So if you spoke to me like 5 years ago I probably wouldn't have known that I would be making Kpop dance covers today haha. But that was when my cousin introduced me to Kpop, and I slowly started to appreciate the amazing artistry in the industry. Still didn't cross my mind to make dance covers though.
Fast forward to a couple of years later, I graduate from high school, didn't have much to do that summer, and one of my best friends suggested that we make a Kpop dance cover together. Tbh I don't remember what I was thinking at that time... I probably just thought that it would be fun and it would probably be just a couple of covers and that's it.
We covered Blackpink's Ddu-du Ddu-du and little did I know that that was going to be the beginning of my Kpop journey😂😂
But pretty much since then, I've really enjoyed learning and recreating Kpop choreography. And it's just been such a fun and mentally stimulating way for me to stay active. It never feels boring.
Now, I don't claim to be a great dancer. There are sooo many people out there who are way more talented and dedicated than me. However, over the past couple of years, I have noticed that I learn and practice Kpop choreography differently, which resulted in my covers looking more polished and accurate to the original.
So without further ado, below is just a short list of ways that I have noticed my approach to choreography has changed:
I prefer learning from mirrored dance practices rather than dance tutorials
In my initial days of dancing (haha making myself sound like a grandma here), I would always look for dance tutorials where someone explains to me how each of the moves work. Ellen and Brian's videos are ones that I always looked out for and to be honest I really think that they helped me out a lot ... in the beginning.
After a certain point, learning from a dance tutorial doesn't really do much to help you. For one thing, the person teaching the tutorial could be dancing differently than the original. But the MAIN reason why it doesn't help to learn from dance tutorials is that tutorials reduce dance moves to the words that you can use to describe them. For example, when one says 'put your hand up here', there is so much that cannot be captured in that phrase. Do you put up your hand gently, or forcefully? Do you start from a low position or a middle position? Is your palm facing upwards, outwards, downwards? Do you lead with your forearm, your elbow, your upper arm?
Now there are definitely people making tutorials who are able to explain these moves very well, but no matter how well they can describe the move, there are still limitations to what words can express. And something that you can't really describe with words, but is very visible in dance, is the feel of the motion.
Pay attention to the WHOLE body
Another reason why learning from a dance tutorial limits your learning is because you end up focusing on whatever they verbalize. So continuing with the 'put your hand up here' example, often a move is not isolated to a single part of your body. Maybe your hip or also your leg is supposed to move in a certain way. These things are often more subtle and they may come more naturally to the people making dance tutorials so they may not think to mention it to you.
What's more, when you put all of your focus on to how one part of your body is supposed to move, you can often end up distorting what the motions in the rest of the body is supposed to look like. It won't happen like immediately but every time you repeat the action and you concentrate on improving your hand movement, you could end up distorting something else like your leg movement.
That's why I think that learning from mirrored dance practices allows you to pay more attention to what the rest of the body is doing and to how the dancer expresses the feel of the motion.
I guess this is not to say that dance tutorials don't help at all, but it would help a great deal if you recognize that they have their limitations.
Ultimately, it comes down to attention to detail
Think shapes and angles
When we learn dance moves we often focus on the motion, which obviously is important. But we also need to realize that what we think in our heads doesn't always translate directly to our body movements. If we just think 'arm up', we could put it too high or too low if we don't consciously think about where exactly we want to place our arm.
Very very often I watch my dance cover and I think that something is off, but then I can't pinpoint where it is because I do each move exactly at the time that I was supposed to do them. Usually in these cases, it's because I've done the move but the shape or angle doesn't exactly match what was in the original. And then it looks a bit odd.
Record and replay
Force