Introduction to Dance and Creative Processes

  20/4/2026-24/7/2026

  FENG SHIWEN / 0374595

  Introduction to Dance and Creative Processes

  Taylor's University

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WEEKLY PROGRESS

WEEK 1 - INTRODUCTION WEEK

During the first week of class, the lecturer gave us a comprehensive overview of what to expect in this course, setting out clear expectations for both coursework and general studio etiquette. The assessment framework is divided into two major components: the Midterm Solo, which tests our individual performance and creative choreography, and the Final Group Project, which focuses on collaborative dance creation. We went through the grading criteria in detail, and it became clear right away that consistency, continuous effort, and actual physical progression matter just as much as final execution.

In terms of practical arrangements, the lecturer highlighted essential rules for our day-to-day sessions: comfortable, stretchable attire is required, and specific styles carry distinct rules (such as no hats during Malay traditional dance).

WEEK 2 - INANG DANCE

This week, we officially began learning Malay Traditional Dance. The teacher first led us in practicing several of the most fundamental basic movement patterns and interactive dance steps.

For Example:

Lenggang asas menghayun setempat

Lenggang asas menghayun depan/belakang

Lenggang asas menghayun pusing setempat

Lenggang menghayun bentuk 'L'

Lenggang menghayun depan - acah

Langkah jemput sudi

We spent a lot of time getting used to the subtle hand movements and center-of-gravity shifts that accompanied each step. When the teacher was doing it, Inang looked very gentle and natural, but when I tried it myself, the coordination of my hands and feet seemed particularly funny. Maintaining the natural swinging of my arms while remembering the precise steps required an amount of concentration far beyond what I expected. My shoulders always involuntarily tensed up. I realized that I had to relax my upper body and let the rhythm drive the movements.

WEEK 3 - INANG DANCE

Content: On Monday, we deepened our study of Inang by incorporating dynamic spatial pathways. We overlaid C-shaped and S-shaped traveling steps onto our foundational lenggang movements, requiring more awareness of room orientation and fluid transitions. On Friday, we took an in-class practical test requiring live improvisational dance. The rule was to take all the traditional movement elements learned in Weeks 2 and 3, recombine them on the spot, and execute them smoothly without hesitation.

This choreography made me realize that dancing requires relaxation of the body and mind. One should not repeatedly tell oneself whether one will make mistakes or not. This can cause the limbs to become very stiff. Moreover, our group needs to pay more attention to the changes in positions during the choreography, such as alternating between front and back rows or coordinating different movements. One should not always dance in the same place, as this can cause visual fatigue. In summary, I really enjoyed this group collaboration. It was my first experience of choreography, and it made me realize the fun of it. Although our choreography had many shortcomings, the attempt to take the first step gave me more confidence to learn the following dances.

WEEK 4 - CONTEMPORARY DANCE

This week, we concluded Malay traditional dance and transitioned into Contemporary Dance. The session was structured around two core modules: First, a continuous warm-up sequence, unlike static stretching, contemporary uses an uninterrupted movement flow from head to toe to warm up joints and awaken body awareness. Second, ground skills practice: working in groups to practice basic floor work such as rolling, sliding, and controlled ground spinning. These floor elements demand significant core strength, shoulder stability, and overall body coordination.

Switching from regular traditional dances to smooth ground movements was a complete shock for me. This week's intense ground rolling and overall coordination exercises revealed that my core was very loose, and I would make half of the movements incorrect when both my hands and feet were moving simultaneously. Also, due to not properly distributing my body weight when landing, my knees suffered some minor bruises. However, seeing that my classmates all had blackened knees made me feel that this modern dance experience was quite interesting, different from some of the basic dances I did when I was younger, which were just about making certain poses. This also made me realize that my core stability had declined significantly over the years. I now need to master the skill of gentle rolling and find the correct force points for my limbs.

WEEK 5 - CONTEMPORARY DANCE

Week 5 focused on practical application and group assessment for contemporary dance. The goal was to integrate foundational floor work into a complete choreography set to Adele’s "Easy on Me". On Monday, we learned the choreography for the first half, focusing on musicality, movement extensions, and matching emotional weight with breath control. On Friday, after learning the second half, we took a group test where each group/individual had to improvise their own ending movements during the final eight bars.

