Critiquing Your Own Performance and Choreography
How to look critically at your own dance: the words for performance and choreography skills, and how to name a strength, an area for improvement, and a way to get better.
Justify the choices, the way you are assessed
Free interactive practice on the decisions the assessment actually asks you to justify.
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Looking at your own dance
A strong dancer can look at their own work and judge it fairly. This is called critical appreciation: naming what you did well, what could be better, and how to improve. You judge both your performance, how you danced, and your choreography, how you made the dance. This module gives you the words and the method to do that.
Critical appreciation terms
Learn these four terms before you critique your own work.
Performance or choreography?
You can critique two different sides of your dance.
A reasoned judgement, not a label
A top answer gives a reasoned judgement, not just a label. Do not only say a section was good; say what made it strong, such as a controlled balance that held the audience focus, and then give a specific way to improve, such as extending the leg fully to make the shape clearer.
Match the skill type
- physical skills
- technical skills
- expressive skills
- mental skills
- control, balance, extension and stamina
- accuracy, timing and spatial awareness
- projection, focus and musicality
- concentration, commitment and movement memory
Match the term
- critical appreciation
- choreographic intent
- a strength
- an area for improvement
- judging your own work with clear reasons
- the idea a dance is meant to communicate
- a part of the work that is done well
- a part of the work that could be better
What is critical appreciation?
What is critical appreciation of your own work?
- Judging your own performance and choreography with clear reasons.
- Copying the work of a professional dancer.
- Only saying what was good about it.
- Marks given to you by a teacher.
Spot the performance skills
Select the TWO performance skills.
- Projection to the audience.
- Balance and control.
- Choreographic intent.
- The structure of the dance.
Order the reflection
Put the steps of reflecting on your own dance in order, earliest first.
- Watch a recording of your dance
- Identify a strength in the work
- Identify an area for improvement
- Plan how you will improve it
Summarise the method
Critical _____ means judging your own work with clear reasons. You look at how well your movement communicates the choreographic _____. First you name a _____, a part done well, then an area for _____, a part that could be better, and finally you plan how to _____ it.
Count the skill types
Performance skills are grouped into how many types: physical, technical, expressive and mental?
Find the physical skills
Tap the TWO physical performance skills.
- Balance
- Projection
- Extension
- Timing
- Concentration
Which skill is it?
Decide which kind of performance skill each one is.
- A dancer holds a strong, controlled balance on one leg
- A dancer hits each movement exactly on the beat of the music
- A dancer uses their face and focus to show sadness to the audience
Critique your own dance
Think about a dance you have performed or choreographed. Critically appreciate it by giving one strength, one area for improvement, and how you would improve it.
- Describe one strength of your work with a reason
- Describe one area for improvement
- Explain how you would improve it