New Year, New Level...Its competition season, so that means that I have to start working my butt off to be competition ready. I have decided to take the plunge and go up a level, level 2- which is the first level with inverts. Full disclaimer- I’ve never performed an actual invert in a performance, even though twice I’ve had them in the original choreo. This will be a new challenge for me, but it will make me really work for what I want. We’ll see how this goes... 😬
One sliiigggght problem that has already come up is that I’m working with a bum shoulder. I went to do a shoulder roll and mushed it in too much. So now, I have to keep that in mind as I am doing the first run and blocking of my routine.
On the plus side, I’ve picked a song, which honestly is one te hardest parts of this whole process. For me, the most important part of choosing a song is being able to connect with both the lyrics and the musicality of the song. I do this because I want to be able to be free in my song when I am performing. If I can connect with the song, I am able to find the right emotion to emote more easily, making for an impactful piece and performance.
When choosing my song for competition, I seriously went through like 6 songs. For one of the songs, I had cut the music and choreographed the full routine before completely changing my mind (and category). When selecting my new song...I put myself on a timeline so that I wouldn’t be tempted to make any other song changes. It also made me really consider all songs and to really look deep for the song that I would ultimately choose. I went through all my playlists, Apple Music generated lists, and old performances to see what really connected. I finally settled on the song I chose by asking myself “What stands out and meets both of your requirements?” When I answered that question, the song I needed to choose became clear. The next challenge was trying to figure out what part of the song I was cutting out to meet the 3:10 minute limit. It was tough, because there were moments in the song that I needed to preserve, but I didn’t want to make the song sound choppy. To smooth my cuts over I used a video editing software called Adobe Premier Pro. As a Radio-Television-Film major, I have some sound editing experience, so the mixing was a breeze once I figured out where to cut. (Let me know if you need someone to hook you up. LOL.) Once the music was cut, I sent it to a second ear, just to make sure the sound was fluid. Once I got the a-ok, a great relief filled my soul.
Now the fun part begins...putting the choreography on my body and making sure that what looks right in my head looks right in real life....Ahh. Gotta love it. Haha!