This week, the difficulty of our dancing has started to increase. The complexity of the movements and the duration of what needs to be memorized have both gone up. Firstly, what I find challenging is that modern dance requires following the rhythm of the music, varying in speed. I need to have more precise control over the intensity and extent of my movements. There are several floor exercises that require us to roll quickly. If we slow down, we won't be able to keep up with the subsequent beats. Secondly, compared to the basic traditional dances we learned in the previous two weeks, the movements of modern dance are more fragmented. I feel that for each piece of music, I need to remember several movements, and while performing the previous movement, I have to think about how to move towards the next movement. Otherwise, my upper and lower body often clash, for example, if I need to tilt my body to the left but my lower body hasn't reacted yet, such stiff movements will affect the aesthetics.

WEEK 6 - INDIAN DANCE

On Monday, we attended a specialized workshop on traditional Indian dance. Before entering the studio, everyone removed their shoes and socks. In Indian culture, dance is considered sacred, and walking barefoot symbolizes respect for the art form, the studio, and cultural heritage. We practiced fundamental footwork (Tattadavu) and hand gestures (Mudras). On Friday, with the Midterm Solo exam set for Week 7, no new dance lessons were taught. Instead, the lecturer gave a detailed breakdown of the grading rubric, exam process, and expectations.

The Indian dance is different from the dances we have learned before. I feel that the Indian dance requires a slightly more tense body because some movements need to be clear and forceful. There are many specific combinations of hand gestures. I saw many statues at historical sites related to Indian history during my travels, and they were all holding different gestures, each representing a different meaning. So I found these very interesting. Additionally, the foot movements in Indian dance are very fast. We first learned slow dance steps, and then when we followed the original speed music, it made me feel overwhelmed. Often, after completing one movement, my brain would be blank. However, after practicing twice, I was able to keep up with the entire choreography. Although the movements are not yet accurate, I think it is still a very interesting learning experience.

WEEK 7

Monday:

Public holiday

Friday:

Mid-term Solo examination

In the mid-term individual solo dance of the seventh week, I finally chose the song "BLUE" by Taeyun. Due to the fact that I hadn't danced systematically for many years, my physical foundation had basically returned to zero. In the early stage of choreography, I had attempted to use the song "Stateside" to choreograph a jazz dance, but during the actual rehearsals, I found that my physical capabilities and sense of rhythm temporarily couldn't keep up with the explosive power and speed of the jazz dance. Combining the contemporary dance foundation I learned in the previous weeks, I decided to change my approach and use "BLUE" to choreograph a modern dance. In the specific movement design, I mainly adopted the method of converting the poetic meaning of the lyrics into body language: for example, when the lyrics mentioned "cold places", I designed a posture of holding arms around the body to convey the coldness; when singing "transforming into a cold fragrance", I chose to use the swinging of hands and the rotation of the upper body to express the lightness and flow of gas; when the lyrics mentioned "even spreading is beautiful", I used the outward extension and pushing out movements of hands to express the tension of emotional expansion. Through this method of choreographing based on lyrics, I successfully overcame the stiffness of returning to a zero physical foundation and completed a reconnection with the emotional connection between the body and the music.

WEEK 8

On Monday, following the Midterm Solo exam, we were randomly assigned into groups for our final project. I was placed in the Kpop dance genre group. The lecturer briefed us on the project scope, criteria, and deadlines. On Friday, we attended a Kpop dance workshop covering basic verse and chorus choreography. Kpop requires a distinct muscle engagement compared to Malay traditional or contemporary dance; it places strong emphasis on movement sharpness, body isolations, and intense rhythmic timing.

I was originally very excited about Kpop because I had listened to many Kpop songs and watched the dance performances of Kpop groups. Their choreography seemed very powerful. But on Friday, my muscles were completely shocked. The dance movements of Kpop require extremely strong abilities to quickly pause, which is completely different from the smooth and gentle feeling of modern dance. When dancing rapidly, my arms felt very weak and the core of my body was running all over the place. I felt that if we want the subsequent group performances to look coordinated, we must do more practice in terms of synchronization and energy expression.

WEEK 9

In our final project, the team initially adopted a decentralized approach: each member chose a song on their own, independently choreographed a sequence of movements, and then taught it to the team. These segments would be pieced together to form a complete montage. This week, we managed to complete the choreography arrangement for the beginning part of the first song, and we are now exploring whether this choreography distribution and song selection allow everyone to keep up.

After the first 30 seconds of planning, we realized that it was best to unify the musical style of each song. The original scattered ideas were too fragmented. Since more than half of the members in our group lacked dance skills, teaching individual movements to each other took twice as much time. After the class, I felt some pressure because if we fell behind the schedule, we might have to reconsider the entire plan. After discussion, we narrowed down the selection of songs to those by female Kpop groups, and made the tempo faster. This way, our overall choreography will be more smooth.

