People Play Dance Theatre

Tag: dance journal

  • The Art of Setting Boundaries

    It’s tempting to say “yes” to every opportunity that comes your way—after all, every gig seems like a step forward in your career, or another chance for fun. But here’s the hard truth: taking on too much can backfire, both professionally and personally.

    In my experience, dancers who overcommit can end up in situations where they either have to flake out or underdeliver, leaving behind frustrated choreographers, directors, or collaborators. That kind of reputation can ruin future opportunities faster than you think.

    Before you commit to a project, take a step back and ask yourself:

    • Do I truly have the time in my schedule to give this my best effort?
    • Do I have the skills or stamina to meet the expectations of this role?
    • Will this opportunity align with my long-term goals as a dancer
    • Am I truly willing to show up for this opportunity?

    Setting boundaries isn’t about saying no to everything—it’s about being intentional with your yes. 

    Learning to set boundaries will allow you to show up fully prepared, professional, and committed with consideration and respect for the rest of the production team

    Don’t be the dancer who agrees to everything and ends up quitting halfway through. Be the dancer who knows their limits, sets boundaries, and builds a reliable, professional reputation you can be proud of.

  • Questions for Dance Reflections

    Reflection is a powerful tool for growth, especially in dance. Reflecting on your experiences can deepen your understanding of the skills, techniques, and creativity explored in the dance studio. It’s an opportunity to celebrate your progress, acknowledge challenges, and consider how to use what you’ve learned moving forward.

    The end of the year (or semester or term) is the perfect time to pause and reflect on your dance journey. What did you learn? What inspired you? What surprised you? These reflections can also help your dance instructors design future classes tailored to their students’ needs and interests.

    Below are some questions to guide your reflection. You can also download and print a FREE Copy in the People Play Dance Theatre shop.

    Use these questions to help guide a written assignment, course surveys, or video journal. Feel free to adapt them to suit your own dance experiences:

    • Why did you decide to take a dance class?
    • What expectations did you have coming into the class?
    • Did your experience meet your expectations? Why or why not?
    • What skills, styles, or techniques were you hoping to learn (or learn more about)? Were they covered to your satisfaction?
    • What skills, styles, or techniques would you have liked to explore that weren’t covered?
    • What was your favorite unit, style, or routine? Why?
    • What was your least favorite? Why?
    • What aspect of class felt the easiest for you? Why?
    • What was the most challenging part of the class? Why?
    • Describe a moment when something clicked for you – a movement, concept, or correction that strongly resonated.
    • Was there a moment in class that you’d like to do over? What would you do differently?
    • Share a moment when you felt proud of your dancing.
    • Did you have a favorite partner or group to work with? Why?
    • What was the most memorable moment you had in a dance class?
    • What is one thing you know now that you didn’t know before taking the class?
    • How can a lesson you learned in dance class be applied to your everyday life?
    • Would you take another dance class in the future? Why or why not?
    • What advice would you give to someone taking their first dance class?

    By reflecting on these questions, you can celebrate your growth as a dancer and consider how to keep evolving in your dance journey.

    Looking for more dance reflection resources? Check out our shop!

  • The Care and Keeping of Good Dance Habits

    Every human is enough of a dancer just as they are. However, if you want a career as a professional dancer, it requires a lot of training and practice. Developing consistent good habits is vital to building a solid foundation of physical and mental support for yourself as you grow. 

    But what are good habits for dancers?

    Some habits may help us thrive, while others end up holding us back. Your habits will ideally reflect your goals as a dancer. Take some time to reflect on your current dance goals and how you plan to reach goals. 

    For example, if your goal is to improve flexibility, your goals include stretching and conditioning for a specific amount of time every week. If you want to be more mindful in your dancing, you might add goals for how often to journal about your experiences. 

    Once you know your goals, you’ll know which habits can help you get there. Here is a list of dance-related habits to get you started while you brainstorm your own. 

    • Journaling
    • Practice Technique
    • Stretching
    • Conditioning
    • Drink Water
    • Eat Healthily

    Did we miss anything? Which habits will you add to your list? 

    By the way, we have created a simple habit tracker you can fill out and use to mark off your daily habits as you work towards your dance goals. It is available to download for free in the People Play Dance Theatre Ko‑fi shop.

    So tell us, dancers, which daily habits are you going to keep track of?

  • Developing Presence through Dance Improvisation

    Improvisation in dance is usually referring to spontaneous or semi-structured movements. Rather than learning choreography as a specific sequence of known steps to match key points in the music, the moves are completely random or prompted by a simple word or phrase. 

    With improvisation in dance, the goal is not so much to be interesting but to be interested. It is more about presence than performance. The number of steps a dancer knows has no relation to their ability to create movement and dance on the spot when it comes down to improvisation skills. Dancers can learn new steps, but improvisation is an experience in presence.

    In theory, improvisation is simple. Make up the movement as you go along. In practice, however, many dancers find it hard to make things up on the spot and stay present at the same time. 

