Basic Choreographic Techniques: A Guide to Composition

By: Francesca Marie Pedraja

In a nutshell, choreography is the art of making dances and organizing various movements to create order and pattern to produce a fluid motion when executed. The thought of creating your own may be daunting at first, but here are some basic choreographic techniques to aid in the composition of your dance. It will help you add structure and ease the burden of thinking of steps and considering whether they go well together or how you would execute them. Applying these techniques can also add flavor and variety to your dance without you having to try that hard, effortlessly coming off as a seasoned dancer.

Before we dive into it, let me first share my experience utilizing these techniques when the time came for me to develop my choreography. Naturally, I felt overwhelmed with the idea of choreographing a dance for myself and having to incorporate the basic choreographic techniques along with the jazz dance steps. Still, when I started brainstorming on how I would go about it, I began to realize that it was not so hard after all. I was too caught up in the prospect of choreography that I failed to see how easy it was. Levels and angles, for instance, could just be a natural bend of your knee with your arms outstretched. That move would also entail symmetry as both your arms and feet are doing the same movement. As you can see, integrating these techniques is more helpful than challenging because it serves as a guide, a stepping stone for creating your dance.

Basic Choreographic Techniques

Stage Directions

The first technique, stage directions, is used so that you can utilize the whole ‘stage’ while ensuring that you are still visible or in the audience’s line of view. A dancer may start at the center of the stage; then, they make their way to the downstage left portion to connect with the audience in the middle of her performance. This is a simple example of an application of stage directions.

Levels & Angles

Next, we make use of levels and angles to add style to your choreography. This will also improve your characterization because it adds variety to your dance, creating depth and intensity between each movement. Most dances follow a storyline told by dancers through actions. For example, a part of the dance requires you to tiptoe, seeming to be reaching for something, yet failing to grasp it, falling to your knees in defeat. This move demonstrates levels and angles, but it sounds uncomplicated when explained in such a manner.

Symmetry & Asymmetry

Another technique is the symmetry and asymmetry of the movement. By definition, symmetry is the equal division of two sides, while asymmetry is the opposite. It disrupts the proportionality of both sides. In group dances, using this technique can create illusions that captivate the audience. Two dancers mirroring each other can be considered symmetrical, while a soloist with an arm stretched upwards with one leg bent towards their back showcases asymmetry.

Size

Size refers to the extent of how big or small the execution of a specific choreography section is or the magnitude of a body shape or movement. Choreographers may use this technique to emphasize the actions, from the subtle kick of a foot to a giant leap, these motions all exhibit size in dance.

Dynamics

If size pertains to the magnitude of the movement, dynamics, on the other hand, involves the speed of specific steps in the choreography. This technique also demonstrates the musicality of both the choreography and the dancer performing. An upbeat song usually requires fast movements, while a ballad involves slow and smooth movements.

Focus

The central point of attention in the space the dancer is in is called the focus. There are three different types: close, which is focused on parts of the body; middle, which focuses on things you can interact with or people around you; and distant, which focuses on the things beyond one’s reach like the sky or sunset. In a group performance, there are times where the dancers interact with each other depending on the atmosphere created by the choreography.

Space Design

The formations during the dance are under the space design technique, which is commonly used in duets or group performances. It also creates texture in your dance because of the various formations you can incorporate. For instance, the performance starts with the dancers in a V-shaped position, then they gradually move to form a circle.

Unison

Unison is seen in most performances wherein the execution of choreography is synchronized. However, this technique is called canon when one dancer initiates a movement to be followed by the other dancers. Lastly, when a sequence of steps is done with dancers overlapping one another, usually to accompany the rhythm of the music, it is called succession.

Here is a video with the timestamps for your reference:

Unison: 1:55–2:00

Canon: 3:32–3:34

Succession: 5:46–5:49

Weight Dependency

The act of transferring your weight to another part of your body or another person applies the weight dependency technique. It integrates emotions into the choreography and shows the transfer of energy and tension between the dancers.

Dancing is considered an art, a form of expression for most people because it can tell a story from the mere movements of our bodies. Professionals are not the only ones who are capable of this. In fact, with the help of these techniques, we all are. As I have mentioned above, these techniques are sometimes utilized in effortless ways. We may not always notice it, but choreographers always apply these techniques to their dances, and so do we in our daily lives when you think about it. The impatient tapping of our foot, leaning on the wall, looking at something in the distance, raising our hand, all of these are illustrations of the basic choreographic techniques. So the next time you are presented with a task in choreography, remember all of these, and creating your dance will be a breeze!