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Putting
The Moves On: Overcoming Choreographer's Block
What to do when creativity fizzles and your muse calls it quits.
Whether you’re a full-time
teacher or choreographer or you merely dabble in dancemaking from
time to time, at some point you’re going to hit a choreographic
roadblock. Making dances comes more easily to some than others, it’s
true. But the occasional block is the great equalizer— whether we
are old pros or novices, we are bound to run into a dry spell now
and then. That’s what Debra, an experienced dance teacher and a
Goldrush Online reader, recently discovered. She teaches at a
private studio and in higher education, where she faces an abundance
of choreographic duties. Her audiences have not noticed, but she
feels she’s gotten stale. So she went to Goldrush readers for
help, asking, “What do other teachers do for inspiration? What
performances do you see? Do you go to special choreography
workshops?”
Several dance teachers
offered sound advice to help Debra out of her choreographer’s block.
Goldrush also invited Tom Ralabate, Trey McIntyre, and Karen
Stokes to contribute their ideas. Ralabate is an associate professor
of dance at the University of Buffalo, a former United States and
North American Latin Ballroom Dance champion, and the national
education chairperson for Dance Masters of America. McIntyre, a
contemporary ballet choreographer, has some 70 ballets to his credit
and holds posts at Houston Ballet, Ballet Memphis, and The
Washington Ballet. Stokes teaches at the University of Houston and
choreographs for her own company, Travesty.
See More Dance
Several contributors
suggested that when we get stuck in our tracks we should look to our
mentors. Who inspired us to love dance? Whom do we admire and want
to emulate? What is it about watching our favorite choreographer
that loosens those squeaky, creative wheels? Sometimes seeing the
experts at work can stoke the fire and get us back on track.
Rolann Owens, owner and
director of Rolann’s School of the
Pam Rowen, a teacher at
Starlight Dance Studio in Scottsburg, IN , finds that Dance Masters
workshops do the trick. She draws creative fuel from attending L.A.
Dance Magic and Showstoppers competitions, along with watching her
favorite choreographers, Frank Hatchett, Charles Kelley, and Cathy
Roe. “For me it is a combination of things. I attend three workshops
and dance competitions a year,” says Rowen. “I also purchase a new
video or DVD every three months and try to see Broadway shows and
dance company performances.”
Debra Befumo of New York
City thinks that what’s important is not just seeing dance, but whom
you see. “I go to every performance I can in the genre [in which] I
am creating. I go out of my way to see emerging companies,” says
Befumo. “That is where the hottest, freshest talent lies. I often go
by myself and think about what I have seen on the way home.” It’s
not always the up-and-coming groups that motivate Befumo; sometimes
she returns to dance legends for ideas. “I also go to performance
libraries and borrow old footage of pioneers in the field,” she
says. “I don’t copy anything; I just enable myself to think of
things in a new way.”
Not everyone agrees that
seeing more dance is always a valid approach. Ralabate says it
depends on timing; if he is looking for new approaches, other
choreographers’ ideas can get in the way. “I do not like to view
dance when I am in the process of developing a new work,” he says.
“For me it becomes a distraction.”
Pay Attention to the
World
The rhythms and sights of
the world around us are ripe with ideas for the taking. Sometimes
the stuff of dance is found not in the studio but in everyday life.
Some people say it’s time to leave the dance world and start paying
attention to the world around us.
George Balanchine, one of
the greatest choreographers of all time, drew from the impressive
American landscape and from his travels across the United States for
his 1954 piece, Western Symphony. “I have crossed the United
States by car some dozen times, have camped in the open air in New
Mexico and Wyoming, in Montana and South Dakota,” he wrote in his
book, 101 Stories of the Great Ballets. “The vast sweep of
the land, the impression of the Rockies and the plains, and the
vision of the men who crossed the mountains and worked the plains,
on foot and on horseback, cannot fail to move any newcomer . . .”
Lisa Pilato agrees with
Balanchine’s open-eyed approach. She opened her own studio at age 20
in Dracut, MA, and has been teaching and choreographing ever since.
She has received several nominations for American Choreographer of
the Year from Rhee Gold’s former company, American Dance Awards, and
is a two-time recipient of the Carol Miller Award (for upholding the
highest standards in the art of dance) from Dance Ovations.
“Choreographer’s block isn’t in your mind, it’s in your eyes. Open
them,” she says. “I watch dance performances, look at art work, take
my worst day and write my feelings down in a book. Even headlines in
a newspaper lend ideas. I look around at everything.”
Jennifer Chin, owner of
Dance it Up in Hamilton, NJ, likes to think outside the box when it
comes to generating new ideas. “When I hit a choreographer’s block I
take inspiration from everywhere—from kids playing basketball,
jumping rope, or even people walking in the park or picking flowers
for more lyrical pieces,” she says. When you least expect it,
something from the everyday world can catch your eye. Chin advises
getting out of the house. Go to the park, the zoo, anywhere where
there are people to watch. “Two young children spinning each other
might spark something.” Chin takes movements from real life and adds
something of her own to spice up her dances.
Trey McIntyre always liked
making dances more than taking class. “I used to skip class so I
could make up steps in the parking lot,” he says. One day, while
jogging in the park and listening to the Kronos quartet, he saw a
dog chasing a squirrel. Kronos’ saucy Latin melodies seemed to go
perfectly with this wild chase. Later, he funneled the memory into a
new piece called Chasing Squirrel, an athletic romp about the
romantic pursuit.