    A great way to incorporate more presence into your dance practice is to play improvisation prompt games. If you are playing with a group of dancers, you can take the responsibility to call out a movement dynamic, color, or phrase, and dancers use that to inspire their movement.

    If you are working alone, you can still provide yourself with a sense of spontaneity, but it might take more planning. For example, you can create a list of prompts to pull from, or even write out prompts on slips of paper and pull them out of a hat. 

    One benefit of using prompts in improvisation is that it removes the mental work of recollection and creates more space for presence.

    If you like the sound of that idea, check out some of the movement play resources in the People Play Dance Theatre shop.

  • A Recipe for Consistent Dance Practice Routines

    Staying consistent with at-home dance practice can be a challenge. Not only is there no teacher present to guide and prompt your steps, but there is also nobody checking to see what is right or wrong with those steps.

    While practicing dance at home can be a challenge, it is not impossible, and I have a few tips that can help make it easier to develop your routine. For the most part, I will structure my at-home practice as if it were an in-person class, but I can tailor the exercises to meet my needs for that day.

    You can join me in using this repeatable recipe for every dance practice session:

    • Warmup
    • Technique practice
    • Choreography or Improv
    • Stretch
    • Log my notes

    One reason I like having a standard list to turn to is that I have a reference of options to choose from. There may be days when I only have 20 minutes to practice, or may only be practicing for the sake of running through choreography. There have been many times when I just jump in to practice and do the thing, but I’ve learned that on the fly means I would be leaving off some of the important parts.

    Warmup

    Warming up is one of the most important parts of your dance practice. With a proper warmup for dance practice, you will be less likely to experience injury and soreness. An ideal warmup includes moving all parts of the body, and light stretching with a focus on preparing for the technique and choreography for the day.

    Technique practice

    Practicing techniques may look different depending on which style of dance you are working on. For ballet, for example, technique practice may look like a full barre or a series of targeted barre drills. If you are a ballroom dancer, you may take to the bar or wall to practice the feeling of resistance you may have with a partner. When it comes to practicing dance techniques on your own without a dance teacher, it can help to focus on repeating and solidifying what you have already learned, rather than trying to get ahead.

    Choosing which technique to focus on will relate to either what you’re working on in class, personal goals you say, or even both.

    Choreography or Improv

    You may not always have a routine or choreography to practice, depending on your dance goals. Choreography run-throughs of whatever I may be working on at the time, and if not, I will throw some improv into the mix. The reason for this is that mentally, practicing technique and drills translates to dance moves.

    Stretch

    I already mentioned warming up as a necessary part of a dance practice session. Stretching is also important. While I do include stretching as a part of the warmup, I also like to add additional stretching after I have been moving. This also makes for a great cool-down after practice or class.

    Log your dance notes

    At the end of the practice session, I log my notes into my dance diary. This allows me to reflect on any challenges, or celebrate successes, and I can also see how consistent I am in showing up.

    While each dance practice session will differ in the specific tasks and details, keeping a broad outline of what to include in your practice can help with the planning.

  • Reflecting on Your Dance Practice

    Dancing is just as much of a mental sport as it is a physical one. It takes courage and confidence for anyone to attempt a step first, and self-doubt is a common enemy for many. This doubt usually comes from my feeling that my dancing might not fit in with professional expectations. One practice I use to combat this perpetual self-doubt is reflexivity.

    In social science, reflexivity refers to a process of questioning and reflecting on cultural norms. While there may be cultural norms in the dance world, we are all individual dancers. The benefit of incorporating regular reflection into your dance practice is that you can notice and understand which thoughts or stories may be holding you back from dancing confidently. When I am consistent with my reflecting practice, I feel much more accepting of myself as a unique dancer and more respectful of the history and tradition we are all a part of, even in our uniqueness.

    Planning and journaling are two of the simplest ways to practice reflexivity. You’ll just need a place to put your thoughts. Your reflection space may be a blank notebook, digital notepad, post-its, or whatever media you desire for your archive. There are also many customized options made by dancers like myself for tracking and reflecting on your dance practice. You may need to try a few different journaling styles before you find what works for you, which is just another chance to reflect! I use a combination of written logs and journaling in my dance practice.

    Every dancer has their own unique body and soul, and a reflexive approach to dancing allows you to be fluid in developing your dance skills to your personal needs. As an anthropologist, I think it is essential for the people experiencing cultural moments to reflect on them. Your journals and dance logs will become part of the collective memory of dance. There are so many ways we can preserve dance for the future, and leaving an archive of personal reflections is one of them.

    Looking for more? Check out our Year of Dance Journal Prompts. This dance reflection resource includes 12 prompts to guide dancers through a year of dance reflection.

  • 3 Ways to Add More Mindfulness into Your Dance Journey

    You have probably heard it said that dance is a great way to stay in shape and feel good, but when we are aiming for professional-level training, some of those feel-good experiences may turn sour.

    These mindful practices are nothing new for dancers. In fact, we use them regularly during classes, but to bring attention and to notice allows for a more functional tool. 

    I wrote this post to share a few ways you can tap into mindful practices without needing to add any extra training to your schedule. 

