Choreography Troubleshooting #1

[galadhir]

The harder I tried to practice this, counting the beats as I went, the more confused I got. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes I was all "how can we possibly be at this bit already?!" And I had no idea why.

I eventually decided that the times that it worked were probably due to me forgetting the choreography and just going with the music by ear. Which is all very well but I shot myself in the foot by choosing a piece of music where all the changes are very subtle, and sometimes I don't hear them.

Lesson learned - pick a more varied piece of music next time.

So I tried is several more times and eventually it began to dawn on me that there was something fishy going on around the hip drops in the first half. And then, on counting it out as carefully as possible, I realized that I had been right in the beginning when I called the drops 'Figure One', and that they were in fact the first figure, which meant they were an Eight lot of Eights figure, instead of a Four lot of Eights.

So Page One should read:

Each number stands for four beats.

Intro

Starting facing away from audience, sword held above head in both hands

1. Sweep down to the count of 4, while turning 90 degrees to left
2. Sweep up to the count of 4, while turning 90 degrees left
3. (Now facing audience) Sweep down to the count of 3 + turn sword point upright with right hand, wrist circles with left hand (there is a twiddly bit in the music here.)

4. Barrel turn x 1
5. Barrel turn x 2
6. Barrel turn x 3 giving yourself time to transfer sword to left of head. (Another twiddly bit)

7. Head sword circles + hip circles x 1
8. Head sword circles + hip circles x 2
9. Head sword circles + hip circles x 3

10. Shave the dancer, left side
11. taqsim pull up front
12. Flat hip figures of eight + BALANCE SWORD ON HEAD

Figure One

1. Hip drops on right w. armchair arms
2. Hip drops on right w. armchair arms
3. Hip drops on left w. armchair arms
4. Hip drops on left w. armchair arms

5. Drop and kick right w. L arms
6. Drop and kick right w. L arms
7. Drop and kick left w. L arms
8. Drop and kick left w. L arms

I'm going to have to put it into a Word document because I can't inflict the endless revisions on my DW.

There's something weird going on in the second half too, but it was too hot today to concentrate on that. Figuring out one main issue at a time is still progress.