Choreographing for a show?!

So there's this 'project' that I've been working on for the past few weeks; the high school Fall Show, Love Is Love Is Love Is Love.

Long name, but yeah.

This year's show is a compilation of little plays, songs, and poems that all focus on peace and love.

We got the idea from Lin-Manuel Miranda's Tony Awards acceptance speech (which, if you've been stuck in a hole this past year and haven't seen/heard it, here ya go.

He was addressing the Orlando Pulse Club shooting in his speech, and talking about how we need to spread love and kindness, not hate and fear.

Because the things that we do will be remembered throughout history, (connection to "History Has Its Eyes On You" gahh) and newer generations will learn from/have to deal with the consequences of our actions.

Anyway.

The directors, with help from the cast, put together the show (the cast wrote short stories that focused on some kind of love).

There's one section called "Heartsongs", which is basically a bunch of different poems put together, all written by Mattie J.T. Stepanek.

I won't go into his story here, but if you want to learn about Mattie, go to his website at

Mattie had a rare type of muscular dystrophy called diatomic mitochondrial myopathy, and he died in 2004.

A good friend of Mattie's, Billy Gilman (you might know him from the Voice 2016), took some of his poems and created a song using Mattie's words.

The song is called "I Am/Shades of Life", and the cast of Heartsongs is dancing to it. The song sounds like something out of Reading Rainbow, and I absolutely adore it.

Ooo and guess who was asked to choreograph for it?? This girl right here!

I was super excited when our director asked me if I could choreograph this dance, because even though I don't have the technique that comes from dance classes, I do have the ideas/imagination to create a story through dance.

And that's exactly what the director wanted - for us to tell a story.

And I took on the challenge, so to say.

Here's my general process.

I took about a week to just listen to the song and understand the meaning behind the lyrics - I'd listen to it on the bus, during lunch, while I was (trying) to do homework, etc. Eventually, it got to the point where I had basically memorized the instrumentals and the vocals, so it was easy for me to come up with movement/dance from there.
After that, I got the basic story down. I had several 'characters' that would be the main dancers, and I created an mental environment that the dance would revolve around.
Next came the hardest part; working with the dancers. So pretty much all of the peoples in the drama department have little to no coordination. Getting 15 kids who don't exactly dance to.... well, dance, was...... interesting. I had to figure out a different way to talk to my dancers - to communicate my ideas to them - but it worked out.

One thing that I really like in working with theatre kids is that they can act, which is actually one of the most important factors in dance.

Even if you don't have perfect technique and lines and timing, as long as you show the emotions you feel, the audience will still get the message and understand the story.

Opening night whooshed by us, and I was ecstatic with how the dance turned out. It was impactful, synchronized, pretty darn emotional, and just plain awesome!!!

I was - and am - incredibly happy with everyone in Heartsongs, because they put their all into it. Despite the time constraints (we had about 3 weeks to learn it), everyone pulled it off almost flawlessly.