Ralabate reminds us that
ideas can await us where we least expect them. “Inspiration can come
from most any place. It truly is about connecting to one’s
experiences,” he says. “I remember creating a work about the lighter
side of death and dying by looking at the architectural flow of the
ceiling rafters in my church. Apparently I was not listening to the
homily.”
Stokes, a keen observer of
her urban environment, recently made a dance about Houston, called
Hometown. In a humorous section called “Traffic,” she
explored Houstonians’ wild driving habits with intricate spatial
patterns. She could not have made this dance without letting all the
nuances of Houston penetrate her consciousness.
Watch for Drains on the
Creative Brain
Stress can be an enemy of
creativity. The juices rarely flow when we still have to do the
taxes, order the recital costumes, or deal with a pile of pap
Tune into other potential
stumbling blocks. Stokes finds television counterproductive to the
creative process. “I try to avoid watching TV . While it can be
relaxing at times, it seems to drain me of creative ideas because it
is so easy,” says Stokes. “It doesn’t require me to think or
participate in any way, so I can become very dull both physically
and creatively.”
Fatigue is also difficult
to work through. Look at your schedule. Have you cleared some time
to make a new dance? Good idea. Do you plan to work when you have
just taught three classes in a row? Bad idea. Creativity needs to be
nurtured. If we make time for it, it comes through for us. Stokes
believes activities that wake us up spur us forward. “Any activity
that forces me to interact, actively observe, engage,” says Stokes,
“tends to lead to inspiration, and then to creativity.”
Mix It Up All of us
have deeply ingrained habits in making dances, and they are part of
what makes our work unique. But often we can be in a rut and not
even know it. Do we always start on stage left? Do we prefer the
same kind of music? Have we slipped into a formula as a kind of
default mode? It may be time to shake it up a bit. Every now and
then we should sit down and scrutinize our work. Is it all starting
to look alike?
Experimenting with music
is one way to stimulate the imagination. Changing the music from
what we normally gravitate to can change the way we think about
movement. “To make a piece more interesting I sometimes mix music,”
says Chin. “That way you have a change of tempo, and sometimes that
little bit of change spices up the whole piece and gets your brain
working.”
Ralabate suggests using
simple techniques to stimulate thinking differently. “Take your
usual warm-ups, exercises, and progressions across the floor and use
some basic choreographic devices such as canon, shifts in lines of
direction, or mirroring,” he advises.
McIntyre describes his
pre-production time as very freeform. “My costume designer, Sandra
Woodall, calls me ‘the archeologist’ because preparing for a ballet
is a bit like excavating,” he says. “I start off with conversations,
with myself and others, about things that may or may not relate
directly to the piece, and see what associations they might bring
up.” McIntyre draws from what he calls his “treasure chest of
inspiration,” which may include fabric swatches, photos, and various
pieces of music.
Erica Dove, a teacher at
Toby’s School of Dance in Richardson TX, who has 20 years of
experience, finds that improvisation is a great tool for rethinking
how things go together. “Every once and a while, put on different
music with your students and have them improvise,” says Dove. “See
what they relate to, or even have them bring in their own music. You
will be amazed at the ideas you get by sitting back and watching
them create.”
Stokes uses simple
composition exercises to let new ideas creep in. “I create a very
simple movement phrase, then I use craft manipulations to turn it
inside out, to expand and develop the phrase,” she says. “I have a
pretty wide array of tools to draw from, ranging from improvisation
to more formal manipulations like inversion and retrograde.”
Learn Something New
In life, we alternate
between periods of learning and periods of doing. Sometimes when we
have been heavy on the “doing” end, it’s time to become a student
again. Attending classes and workshops is an obvious way to renew,
but it’s up to us to clear our schedules and make room for learning
opportunities. Teachers need to be mindful of burnout and know when
to refill the creative coffers.
Chin finds that taking
class is a perfect solution. She regularly attends classes in tap,
jazz, ballet, hip-hop, lyrical, and modern, so she can take a bit of
everything back to the drawing board. “I take classes anywhere and
everywhere,” she says. “They spice things up.”
Breathe and Take a
Break
A choreographic dry spell
every now and then is par for the course. Down time can be key in
working through these p
Ralabate suggests taking a
break as well. “Step away from the work. Give yourself some
incubation time,” he says. “Connect to silence to find some
answers.”
Pilato advises heeding a
weary creative spirit as a sign that we need to do something else
for a while. “When I am stuck I will not choreograph,” says Pilato.
“I liken it to running out of gas; you don’t drive your car when
you’re [on empty]. You go to the gas station to refuel.”
Even great artists experience fallow periods. Perhaps they are reminders that it’s time to do something else and not push the creative engine. Creativity is a natural process that is subject to periods of dormancy. It’s up to us to ride the ebb and flow of the creative river. Recognizing that there is an ebb tide as well as a flood tide will help choreographers bridge those times without feeling defeated or inadequate. And the techniques presented here can help floundering dancemakers jumpstart the creative process. RE005 ©2006, Rhee Gold Co. All rights reserved. |
ers.
Sometimes the simple act of cleaning up a workspace gives renewed
energy to the creative process. Clutter and looming obligations
rarely enhance creativity. Before beginning a new piece, attend to
leftover projects and start on a new dance feeling unencumbered.
