A guide how to make poi and circus choreographies

I finally have a new computer since my old one broke down! I spend a lot of time studying for the exam week, but we have also moved a little forward in the progress of making our own show with the poi at staff club at uni.

We will now start making choreographies and I wanted to share the process with you!

Before I started making poi choreographies I have competed with different choreographies in figure skating, which might have helped. I have also done some dance courses and played cello, so i feel that i have a good sense of music and beat.

I usually to things in this order. Below I will explain a little bit more about each point.

Suggestion on
how to make a poi choreography

1. Choose music
2. Cut music
3. Write the music down
4. Write a list of tricks
5. Pair up tricks with highlights
6. Play around to find transfers between tricks
7. Look for feelings and poses
8. Practice, film myself and evaluate
9. Rethink
10. Practice
11. Thinking about costume, light color
12. Perform

Choose music

When I chose music I always chose something that I like, because when practising you will hear this music a thousand times. It is good to chose a music that is not a super popular track on the lists, because since it will take some time to make your performance people will think that it is as old and outdated as the music. 

I also often chose something that has a good beat. Especially with poi, the beat is very important so try the music out to see if you can spin in rhythm with the beat. Remember that it is the length of the string that decides the period time!

It can also be a good idea to chose a music with many changes of style or one that contains some high light where you can put your best tricks.

Cut music
If your music is longer than 3 minuets, cut it down. I think about 3 minuets is how long the audience can hold their interest. When cutting music, make sure that the cut edition has a good start and finish.

Try to include some different moods, themes or parts from the music.

Write the music down
I always start with writing the music down. I count the beats, write them down and divide them into sections, and write out where the highlights are. If you are not so good at this or think it seems tideous, one way can be to print out the lyrics (if there is any) or just write "beginning", "flute starts to play" and so on.

I do this to get an overview over the music.

Write a list of tricks

Now, write a list of tricks you want to include. Write only tricks that you can actually do.

Pair up tricks with highlights

Now, put your down written music and list of tricks down next to each other and try to pair them up. Put you spectacular tricks on the highlights in the music. When you add in your trick, try to add them in an order so they contrast each other, like high vs low, slow vs fast and so on to make your choreography dynamic.

Play around to find transfers between tricks

Put on you music and try to do your tricks, and to find smooth transfers. If there are any empty spaces in the music, improvise and see what you think can fit there.

Look for feelings and poses

When playing around, try out some different start and finishing poses. Don't forget to put some applaud poses in the middle as well. You can also experiment with some dance moves or poses, or try to express different feelings and thoughts.

Practice, film myself and evaluate

When you are happy with your outline, it is time to practice. Just do it over and over again. Sometimes it helps to do this in front of a mirror, or in front of a video camera to watch how it looks like from the audience perspective.. You will find out what works and what doesn't.

Rethink

Did you fins something that needs to be changed? 

Practice

After the changes, continue to practice. If you want, you can continue to practice and retink until you are really happy with you piece. Then practice again until you can preform you choreography in your sleep.

Thinking about costume, light color

It is getting closer to the show. Think about what kind of costume you want to wear, what kind of fire or LED color you want, how you will enter and leave the stage and so on. How can you do this so it enhances your theme? Remember to practise in your costume.

Perform

Now it is time to show your amazing choreography. Good luck!

I know that there are other strategies on making choreographies, and there might be a continuation on this topic since I find it very interesting.

Four person juggling routine creation and thoughts about cooperative acts

The day before yesterday our schedule said supervised acrobatics practice, but none of the jugglers nor me are taking specializing in acrobatics. Instead, we managed to create a four person juggling act! I am very proud of it and I liked how we could cooperate in such a good way. It definitely needs some more practice to make it smooth but as we practiced yesterday and today we have already become a lot better. I hope it will fit into the show, but our juggling teacher seemed like he liked it, so as long as the director likes it. I hope he will be positive because he has asked the teachers to make some bigger group performances this year.

When I spoke to a friend who did the same course last year, he said "I wanted to do doubles trapeze, but there was no flyer who wanted to work with me. They all wanted to be by themselves". I think cooperative acts are underestimated, because in group acts there is more than "just" a skill: It is the cooperative work and connection in the group. I think that in a cooperative act there is more about the relation between the performers, while in a solo acts it is more about the relation to the object. And human relations almost always win over objects.

Another reason that I like cooperative acts are that I can easily see and understand that there is a lot of determination, work and cooperation between the performers, and that is a skill I value highly. To me it is more impressive to see a group of people doing something of medium difficulty together, than to see one person doing something more difficult alone. Of course I understand that it takes a lot of time to master object manipulation or aerial, especially since I am interested in circus, but everyone has some personal experience how hard but wonderful it can be to work together with someone else.

Creating things and acts together can sometimes be hard, and sometimes it is a lot easier than doing it alone. I think we created our juggling routine very time efficiently and surprisingly smooth. We are all very different in skill level and how we usually perform juggling, but in this case our differences helped us. To me, I was happy to see how my juggling friends were especially good at finding transitions between the tricks that I hadn't though about. It is a lot harder to come up with new ideas alone simply because noone force you to do it and there is only your own limits, but as a group we had to find solutions that worked for everyone. Sometimes it means compromising and sometimes it means exploring new areas.

