Choreography Month? Maybe?

Remember National Choreography Month? Yeah, that used to be a much bigger thing around here.

 

I didn't participate in 2024, despite using Nachmo 2023 to create Sottovoce. This year, I just didn't have any ideas. Even through the rest of this year, following Nachmo, I just... didn't have any ideas. Or at least, not anything that felt ready to actively develop. Lots of things were simmering on the back burner, but nothing was ready. Plus, there were also those two theatre musical productions I choreographed that kind of took my time and energy away from choreographing original works. It was a nice stopgap -- it kept the creative juices flowing and got me some in-studio, live experience (as well as some connections and filled some résumé slots), but I miss working with some of my favourite music instead of having the music all picked for me.

So here are a couple of contenders for Nachmo 2025.

1. Stop Time

This has been in the works for... probably since I finished Sottovoce. The music is basically set, and I have a story arc sketched out. It's mostly music from the 2008-2010 era, and the story is an alternative reality version of the car accident I was in in 2010 (so, the exact same car accident, but with a different outcome). In other words... I have literally everything in place for this except actual dance steps. Which, you know, is kind of the whole point of choreographing things.

 

2. Three Voices

This is a more recent idea that I got from watching oscilloscope videos of SID chip music on YouTube (as one does). The SID chip, for those who don't know, is the sound chip for the Commodore 64 computer, and it had three voices (instrument tracks), plus a noise track. With these three voices, some composers rose up to make incredible sounding music, mostly as video game soundtracks. And I want to have three tap dancers, each following one of the SID chip voices in the music.

I also want to try this with all three dances doing exactly the same choreography as above... but a capella. I think it would be a fun experiment to see how closely it resembles the actual song, especially over three percussion lines with only dynamics and shading to shape the sound.

3. Smaller

This is a project that I've been wanting to do since at least 2021, when my memory issues started. I've wanted to do a show about memory loss since then, but could never quite figure out how to structure it. For a long time I thought I might use the music of Gavin Luke for this, but I could never find the right fit. It felt too modern-y, and the world has enough modern dance in it.

I'm embarrassed to say it took months between me discovering vapourwave and me realising it's the perfect vehicle for a concept like this. This project is off the back burner again since I made that musical connection, and right now this is the one I'm hyperfocusing on.

So that's where my dance brain is at right now. I'm wanting to stretch out and make bigger projects. Since making Sottovoce, the one-song-and-done pieces feel too small. Don't get me wrong, I still plan on developing some of those into dance films, but I'm feeling a pull to creating 'shows,' things with... maybe not a plot, per se, but some level of narrative or dramatic arc.