Choreography & Performance Boot Camp (live or Internet)

Fire and Flow Performers: Want to take your performance to the next level?

Looking for any of the following?

• new choreography
• to choreograph your first piece
• a new process for choreographing
• peer review to assist in the creation process
• to understand what makes your performance more powerful
• a deeper understanding of your performance persona
• new tools to support performance and choreography development
• a mentor to guide you through it all
• in depth analysis of what makes and breaks a good performance

If you answered yes to any of those questions, and especially if you answered yes to many of those questions, whether you’re new to choreography or have some experience yet seeking a (new) structured formulaic approach to building your performance, consider this course.

This course is open to students attending live at Temple of Poi HQ in San Francisco as well as those over the internet. GlitterGirl will work with you in our special intensives hosted live and via Google Hangouts. Our 10 class course meets 90 minutes per session. Each class includes discussion, homework review and a series of exercises focused on performance and choreography. Through the process, students will choreograph their own performance (or may choose to work on more than one) in a step by step manner, building the content week by week. At the end of the class, students who do their homework will have a completed choreography, even if they can not yet execute it cleanly. The goal of the class is not to perform the piece at the end, rather, to have the blocking, moves, costume design, flow, story line and note-for-note choreography completed when the last class is done. Students should plan for a bare minimum of at least an hour outside of class each week to complete homework to keep up with the class.

How it Works

This class series will include lots of personal attention as we will work with your actual performance piece to provide feedback and brainstorm to help you gain confidence during the creation process. Each week, you’ll be assigned homework that focuses on defining some aspect of the performance you are creating. This can include aspects of character development, skill development, choreography, music selection and more. If you are working as a solo artist, this would be as it relates to your individual work. Groups are also welcome to register as a “Pod” and we can work on your group choreography as part of the session.

As an example of what to do, GlitterGirl will create a piece of choreography for you live that will be the case study of the class. During this time, you will discuss the process, reasoning, methods, motivations, inspirations and overall flow of the development of the piece. This process will be completely transparent so you can fully understand the considerations in detail that make a piece and allow you to get something well thought out and crisp.

Your homework will be assigned based on the material we covered in the class and will directly inform your creation process. Over the time between classes, you study on your own and then we meet up the next week where we’ll have Q&A and discussion to cover your trouble spots and help progress your piece. Students are encouraged to bring their progress to the class and share with the rest of the class in the sessions to maximize the learning. Not all students can share each session but we aim to have all students share at least once.

GlitterGirl is the Producer of the Union Square Fire Dancing Expo and, as such, as seen hundreds of flow performances and has a comprehensive understanding of what works more or less effectively. For a sense of her range as a choreographer, here are some video samples of choreography GlitterGirl participated in creating, though a more comprehensive series of examples is available on the Youtube/Poipriestess channel.

• Professionals
  • Cary the Cosmic Cowboy (poi solo)
  • GlitterGirl & Zihni: Rivets and Rhinestones (poi duo)
  • GlitterGirl & Cary the Cosmic Cowboy (fans duo)
• Student Performances
  • Feel the Burn (15 poi artists)
  • Flaming Grace (poi trio)
  • FireFlyGirlz (female poi duo)
  • Shakawkaw (male poi duo)
  • Raven-Us (fan trio)

What’s Included

This 10 week boot camp includes:

•  1 10-20 minute set up test hangout with GlitterGirl for those who are working over google handouts
• 10 90 minute sessions with the group
• 2 20 minute private sessions (either live or via Google Hangouts) with GlitterGirl

Here’s an overview of what’s covered

• Class 1: Performance analysis; choreography theory; character development.
• Class 2: Case study: Analyzing what works, why it works & modeling success
• Class 3: Personal assessment and goal setting; more character development
• Class 4: Music criteria & selection
• Class 5: Music analysis & choreography notation
• Class 6: Creating choreography: (power) move placement (creating applause points)
• Class 7: Creating choreography: The journey of a performance: Opening, closing, peaks & valleys
• Class 8: Creating Choreography: building the glue
• Class 9: Costume design & development
• Class 10: What happens next: Refinement, fine tuning, testing it out & turning choreography into performance