From my own experience, it can be scary to put so much time and effort in creating something together with someone because it also means trusting the other person a lot and spending a lot of time with them. But during shows it feels so nice to share the excitement, preparation, performance and joy with someone else.

The act I am most proud of is a cooperative act with poi together with my friend and poi partner.
And I feel so alone doing poi without the other poi spinners in Luleå.

I am so proud of a partner poi routine Evelina and I did together. It also happens to be Evelina's birthday today, so Happy Birthday Eve!

Newton's architecture - A documentary about Swedish juggling

When I was surfing the internet looking for juggling things I stumbled upon this documentary about the Swedish style juggling:

Newtons Architecure - En film om nutida jonglering i Sverige (A film about contemporary Swedishi Juggling) with subtitles in English

It is a 30 minutes documentary about the Swedsih Juggling. Appearantly there is a special Swedish juggling style that both tries to be high skilled and artistic. The documentary contains interviews with some Swedish Jugglers at DOCH (University of Dance and Circus) and some nice juggling clips.

Quote from Jay Gillian:

And for me, it is also about how the juggling looks, that’s what I like about it, it is not the skill.

I like this idea of artistic juggling. In the documentary that also say that there were really no discussion in Sweden whether juggling is a sport or an art, and most think that it can be both. I like to see juggling as an art or way to express something, almost like dance. Jay Gillian also talked about to be conscious about what type of juggler you want to be and what expression you want to have. 

Om jag gör ett vissts visuellt mönster med min jonglering, att objekten bildar någonting, eller jag håller objekten på ett sätt som bildar nån sorts… ja, en bild på det ena eller andra sättet. Det är ju samma sak som arkitektur till exempel. Det är ju samma sak, det är ju också en bild, som en front av ett hus eller liksom en allé med träd. Det blir ju också en grafisk bild på samma sätt som jonglering kan vara fast det gör ju nödvändigtvis inte att vi måste räkna in det som jonglering.

Free translation by me:

If I make a certain visual pattern with my juggling so the objects makes something, or if Ii hold the objects so the make up some kind of... picture in some way. That is the same thing as architecture for example. That is the same thing, that is also a picture, like a front of a house or an alley with trees. That also makes a graphic picture in the same way that juggling can be, but that doesn't require us to count it as juggling.

There are big contrast between juggling and architecture, but they both is a kind of art focused around patterns, and this could in fact be applied to almost all art forms.

For people interested in juggling I recommend this documentary.

Aerial practise and choreography

I think I have become a lot better at climbing the silks that for my first time three weeks ago. In the aerial class the day before yesterday we did our assessments tasks which was spotting someone and then do a trapeze routine.

My trapeze routine was quite simple, but I am still happy with my performance and the feedback I got from the teacher. I did the trapeze moves gazelle, angel, reverse angel, candlestick, mixed grip straddle, up to sitting, balance, lamp post, coffin, birds nest.
This picture is a screen shot from the movie of me going into this position, but I think I have become a lot better at climbing the silks that for my first time three weeks ago. In the aerial class yesterday we did our assessments tasks which was spotting someone and then do a trapeze routine.

My trapeze routine was quite simple, but I am still happy with my performance and the feedback I got from the teacher. I did the trapeze moves gazelle, angel, reverse angel, candlestick, mixed grip straddle, up to sitting, balance, lamp post, coffin, birds nest.

Finally I mastered a nice silks position

On Wednesday afternoon we had aerial choreography. Unluckily, I was unable to participate for a very funny reason. I was jumping and dancing around at lunchtime, and just when my foot was in the air a diabolo from one of the other students flew in under my foot. When I landed I hit the diabolo and strained my ankle, so then I decided to rest to not risk the rest of the course.

So instead I took a lot of notes in the choreography lesson. I have some experience of choreography from dance and figure skating that I practiced when I was younger, so it was interesting to hear how this teacher thought about it.

We discussed different starting points for a choreography, like space, context, character, equipment, budget, duration, music, theme, safety, costume, narrative, solo/duo/group and so on. We also talked about the importance to know who is in charge of making different decisions when making the choreography. Sometimes the buyer want to make them, sometimes there is a director and sometimes the artist. Then we did some exercises in tempo, when they did the same series of aerial moves but in different tempos.

Watching an exercise in aerial choreography class

Chorepgraphy top tips

• Be present and do the moves worth watching
• Have a clear ending and a clear end
• Don't be afraid to use the ground as well as the air in aerial performance
• Choreography doesn't have to be complicated, just clear
• We like patterns
• Don't be afraid of repetition
• Try to vary the tempo pf the moves from static holding to flowing moves
• Don't be a slave to the music
• Try to create contrast in speed, shape, pace
• Audience see shapes, not moves
• Slowness and still points give confidence to the performance

And most important of all:

• Audience don't remember tricks, they remember moments. Create great moments!