As we move into the final stretch of the season, most dance teachers are facing the same challenge: keeping students engaged and technical standards high while managing the heavy workload of recital preparations.
The key to surviving this period isn’t working harder, it’s teaching smarter.
This week, our IDA Tap Director, Dianne Schiller, shared a perfect example of this through a concept she calls “Teach It Once, Use It Twice.” This isn’t just about saving time; it’s a modular approach to choreography that builds student confidence by layering new challenges onto a foundation they already understand.
The Progression in Action
Using a staple from the IDA F1 Dance, “Latin Spice,” Dianne demonstrates how to take a basic grapevine and “upgrade” it into a complex technical phrase.
As you can see in the video, the progression follows a clear logical path:
- The Base: A standard, clean grapevine.
- The Technical Layer: Adding extra heel drops to find new sounds within the same footprint.
- The Challenge: Incorporating a flap and a spank while increasing the tempo.
By the end of the exercise, the students are performing a high-energy, technical combination, but because the “map” of the step (the grapevine) stayed the same, the learning curve is significantly shorter.
Why Modular Teaching Works
When you use “Smart Choreography,” you reduce the mental fatigue for both the teacher and the dancer.
- For the Student: They feel successful because they aren’t starting from zero. They are simply adding “attachments” to a move they’ve already mastered.
- For the Teacher: You can use these foundational “modules” to create multiple performance pieces. By changing the staging, the musicality, or the speed, you can get two entirely different looks out of the same set of steps.
See the Full System at Dance Teacher Web
If you want to move away from reinventing the wheel every season, join Dianne Schiller at the Dance Teacher Web Conference this August in Las Vegas.
She will be teaching her full session: “Teach It Once, Use It Twice: Smart Choreography for Busy Teachers.” She’ll be breaking down three foundational combinations and showing you exactly how to rearrange them into two distinct performance numbers.
The Best Part? Dianne is also hosting a live “Tap Teacher’s Troubleshooting” session. Whether it’s a muddy sound you can’t fix or a step your students just aren’t nailing, you can bring your toughest technical questions and get an immediate solution on the spot.
