Doing Choreography

I've been doing some deep thought about what I'd like to get involved in, and what keeps coming up is the desire to do figure skating choreography for singles, pairs and dance couples. Since I am not, and have never been a skater, I'm unsure of what path to take, or who to contact if I wanted to start doing choreography without charging, just to gain experience.

Has anyone been there? Any advice that anyone can offer on where to start? Thanks.

There was a young skaters choreography boot camp or contest or something a while back. Their Youtube channel is called G2CYAS, no idea what it stands for.

My favorites were Bebe Liang's choreography Firebird for Mirai.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBhusabzV1k

and Amy Nunn's rhythmic gymnastics inspired "ball challenge" skate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHy9-izjD6g

brightphoton said:

There was a young skaters choreography boot camp or contest or something a while back. Their Youtube channel is called G2CYAS, no idea what it stands for. ...

Click to expand...

I believe G2CYAS = Grassroots To Champions Young Artists Showcase. Audrey Weisiger is the force behind it, AFAIK.

I could be wrong, but my hunch is that a certain level of experience as a choreographer is expected.

But aviva, please do check it out and do not take my word for it. Good luck to you.

Hmmm, so better to get ballroom experience and then work my way up in Ballroom over a period of years, then see if I can translate those skills into working with skaters? Doing off ice work also sounds like something that I'd be up to trying as well.

golden411 said:

I believe G2CYAS = Grassroots To Champions Young Artists Showcase. Audrey Weisiger is the force behind it, AFAIK.

I could be wrong, but my hunch is that a certain level of experience as a choreographer is expected.

But aviva, please do check it out and do not take my word for it. Good luck to you.

Click to expand...

Thank you so much. It looks like I'll be able to apply for next year.

aviva_dawn said:

Hmmm, so better to get ballroom experience and then work my way up in Ballroom over a period of years, then see if I can translate those skills into working with skaters? Doing off ice work also sounds like something that I'd be up to trying as well.

Click to expand...

The following is not meant to sound snarky:
If you want to be a choreographer for skaters, how about taking some skating lessons too? Could be helpful on multiple levels, IMHO.
At least some of the YAS choreographers were elite figure skaters. And what my post above meant is that I think the YAS entrants are not complete newcomers to skating choreography -- but I could be wrong.

If you're not a fairly high-level skater yourself, then the best bet would be to become a professional-level choreographer in some off-ice form of dance (not necessarily ballroom -- ballet or jazz or modern/contemporary dance etc. could also work) so you can bring a high level of experience of creating movement to music that communicates to audiences and uses the body intelligently . . . and then learn as much about skating technique as you can, including taking as many lessons as you can, so you can understand how the movement you imagine and create off ice can translate to the limitations and possibilities of blades on ice.

As a professional dance choreographer, you could offer your services, offer off-ice dance classes, to local skaters at local rinks and offer to help design programs for low-level skaters. Most of your clients would be kids below juvenile skill level, and even so you would need to be able to offer something that their coaches can't do themselves.

Do not expect you would ever get elite skaters to pay for you to create programs for them. They will go to choreographers who either were elite skaters themselves or to off-ice choreographers who are elite in their own form of dance.

If you're not already a dancer and choreographer off ice, your chances of reaching a professional level there are slim, and of translating that career onto ice as well even slimmer.

And few choreographers on or off ice earn a living through that career -- most have other day jobs on the side (or as dance teachers or skating coaches as applicable).

So you'd probably be best off approaching it as a hobby. And if you can learn enough skating to be able to skate low-level programs yourself, you can make as many as you like and develop your on-ice choreography skills that way.

What GKelly said. Not all skating choreographers started off as elite skaters, but if not, then they were high level dancers and they have now developed enough skating skills to be able to demonstrate their moves on the ice in figure skates. A perfect example of this is Phillip Mills, who was a professional ballet dancer before learning to skate and becoming a figure skating choreographer. http://www.phillipmillschoreographer.com/#!phillip-mills/c21jb