Adventures Under the Sea: Choreographing for Dummies

I've never been a very good dancer, and never thought that I would or even could choreograph a dance. Yet, that is what I have found myself doing lately for Little Mermaid. Working as Kivan's assistant for the show means a lot of different things, but the most surprising and nerve-wracking was that we were in charge of figuring out how kids were going to move onstage for several songs. And that's a bit terrifying. Today we worked on Human Stuff, which is a clownish song danced by Scuttle and three backup seagulls. We started out relatively strong, mostly because the beginning part of the dance is primarily acting based. Yet once we hit the minute mark, we were ready to throw in the towel for the day as we kept hitting wall after creative wall. Hard too. So while we were getting ready to leave to drown our sorrows in Diet Coke and Mcdonalds, we were goofing around as we are prone to do. And that is when we stumbled on this (we think) hilarious step that epitomizes everything seagulls are. And lo and behold, our second wind was found. Even though I know that I'm not on track to choreograph for Broadway, I'm starting to find out that children's theatre is something I can do. What I've stumbled upon are three simple rules. 1:If you can't get the step after three tries, the kids aren't going to be able to. 2: Videotape what you have so you don't forget, because there are many different bad variations floating around your head. and 3: Don't make it serious. Work with serious intent, but trying to make it the best dance ever just ends up clogging your head. We've found so far that the moves that make us freak out because they are so incredibly awesome are the ones that we discovered while we were goofing off or making fun of our complete lack of dance ability. Find your inner child, and the choreography will follow.