    Breath

    We all need to breathe in order to stay alive. But how often do you think about your breath? How often do you notice the power? 

    Try this:

    When you find yourself becoming fatigued during an exercise class, try to focus on slowing your exhale while channeling the energy into where it feels rough. 

    Tapping Check-in 

    How often have you been physically in a dance class but mentally someplace else? Or how about this one, you are present in the class and thinking about the exercises, but also criticizing your own dancing while you are practicing. 

    Try this:

    When you notice yourself in a place of overthinking, give yourself a small double tap someplace on your body. You can link this tap with a message to come back. 

    Eyes Closed

    Have you ever found that you are able to perform just fine in a dance class, but once you get home, you can’t remember any of the combinations or exercises? It’s likely you don’t actually know what you’re doing in the class, and you are watching others and relying on their presence. 

     The good news is that noticing what you don’t know is actually a mindfulness practice. 

    And even better news is you don’t have to wait until you go home to realize that you have forgotten a portion of the combination. You can find those gaps during class and take action to fill in the gaps before you get home so you have something more solid to anchor your practice. 

    Try this: 

    When learning a new combination, take a moment to close your eyes and visualize the movement in your mind. It’s likely you won’t get through the entire combination on the first try, but you will find the blank spots. 

    These are a few ways to add more mindfulness to your dance practice. Try them out during your next dance class, and remember to have fun with them! 

  • Tips for Filming your Dance Practice

    Filming your dance practice is a great way to look back and reflect on what’s going well and what you could work on. However, there’s a big difference between getting the right shot for social media and valuable practice footage. This post shares a few tips that you can incorporate into filming your practice to have a more useful tool for reflection.

    Tip 1- Find Assistance

    If you can hire a personal videographer, then by all means go for it, but for the rest of us, simply having something else to hold the phone and film is enough. Whether it’s a tripod or a designated phone stand, a portable and adjustable holder will allow you more control over the positioning of your camera. Yes, you can use a pop socket or lean up against something else in a quick fix, but you won’t have as much control over the direction and angle of your shot. The result will be based on those constraints, rather than your practice intention. There are also cool gadgets that will track your movement and film as you dance.

    Tip 2- Find your Filming Focus

    Using an adjustable tripod or mounting system of sorts will allow you to shift the view of your recording. When it comes to filming your dance practice, location matters. If you are filming so you can review choreography, for example, you’ll want to pull back so you can see the entire body and shape of the movements as a whole. If you are working on foot technique, bring the tripod down to the ground level.

    Tip 3- Make Big Mistakes

    Whether you’re filming your practice or not, it’s always a good habit to go full out consistently. Depending on your practice space, you may need to make adjustments and modifications to accommodate, but making big mistakes will allow you to see better what needs work, while a mark leaves you wondering.

    Those are a few of our tips for filming dance practice sessions, would you add any to the list?

  • 7 Tips for New Choreographers

    Choreography is a captivating art form that allows you to express yourself through movement, tell stories, and create visually stunning performances. If you’re a new choreographer looking to make your mark in the dance world, here are seven essential tips to help you succeed:

    1-Study Different Styles

    To become a versatile choreographer, immerse yourself in various dance styles. Learn the basics of ballet, contemporary, hip-hop, jazz, and other genres. This diverse knowledge will enable you to blend styles creatively and stand out in the industry.

    2-Seek Inspiration Everywhere

    Inspiration can strike at any moment. Be open to new experiences, cultures, and art forms. Watch dance performances, attend art exhibitions, or travel to unfamiliar places. These experiences can provide fresh ideas and perspectives for your choreography.

    3-Collaborate with Diverse Artists

    Collaboration is key to choreographic success. Work with dancers from different backgrounds and skill levels, as well as musicians, costume designers, and lighting technicians. Diverse input can lead to unique and groundbreaking creations.

    4-Choreograph to Music

    Choose music that resonates with your vision. Listen to the lyrics, melody, and rhythm, and allow them to influence your choreography. A strong connection between music and movement can enhance the emotional impact of your piece.

    5-Plan and Organize

    Choreographing a dance piece requires careful planning and organization. Create a clear vision for your piece, outline your ideas, and develop a timeline. Efficient organization ensures that you stay on track and meet deadlines.

    6-Embrace Failure and Adapt

    Not every idea will work perfectly. Be open to experimentation and willing to revise your choreography if necessary. Learning from your mistakes and adapting your work will help you grow as a choreographer.

    7-Seek Feedback and Learn Continuously

    Share your work in progress with trusted peers, mentors, and dancers. Constructive feedback can help you refine your choreography and improve your skills. Attend workshops, take classes, and stay up-to-date with dance trends to continue learning and evolving as a choreographer.

    In the world of choreography, creativity knows no bounds. Remember that every great choreographer started with a passion for movement and a willingness to explore. With dedication, perseverance, and a commitment to self-improvement, you can craft compelling dance pieces that leave a lasting impact on audiences and the dance community.

    Ready to get started with your next choreography project? You can find useful resources like the Choreography Planning and Design Worksheet in the People Play Dance Theatre shop.