We spoke with Ritm, dance choreographer and teacher, about her process when it comes to teaching inexperienced dancers and whether SpaceDraft could help. 

Overview

After dancing in India for 14 years, Ritm decided to volunteer teaching dance to underprivileged kids in India. She started using SpaceDraft to help visualise and share choreography remotely to help dance students (whatever the level) understand how formations take place to music.

Existing Challenges

As a dancer and teacher, it is important to synchronise the music with each choreographed step. This is easy for experienced dancers to understand but for people new to dance, kids or even intermediate dancers, it can be difficult to explain in words alone the formation, movement and positioning in time with the music. Without precise timing, you cannot do a beautiful dance justice.

Traditionally, choreographers will map out the movements on a piece of paper and physically perform the sequence to demonstrate the movement in space and time. This process can be tedious and time consuming. There are no tools that incorporate movement in space and time.

Solutions

Finally, a tool to help me visualise the movements on stage! What used to take me hours with countless iterations, takes me no time using SpaceDraft. Using this software, I can clearly show my students how and where to move in time with the music.

Being able to send out the SpaceDraft and identify each dancer’s movements by using named pins has created a more transparent learning experience and the students more accountable for the next lesson.

With SpaceDraft, I am able to break down the choreography in even more detail by timecoding the script down to the second. The ability to include instructions, photos and videos to help visualise and explain the movement in the background covers everything needed when teaching a dance routine. The time spent explaining has been significantly reduced whilst the comprehension and retention by students has increased.

Results

Using SpaceDraft as a tool for choreography and dancing has a broad application. Not only does it save time when in the studio, being able to share the SpaceDraft with students means they can practice in their own time. I feel less stressed knowing my students have the right choreography and instruction needed to work on their performance and timing at home.

SpaceDraft can also be used as a means to archive all my choreography. No more sheets of paper and relying on memory – with SpaceDraft I can keep all my routines forever and share them with other teachers.

The best part about using SpaceDraft is that I can record the live performance and upload that video to SpaceDraft in the script or a in a mention. Being able to document the dance and save it with the choreography, all in one place, means the students receive better feedback and they can look back on their performance in years to come.

Future Plans

As a dance teacher, SpaceDraft has made life so much easier! As an easy to use tool, being able to combine music, timing and movement in one platform will revolutionise the way future choreographers plan and teach performances. I envision SpaceDraft to be used on a large scale within the dance community and across many industries as you can capture a vision and showcase it effectively.

I will continue to use SpaceDraft to choreograph my performances – and tell all my friends about it!