One of the best things about The Studio LDG is we believe in developing strong dancers but also choreographers and student leaders.

Over the summer we offer student choreography classes where they learn about the foundations, purpose, principles of choreography…we talk about music choice, cutting and mapping music, elements of choreography and they have to complete a project in that class.

For student choreography 1, they have to choreograph a solo, duo or trio and we had a showcase. Between the 2 classes there were 20 entries that all performed their pieces at the studio where parents of the choreographers and the dancers could watch. The students had to pick their song, their style, their costuming, their dancers and had to schedule practices with them to prepare them for this showcase. They learned a lot of lessons along the way and it was so fun to watch them grow and learn in new capacities.

But the student choreo 2 class had a much bigger challenge this season and it was to take a bit of a professional angle on this class. These are kids that have had to take student choreo at least 1-2 times before, be a certain age, and have shown growth in that skill set. Their project is a group piece so has to have 4+ people in it and they had to choreograph, and produce a music video showcasing their purpose, song, dancers and choreography. This is HARD. The videography itself is a completely new and foreign challenge to them.

We had 5 dancers able to complete their projects and they have all been handed in and we showcased all 5 on our Facebook page. 50% of the score will be my grade on their project taking into consideration the choreo, set up, purpose, preparedness, etc and 50% of their score will be public voting because at the end of the day, the performing arts is about entertaining and how the public perceives a piece. Whoever ended up with the highest score would have their video as a marketing piece on our website and if we are using their work for marketing, they should get paid for that so they were paid $100 and can put on their resume they have been paid for a professional marketing choreography piece.

I’m so proud of these 5 kiddos. I know they had struggles…a lot with just getting people together to get it done. Some in coaching their peers which can be very difficult (and now they know why I don’t let them choreograph/teach their peers), and some struggled with the video part itself. But overall, I’m VERY impressed with these projects!

But after social media entertainment scores and their grade from Ms. Kim, congrats to Miss Cydney Shoffner, Freshmen, for her piece “On the Floor” for winning summer 2022 Student Choreo Challenge!