Sunday, February 22, 2015

Pas à Pas - Week 2

The song I've chosen is... Drumroll please... "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" by Pentatonix!
I've already cut the music into smaller, more choreographable (pretty sure that's not a word but oh well) sections. This will also help with pacing myself and keeping up with my goals. I haven't actually made the song shorter (it's about 2 minutes) since most of the songs we do in dance are much longer. But then again, we don't do solos at dance so I don't have to dance for the entire song either. We'll see about the length of the song once I get towards the end of my choreographing.


As for the choreographing, or the step by step (get it? Pas à pas? Because that's the French translation and... Okay nevermind), I haven't done as much as I'd like mainly because it's Chinese New Year and my family is busy celebrating and going to parties. (And I'm busy getting money from the 红包, or red envelopes, that are traditionally given to children on this holiday.) However, I did manage to sneak into an empty room and get some footage. Here's a peek at what I've been working on:




labanotation - so fancy it could be art by itself
While choreographing the beginning part of the dance, I realized that I would need to write it down but that I had no idea how to do that. I came across super fancy notations while doing research, like labanotation, but I eventually settled for simply writing the steps down and occasionally making (really bad) sketches underneath a score of the song. 



Luckily, ballet already comes with a whole dictionary of words and phrases for each step. So basically, it's time to brush up on my French vocabulary! Unluckily, I couldn't find sheet music for the Pentatonix version of "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" anywhere. So what do I do? I make one myself. This wasn't one of my better decisions. I could've done my math homework 3 times in the time it took me to roughly transcribe the song, and that's even with the help of the sheet music of the Tchaikovsky version. But still, it was nice to dust the cobwebs off of my old music theory books and tinker away at the piano.  
Time to get back to dancing! (And homework D:)
~Nicole

P.S  You would not believe how weird it is to wear socks with pointe shoes...

 Photo credit:
rickjonesprojects.wordpress.com
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11 comments:

  1. Hanna K.February 23, 2015 at 5:50 AM

    Hey, I used that application for one of the songs I showed you before! Well, anyways, you're doing great so far with your dance moves! They're rather pointy (pointe-y...sorry). I think you should scan your sketches and notes to show a rough draft of your choreography. Don't worry if they're super rough, messy, or illegible; if you look at the notes of geniuses, most of them look like they've been written on a car ride on hills of a city that can be quiet unforgiving (LBD reference).
    In your GIFs, if you have an image that you really like, then send it to me and maybe I can make a pencil sketch or something to capture that moment forever :D (Just kidding, I just like drawing ballet dancers).
    I can't wait to see your final product!

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    1. UnknownFebruary 23, 2015 at 6:18 AM

      Haha yep that's how I know that that app exists XD My notes are literally just written words under the sheet music so far, so there's really nothing to see yet. Hopefully I'll be able to do most of it in just words because I can't draw like you can... Speaking of drawing, if you see anything that you'd like to draw feel free to take it and do whatever you want with it! Thanks Hanna!

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  2. JessFebruary 23, 2015 at 9:09 AM

    I've known that dancers make notations of their choreography, but I've always wondered how they do it. I'll have to look into labanotation! I really enjoyed seeing the clips of you dancing, and like Hanna said, it'd be great to see some scans of your notes :)

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    1. UnknownFebruary 23, 2015 at 9:45 AM

      My notes are literally just words under the sheet music that I posted above. Not much to look at... I might scan them later once they get more interesting looking. Since ballet already has a full dictionary, there isn't much need for drawings in choreography notes. However, not all styles are like that. This is probably where labanotation comes in. Even so, labanotation is really complicated and is probably only used by professionals. I think it's also used for professional motion study.

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  3. Ellie AFebruary 23, 2015 at 9:15 AM

    That was a really cool video of you dancing! Pointe shoes look really hard to dance in but you look like a natural! I never knew that there was a special notation to remember dances, I always thought there were just names for different moves that you have to memorize. Maybe labanotation can be like a part two to your project, but then again choreographing a dance is a lot to handle. I remember you did a project last year about dancing, and you were really good, so I can't wait to see how your original piece turns out! And I definitely want to see more video clips!

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    1. UnknownFebruary 23, 2015 at 9:49 AM

      Thanks Ellie! Labanotation would definitely be cool to study, but I think it deserves its own project. I wouldn't have time to do that and work on my own piece. As for the videos, there will definitely be more of those!

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  4. Josh ChuFebruary 28, 2015 at 7:57 AM

    Excellent choice in music! (It's the song I voted for!)
    Very nice .gif! I's pretty cool to get to see a little preview of what dance moves may be to come. I think it's really cool that you've done a lot of the choreography notation and transcription by yourself - without much reference to other sources. That dance-notation (labanation) looks especially compicated. Keep up the good work!

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    1. UnknownMarch 3, 2015 at 2:12 PM

      Thanks Josh! I actually did have plenty of sources, especially with the transcription. (Tchaikovsky's Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy is EVERYWHERE, but even so it's not quite the same as the PTX version.) Still, I had a great time throwing back to those music theory days :)

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  5. JasonMarch 2, 2015 at 9:19 AM

    Hey Nicole!
    I thought this was really cool, especially actually seeing you do the dance! I could never imagine being able to do any of that, but I digress. Did you find learning this dance to be particularly difficult? Looking forward to seeing your finished product!
    Jason

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    1. UnknownMarch 3, 2015 at 2:15 PM

      Thanks Jason! :D I mention in one of my other posts that the tempo of the song is really fast, and that's pretty much my main concern right now. I've slowed it down, but I couldn't slow it down too much or the sound would get distorted. The steps in the song are pretty basic to compensate for the speed. They also are all steps that I'm pretty good at (perks of being the choreographer). I know I mentioned in my first post that I wanted to add a particular step that I haven't learned yet, but choreography is more time consuming than I thought, and I just can't do it up to tempo yet.

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  6. JasonMarch 2, 2015 at 9:20 AM

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