By Itch (Choreographer)

I firmly believe that all the choreography that we do within MS should be grounded in prayer, for it is a vehicle of worship to God for both the dancers within our ministry (as they dance in worship to God through each piece) as well as the audience (as they are lead into witnessing the Gospel message through each piece).  It is first and foremost an expression of worship for the choreographers ourselves as we dance in praise before God (Psalm 149:3) as well as a way we picture image God as Christians as God is the most amazing creator of the universe (Genesis 1).  So in order the redeem the art of dance back for worship, we as choreographers must both right our relationship with God through prayer and the Word, and also to lift up our choreography up to God to humbly depend upon him for inspiration as seek his will for the pieces.  I also believe in praying for the dancers of the ministry as they worship through each piece and the audience as they witness each piece.  Therefore, prayer in our choreography is a necessity. 

I've never been much of a choreographed dancer, ironically, and to this day I still have massive amounts of trouble trying to remember entire choreographed pieces for performances.  My roots are in improvised/freestyle dancing, so breaking down routines is definitely one of my weak points.  My approach to choreography, therefore, also grounds itself in starting with improvisation.  The first thing I usually do is to take the piece of music that the choreographed is supposed to be married to and freestyle to it until I know the music inside and out; every layer of instrument and vocal, tempo change, and mood.  Generally I try to make sure I can dance through the entire song to one sound or layer.  Then I'll mess around jumping around between layers and see what I can come up with.  After I feel like I have a firm grasp of the song, I then look at the story/message element that the piece is supposed to convey and put the acting of it into my freestyle.  In a sense, try to merge the acting with the dancing during improvisation.  I'm lucky in that since I get to work with the story/writing team a little bit more than the other choreographers, so being with the director Sean Lee as the story unfolds itself helps me see more of his vision for each dance-drama, which is an immense help.  Since I can't remember much of anything that I do (I get made fun of a lot in the ministry for that :P), I like to videotape myself improvising to see if I can draw out certain movements that I like and then see if I can find a logical way to put them together.  As a result I rarely use mirrors when I choreograph.

One of my favorite ways to choreograph, however, is with other choreographers in our ministry.  Some choreographers work best by themselves, but I'm more inspired when I am working with others.  For example, the choreographers that I work most closely with would be Soomin Hyun and Grace Sue.  They each have different strengths of their own unique vision and are able to move in ways that I cannot.  So oftentimes I like being a 'backseat driver' and ask them to try things in a way that their body would respond and see what we can come up with... and usually they can remember the routine far better than I to teach to the rest of the dancers, so that lets me breath a huge sigh of relief (as I tend to forget choreography immediately after each performance...)  :)