29 - Creating Combos That Teach

But beyond just revisiting and reusing choreography, which I, of course, will talk about and I think is really important, really valuable, I want to talk about how we can use those combos, those pieces of choreography that you use in in class as a learning tool and to relate it back to the material that you are using in the warmup or across the floor and that type of thing.

So that students remember that dance starts at the very beginning of class and combo is designed to be a culmination of what they've already started that day.

Combos in class are designed to help the students learn and grow and access a deeper understanding of what they've already begun to explore.

When I lived in New York for a couple years, I started to find sort of a trend in many of the classes today.

that the dancers come in and they do a warmup and then we go right to combo.

And even though that is wonderful and there is so much that dancers can gain, especially at a more pre-professional or professional level, you can get so much from combos themselves.

But I sort of felt like the art of the rest of the class, of the flow from warm-up to across the floor or some other skill practice into the combination was lost.

And I think that there's so much value in that flow from start to finish of class while using the combo as a learning tool, as a form of exploration of what was already explored previously in class.

Don't get me wrong.

I love a good combo.

I love creating combos for my classes and sharing them with students.

And I think that they can always be valuable and educational.

But I do believe that there are certain ways that we can intentionally craft combos to be a continuation of the learning from that day in class, as well as still give the students some autonomy over their own learning.

So let's dive in.