Arts & Entertainment, Sports & Gaming

The Finishing Touches

Lesson time 15:53 min

Parris shares the importance of polishing a performance by showing how she tweaks and perfects her choreography. She explains why you should assign leaders to small dance groups and provides tips for giving constructive feedback.

Students give MasterClass an average rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars

Topics include: Line-by-Line Cleaning · Detail Cleaning · Texture Cleaning: Giving Moves a Feeling · Facial Sessions · Assigning Leaders · How to Give Feedback to Dancers

Parris Goebel

Teaches Creativity in Choreography

Award-winning choreographer Parris Goebel teaches you her techniques for bringing a vision to life and her approach to owning your creativity.

Preview

[00:00:00.00] [MUSIC PLAYING] [00:00:16.40] - Before I can show anyone or share my work with the world, it's important that I take the time to perfect and clean it. And I believe it's-- what has made my work great is executing it and just taking the time to really sculpt it into the vision that I see in my head. I really believe it's that last step, just to put the cherry on top and make sure that your work transcends with everyone or anyone that gets to witness it. [00:00:46.76] [MUSIC PLAYING] [00:00:52.43] Line by line cleaning is a technique I use to dissect and perfect each dancer in the formation. I do this by looking at one line of dancers at a time to make sure they are moving as one. When you're looking at a formation, overall, if you have a-- especially if you have a big group of dancers, sometimes it's overwhelming. It's hard to really see who's out of time, who's out of formation. So this is just a way to peel back those layers and take a good look at each dancer. [00:01:20.60] So usually, I start with the back line. This will be something I do near the end of the process. By now, we've probably finished the routine, and I'm just trying to perfect and clean. So let's start with the back line. Playback? [00:01:36.99] [MUSIC - CIARA, "LEVEL UP"] [00:01:37.48] CIARA: (SINGING) 5,4-- [00:01:38.46] - Let's go, girls! [00:01:39.44] CIARA: (SINGING) 3, 2, 1. Level up. Level up. [00:01:42.39] - Come on, girls! [00:01:42.88] CIARA: (SINGING) Level up. Level up. Level up. Level up. [00:01:47.79] - Clear. Music? [00:01:53.43] CIARA: (SINGING) 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Level up. [00:01:57.36] - Once you're happy with that line and you feel like they're all on the same page, and they're clean, then you can move on to the next line. So this is a technique I like to use. And I use it a lot in my competition days, and it ended up coming in handy with my professional work, as well. [00:02:12.65] [MUSIC PLAYING] [00:02:18.72] So we're going to go through another technique. It's detailed cleaning. So we get right to the nitty gritty, and we go through hands, position of the feet, the level, the angle of the heads. I'll show you guys an example of how we do that. We'll go through the "Level Up" choreography. And we go step by step, and we just look at what the picture is. 5, 6, 7, hold. OK. [00:02:44.78] So really, Azaria isn't low enough. So ask her to hit the right level. She goes lower. Ruthie's head isn't on the right angle, so she tilts her head. I make sure that the angle is all the same. So let's shake it off, girls. What are our hands doing, girls? [00:03:00.49] DANCER: Straight. [00:03:01.36] - Yep, so they are blades. They should have a gap. So really, I'm starting to fix girls as we go. Think about if it's here, if it's here, if it's here. Whatever that hand is, there's a detail there. What is our angle of our head? Cool. So our head's on a slight angle. What's our level? So in a plie, we're bending our knees, and our feet our turned ou...

About the Instructor

The creative force behind Justin Bieber’s “Sorry” video and Jennifer Lopez’s Super Bowl halftime show, Parris Goebel is a dance powerhouse. Now the award-winning choreographer breaks down her approach so you can harness your own creativity. Learn how iconic performances are made—and how to develop and polish routines, direct videos, and exude confidence every step of the way—as Parris opens up like never before.

Featured MasterClass Instructor

Parris Goebel

Award-winning choreographer Parris Goebel teaches you her techniques for bringing a vision to life and her approach to owning your creativity.

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