looking for. It's interesting reading Stephanie's comment below that she too finds that sometimes a mood board can alter your train of thought slightly. I suppose anything in the arts is an ongoing, collaborative process and sometimes the end product may not be what you initially thought it would be when planning!
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ReplyDeleteHi! I love mood boards! It's lovely to read how you both use them too and how you or your students have benefitted! I recently used a mood board to help me with costume ideas. My verbal explanation to the dancers was terrible, and resulting in me confusing them completely with the ideas I had for the costume! So, I created a mood board so they had a visual aid and I was able to show specifically what I had been trying to explain. As you mentioned Dani, doing this did slightly alter and influence the choreography and overall feeling within the piece. If I hadn't have done the mood board, I'm not sure I would have discovered that change in direction so early on in the creative process. I have never used a mood board for my younger students though. I think that it's a fantastic idea to experiment with this, especially to know that it helped aid explanations and understanding within such a big age gap Kirstie. Thank-you for sharing this, I am going to experiment with one of my younger classes in the coming weeks. Steph x
ReplyDeleteGreat example of this work Kirstie - thanks for sharing with us!!!
ReplyDeleteLet me know how your experiment went with your younger students Stephanie I would love to hear how you got on and what the outcome was! x
ReplyDeleteHi Kirstie,
ReplyDeleteToday I rather ambitiously tried a picture mood board with my 3-4 year olds in a baby-ballet class. They loved it! I used different shapes, colours and patterns to help them with their creative movement. The visual aspect of the moodboard allowed them to interact in a different way, and a child who is normally very quiet suddenly became very vocal and eager to demonstrate their new found shapes they could hold with their body. I would absolutely recommend it to a younger audience! Using this reminded me to be aware of different learning styles within my practice. So often I think a quick demonstration and verbal explanation will suffice, but I will now be sure to have visual ques too.
Steph x