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Home » » Dance DVDs » Jazz » Broadway Dance Center - Progressions w/ Mandy Moore
Broadway Dance Center - Progressions w/ Mandy Moore
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In this DVD Mandy Moore teaches four jazz combinations that travel, or progress, across the studio floor. Work on directional, weight and level changes.
Mandy Moore has made a living dancing and teaching all over the world. She has worked in film, television and on the stage.
Starring:
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Mandy Moore
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Genre:
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Jazz
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Format:
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DVD
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Release year:
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2007
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Running time:
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80 min.
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Recommended
Member Reviews
These are not just 4, miscellaneous progressions. They each have a purpose. The first teaches Direction Change; the second teaches Weight Change; the third, Level Change; and the fourth teaches Use of Space. Actually, there are 12 progressions because each type has an advanced, intermediate and beginning version (in that, backward order). The DVD is well chaptered which is a good thing because, from the perspective of a do-along student, it is not organized from easy to difficult. I suggest skipping section one (Direction Change) until you have completed sections two, three and four, on whatever level(s) you can do them. All the exercises employ elements of the others and section one is by far the hardest, or at least it was for me. Of course, having a little problem with right and left, I really benefited from these exercises!
For clarity, progressions are recorded from several directions; however movements are never cut off in mid-turn (as I've seen happen in some other programs). I'm sure dance teachers will find that the steps have been very skillfully presented and thoroughly documented. But for a beginning do-along student (who, again, has a problem with right and left) -- oh, help!
You sometimes view from the "following" position, at the back, then you find you've switched to a "mirror image" position from the front. Or a side view. Sort of. Maybe. If you were there in the classroom this would not be as difficult but on a video like this with movements in different directions, it can be hard to figure out exactly what you're seeing or which foot you should be on or which direction you are going. Mandy does call out the steps, positions and weight shifts quite clearly. Therefore the most practical way to learn the exercises is to keep yourself oriented in the "following" position rather than mirror image. This means that often you will be facing away from the screen, with your head craned backwards to see the steps.
Now, Mandy suggests that students try to not rely too much on objects in the classroom for orientation -- for example turn toward the windows, turn toward the door. Since you can find yourself in a performance space with neither windows nor door you had better think in terms of right and left. However, to figure out exactly what was being shown, I did need to become familiar with the studio. The room had a mirror at the front, a set of colored lights along the floor on the right side, and patterns projected on the wall at the back. (I never saw the left side because this is where the cameras were set up.) It helped me greatly to be aware of what camera I was "looking through". I think there were three. One, placed at the corner where the left side met the mirror, looked toward the back of the room. One, located in the middle of the left side, shot straight across the room toward the wall with the colored lights. And one, stationed in the corner where the left side met the back of the room, shot "forward" so that the mirror was in the picture. Since all three cameras were capable of zooming, in the close shots I had to really take note of the background to figure out which way the dancers were facing and moving.
Translating this orientation to the space in my own room, this meant that the cameras were along the walls of my room away from the TV and the TV side represented the studio wall with the colored lights.
Although I viewed the whole disk, I really worked on only the Beginning levels, learning the progressions. (But the intermediate and advanced followed the same, general patterns.) Here are my notes which might help orient a fellow viewer:
The Direction-Change progression moves across the floor mainly from side to side if you think of the mirror as being the front. This is the only exercise which repeats on the second side. (An important note: when Mandy says, "back" she does not necessarily mean "away from the mirror". She means "back in the other direction".) (Note: during the initial and final demo the progression is oriented toward the cameras rather than toward the mirror.)
During the breakdown of the Weight-Change, the progression initially moves side to side, using the mirror as the "front", then there are some movements away from the mirror and back toward it again. (Again, during the initial and final demo the progression is oriented toward the cameras rather than toward the mirror.)
The Level-Change doesn't travel much in any particular direction, though the dancers do face in different directions. Although not easy physically, this is by far the easiest exercise to follow visually and is perhaps the one a do-along student should start with.
During the initial and final "from-the-front" demos, the Use-of-Space exercise mostly travels diagonally across the room, oriented toward the frontmost camera. The progression goes toward this camera and away from it. However, during the breakdown of the steps, which is oriented toward the mirror, it starts out moving across the floor from right to left, then seems to really zig-zag around the room. (I never did get this completely figured out.)
In summary, these are very beneficial exercises for someone trying to get past the beginning-student, simplistic-choreography level. The more difficult you find them, the more you need probably need them.
Margaret
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