Teaching and Practicing

Part of being a good choreographer is being exactly sure of what you are working with, meaning use what you know what will work. For instance, I knew Emily was flexible, so I choreographed the dance in a way that she could show that off. I made the movements of the dance very raw, organic, sharp, and powerful. However, Emily didn't always do them this way. We practiced a lot on making all the moves "bigger" and more impactful. She did not take direction well like I had remembered. She had a bad attitude a lot of the time which made it really hard for me to work and for her to improve. Not only was she lazy, but also very out of shape aerobically. Her skills had improved since I had taught her as expected, but her technique still needed improvement. She also wasn't practicing as much outside of practice as I wanted her to. I had to be hard on her at times to get her to fix what I wanted. Despite all this, we made it through all the practices in one piece. I knew I had prepared an excellent dance for her, she just had to perform it the way it was intended to be. It was in her hands now.