WEEK 10

This week, we made a significant adjustment: we abandoned the "each person selects a song and teaches each other" plan for the ninth week. The original arrangement was too slow because many members lacked a foundation in dancing, and connecting different music styles was extremely difficult. Eventually, we determined a unified and coherent song sequence for the team and completed the complete choreography breakdown for the first song. Due to the considerable delay in our previous week, we scheduled practice sessions during our free time to make up for the practice time for the new plan.

As the beginning of the entire project, we decided to choreograph the first song in a similar "character introduction" format. Each person starts by facing away from the audience, and when the music plays, they turn around one by one to complete their solo part, then everyone turns together to continue the following part. Our practice efficiency has significantly improved, and everyone has incorporated their own ideas into the choreography. Seeing everyone finally moving in unison, it felt great. And finally, we completed the choreography for one song, which greatly boosted our confidence. Our team members also cooperated better.

WEEK 11

In the 11th week, our group completed the final design of the stage props and costumes. Since our opening dance was energetic and had a cute style, we decided to use cheerleading's flower ball as the prop and wear blue and white clothing similar to jerseys or baseball shirts. Additionally, we finished the complete choreography for the second song in the remix.

This week, we began to incorporate more formation changes into the choreography. We boldly tried some choreography where movements were combined with formation changes, as well as some small plot designs for battle dances. Although there were some coordination difficulties at the beginning, such as if one person made a mistake in counting, the entire chain reaction would be interrupted or out of place, but compared to the choreography of the first song, it became much more interesting.

After class, we began to focus on memorizing the movements because the second song was more complex than the first one. Everyone would have some forgetting of the movements, so when we had free time at home, we would practice by watching the recorded group videos.

WEEK 12

To address the issues of long performance duration and abrupt music transitions, we decided to replace the third song originally scheduled for the 9th week. Although that song had a rhythm that matched our chosen style, none of us had any choreographic inspiration. We felt that no matter how we choreographed, the result was not satisfactory. Replacing it eliminated the awkward pauses that had been bothering us for several weeks. We chose three new edited clips, which exactly met the required duration and could better connect the overall movements. Since they all came from the same singing group, the styles were similar. We successfully completed the choreography of the last three songs in one go. Currently, we have completed nearly 95% of the entire performance. Only the final 10 seconds of the ending pose are still under discussion. This is because two members of our group are currently in the hospital for treatment, so some positioning issues still need to be resolved when they are on-site.

When I finished choreographing the five-minute dance for the first time, I felt relieved and had a great sense of achievement. After these weeks of practice, I was the first to successfully memorize such a long series of dance movements. Although we still need to improve many details, at this moment, I feel that the fatigue from the previous two weeks has all disappeared, giving me more confidence to complete this task. This week, we still used our free time to consolidate the movements and tried to solve the details of the movement postures together in the next week.

WEEK 13

Once all the choreography was completed, the focus of this week completely shifted to the refinement of the movements and the adjustment of the stage positions. During the mock rehearsals, the teacher provided crucial feedback: Some movements had not yet been fully coordinated among all the members. Specifically, some teammates turned in the wrong direction or ran to the wrong positions. The team still needed to display stronger facial expressions and emotional engagement when dancing, and we needed to practice dancing without a mirror. We were not quite accurate in controlling our positions when watching the videos, and some of us, including me and a few group members, had the problem of standing too far away.

This week, we still scheduled specific practice time after class to focus on positions. We first checked the direction issues for each movement one by one, and then started practicing changing positions facing away from the mirror. I found that without a mirror, each of us needed to memorize the movements more thoroughly and know exactly what we were dancing, so that we could better cooperate without relying on visual observation.

WEEK 14

Final group examination

The 14th week was the week for our final group exam. We brought our props and demonstrated the completed Kpop dance choreography. Our group was selected to present in the first group. When we walked to the center of the stage to participate in the final assessment, we still felt a bit nervous. During those five minutes, I hardly saw anything around me. All I could think about was the dance movements. Eventually, we successfully finished the dance. All the previous stress, re-arrangement, and all-night practice paid off.

Looking back, in the first few weeks of the semester, even simple movements would cause my body to be uncoordinated. Now I realize how much my confidence and body coordination have improved. This course not only taught me the movements of different dance styles, but also taught me how to express emotions through body language and how to truly collaborate as a team. I am very happy to have chosen to study this course, and I am also very grateful to the teacher for my guidance and the mutual cooperation of the group members.