Project Goal 

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            The goal of this project was to complete a performance ready, POM dance routine for the cedar high dance team. The completion of this goal included 40 plus hours of Choreographing, teaching and cleaning the routine, ordering uniforms and needed pompoms, mixing music, and setting formations for the 30 girls that make up the Cedar High Drill team. Objectives of this goal included creating a successful routine to raise moral and confidence for the drill team’s upcoming competition season. Along with that objective, this project also opens doors to future opportunities. Having an official competition dance choreographed and archived, raises my credibility and chances to receive similar opportunities in the future. Being able to mentor, advise and work with high school students, both one on one and in a large group, will assist in my future endeavors of hopes to find a career the advising field.

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Process

            This projects completion took multiple levels of creativity, problem solving skills, an evolution of teaching skills and teamwork, and enduring enthusiasm. The journey was started with choosing two to three songs to make a music mix that the dance would be choreographed too. After weighing many options, the songs “Ain’t Nothing Wrong With That” by Robert Randolph and “Uptown Funk” by Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars. These songs were chosen because the musicality of them both ran well together, they offer an upbeat and fast passed feeling that assists both the audience and the dancers to feel energy from within. Sound effects were added within the mixing of the songs to give the song and its choreography greater dynamics. A free download of Audio City, a sound mixing program, was used in the making of the mix. This portion of the project increased my attention to detail and mixing the music myself, instead of paying someone, allowed me to have a deeper understanding of the counts and musicality that would be used when starting to choreograph.

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            Once the music was created, the dance was choreographed, formations set, and movements taught. I have had the opportunity to choreograph dance pieces in the past but never at this capacity and with so many dancers. The first challenge was creating dynamic movements and coinciding parts that built an athletic, fun and appealing routine that included the required technique. Formations are an important part as well, I would sketch multiple formation options before landing on any final decisions; when making formations pathways must also be considered regarding how each dancer will make it to their next spot. Once choreography and formations were set, teaching began. I found the girls were most responsive to learning two eight-counts (small sequences of movement) and then reviewing each piece, building on to learned counts until the whole dance routine was completed.

There were some choreography visions that did not translate well to a successful routine, these sections were tweaked and evolved over the course of the cleaning process. The cleaning process consisted of walking through each section and each movement, making sure the dancers matched as a team and had a full understanding of their body control and placement. An example was a ripple section (a ripple is a movement that happens in sequence across the team) that was too fast leaving the dancers looking frantic and uncontrolled. These movements were change to two groups instead of three, ensuring the control and look originally hoped for. The final product was a successful performance to the school, the audience was engaged and thoroughly enjoyed the routine. The routine will be performed later this year at dance competitions around southern Utah.

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Outcomes

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            A specific unexpected outcome that was part of the completion of this project was the timeline. Being at the mercy of the drill teams schedule, my timeline for the projects process spanned a long-time frame. More important to note was when they changed the original date of the Final Performance to November 14 for their teams “Preview Night”, I had to discuss former agreements and find a date that allowed me to offer my deliverables on time and also worked for the teams schedule. Fortunately, through good communication, we found a middle date that worked to both of our advantages. Another variable that affected the outcome was the quantity of dancers; over the time for the process of this project’s completion, one dancer chose to leave the team. This changed every formation and some of the movement. Furthermore, on the day of the final performance, two dancers were sick which left two holes in formations through out the dance. In the end, I was able to rise above all the challenges and use problem solving skills and enthusiasm to move the team forward with this routine.

           My original deliverable's include offering video of practice, halfway performance and final performance. Along with providing documentation of process, including notes on setting formations and my personal time log. I also offered potential testimonials of those worked with, these will be added to my online portfolio under press, once received. With the extension of my timeline with the team I have not yet received statements from those asked since the final performance. Provided is a link to a video that I made to show the team and their performances. I felt the video was to long to add video of the practices of the same dance; however, I have included a picture from practice next to my time log. It was rewarding to complete this project and learn valuable lessons in the world of dance, in completing projects and helping others.