1. Size Up Your Modern Dance Group
There are endless ways to define a group doing modern dancing. The "group" could range in numbers of performing dancers of four or five to larger groups or ensembles of 15 to 100. Consider whether you want to have the modern dancers all the same age and dance level or a mixture of very young dancers with older more advanced modern dancers. This could be a class from a dance studio or there could be open auditions to fill positions for dancers for a specific performance. The numbers and ages of your modern group dancers makes more of a difference if the dance is being created to perform in dance competitions.
2. The Choreographer Creates the Modern Group Dance
Most modern dance routines, from a dance studio, will be choreographed by the dance instructor. There are specific situations where a guest choreographer will be brought in to choreograph a routine for a group of dancers. These are also referred to as guest artists if they perform with the modern group. There are other times that the group performance will be taught at a dance camp and then the routine is adapted to fit the needs of a modern group of dancers.
3. Chore Dancers to Featured Dancers
The specific dance levels, strengths and weaknesses of the performers in the modern dance group can be used to give featured attention to more advanced students. It can also give modern dancers with less dance skills the opportunity to perform with more advanced students by being dancers that give dance support to the performance of a featured dancer. It's quite common to have one of just a few dancers doing featured dance movements different from what the chore dancers are doing at the same time. This adds dimension and creativity to the performance of the modern group dance. This is particularly evident if the dance is of a theatrical or lyrical style of modern dance.
4. Costuming the Modern Dance Group
The costuming for a modern group dance can vary as much as the hundreds of possible styles of the dance performance. The costuming should incorporate the look and feel of the theme of the music and the style of the modern group dance. If the modern group dance is a powerful routine with sharp contrasts to the dance, then a delicate flowing dress as costuming is not going to give the right "feel" to the look of the routine. Of course, there could be many different costumes and colors of costumes worn by the various dancers within the same modern group routine. The costuming and their colors are the finishing pieces to performing a modern group dance.
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