Schedule

This series meets January through March on Thursdays at 7:30 – 9 PM Pacific. All times are Pacific time on the following dates — please note there are gaps for the holidays, conveniently designed to give you extra time for your music selection process:

Date	Content
1/22/15	Class 1
1/29/15	Class 2
2/5/15	Class 3
2/12/15	Class 4
2/19/15	Class 5
2/26/15	Class 6
3/5/15	Class 7
3/12/15	Class 8
3/19/15	Class 9
3/26/15	Class 10

Requirements

Students are required to:

• have their own props and tools for notating their choreography
• if attending remotely, install anything necessary to be on a panel on a Google Hangout OR if they are local, plan to attend at Temple of Poi for all sessions instead
• participate in a test hangout with GlitterGirl OR if they are local, plan to attend at Temple of Poi for all sessions instead
• do their homework, which may include research (exploring videos, making lists of moves, acquiring inspiring pictures, etc.), analysis and/or creation
• speak English
• students are encouraged to use the Facebook group as a forum of sharing ideas. This will be a closed group and will only be open to the people in this class so as to keep confidential choreography and performance material
• are strongly encouraged to share their choreography with the class as part of the teaching process to allow them to analyze their progress and create improvement
• use the Flowology Mindset
• distinguish feedback from criticism
• complete the 1 on 1 private sessions with GlitterGirl by April 25, 2015
• send an email cutting and pasting this requirements section, confirming they agree to these terms and they also understand they agree to make all payments regardless of attendance in the course for any reason

Tuition

List price for this 15+ hour workshop series: 10 group sessions at $35 each plus 2 private hangout sessions (must be completed by 3/15/15) at $45 each, for a total of  $440. To help make this more affordable for students in regions where the living wage is not quite as high as San Francisco (currently the most expensive city in the US), we are offering the following tuition options.

Please note that by using any of the payment links below, in consideration of us not requiring a full payment of your tuition up front, you agree to pay the tuition regardless of your attendance and circumstances (including acts of god) beyond our control. All Payments are Non Refundable!

For individuals:

All Payments are Non Refundable!

• VIP package: $500 and receive an extra 20 minute private (valued at $45) plus a digital copy of the course manual and appendices (about 50 pages), payable with a $100 down payment due on or before 1/22/15 and 4 additional payments of $100 due on or before the 15th of  February, March, April & May.
  
• VIP Early Bird package:  $450 and receive an extra 20 minute private (valued at $45) plus a digital copy of the course manual and appendices (about 50 pages), payable with a $100 down payment due on or before 1/22/15 and 3 additional payments of $100 due on or before the 15th of  February, March and April & an additional $50 payment due by the 15th of May. Sold out!  
• Semi Pro:  $400 payable with a $100 down payment due on or before 1/22/15 and 3 additional payments of $100 due on or before the 15th of February, March and April
  
• Low Income: $300 payable with a $75 down payment due on or before 1/22/15 and 3 additional payments of $100 due on or before the 15th of February, March and April. There are 2 spots available at this price; more may be added if more full priced packages are purchased.   
  

For troupes:

If you’d like to take the course with your troupe mates as a single “pod” of people, you are welcome to join us as long as all of you are sitting at the same Google Hangout screen. Please note the private sessions are for the group itself, not that each member of the group gets a private session. All Payments are Non Refundable. 

• Group VIP Package: $600 for 2 people and receive an extra 20 minute group private (valued at $45) plus a digital copy of the course manual and appendices (about 50 pages). Each group makes a $150 down payment due on or before 1/22/15 and 3 additional payments of $150 due on or before the 15th of February, March and April. To add additional artists to the duo package, add a $160 total to the tuition per student and divide the payments by 4. For example, 4 artists total would be $920 total, making 4 payments of $230 each.
  
• Group Semi Pro: $500 for 2 people payable with a $125 downpayment due on or before 1/22/15 and 3 additional payments of $125 due on or before the 15th of February, March and April. To add additional artists to the duo package, add $160 to the tuition per student and divide the payments by 4. For example, 4 artists would be $820 total making 4 payments of $205 each.