Good teacher/Good choreographer?

[Kitty]

I agree! Routines really don't have much use in standard in my opinion.

I agree, for competition.

Shows, on the other hand, can be better if one choreographs one's show routine to match a particular piece of music. Unlike in a competition, one can expect most of the audience's attention in a show, so it can be worthwhile to use some storytelling techniques, like rising tension, climax, and denouement.

one couple from my team used for silver am. foxtrot at MIT comp. the very pretty routine that our coach choregraphed for us for a performance. It looked great for a performance and had some pretty things in it like a lady's leg kick, ladys double spins and steps where lady is turned with her back to leader, but the routine didn't move: it had a box in it somewhere, and some steps that didn't move much. + they didn't wear costumes. They didn't do well at all.

Anyway, how is a good performance routine much different from a good competition routine?

 

[Chris Stratton]

I don't know too much about the answer to that, having only really made up one small performance routine.

One difference I did think of was that the performance was optomized to be viewed from a single direction, wheras the walls may be more equal in competition. That meant a lot of reshuffling the order of things to try to get the more showy figures facing the audience. We kept a lot of travel and a degree of line-of-dance concepts, but those wouldn't be as necessary - certainly you could use the whole floor any way you like, and might want to if it were small. One reason for keeping a lot of travel in a show routine would be if you consider movement across the floor to be one of the primary elements of the dance that you want to show.

Another thing - for a show you know what music you get, and can plan to fit things to its phrasing. Also, oyu can doa mdely of music/dances if you want.