How to choreograph a dance

Choose a song your dancers like and can move to, at a tempo that suits their level. Check the length rules for your event first: many competitions and recitals cap a routine at 2:30 to 3 minutes. Cut the song to length before you make a single move, because every cut moves the counts after it.

Listen through and write down every 8-count with the time it starts. Mark the sections (intro, verse, chorus, bridge) and the accents, the hits in the music where a move should land. This map is your plan. You can count it by hand (see how to count music for dance) or upload the song and get the map made for you, with the lyrics on each count.

The map also tells you how much you need to make. A 2:30 song at 120 BPM is about 37 eight-counts. The 8-count calculator works it out for any song.

Decide what each section is for. The intro sets the mood, verses carry the story or the groove, and the chorus is the moment people remember. Give each section an energy level and a rough idea, like "floor work" or "big jumps". Here is a short example:

A motif is a short phrase of 1 or 2 eight-counts that you come back to. Make one for the verses (A) and one for the chorus (B). Then vary them instead of inventing new steps for every count: do the motif bigger, smaller, faster, in canon, facing a new way, or on the floor. Repeating and changing a motif makes a routine feel finished, and it is much easier for dancers to learn.

Start moves on strong counts (1, 3, 5 and 7), and save your best moves for the accents you marked in step 2.

Once the steps work, decide where everyone stands. Change formation at the start of a new section, not in the middle of a phrase, and give each change enough counts: walking into a new formation usually takes 1 or 2 eight-counts. Plan the path each dancer takes so no one collides. The dance terms glossary lists the common shapes.

Put every move next to its count on a count sheet while it is fresh. Use short notes and mark the strong counts. A written sheet lets you teach from one page, hand the class to a substitute, and change one section without relearning the whole dance. See how to write down choreography, or print a free blank 8-count sheet.

Teach one section at a time at a slower speed (the practice player plays the song at 75% without changing the pitch), then run it at full speed. Cleaning is the last step: watch one detail at a time (arms, then timing, then spacing) and fix it across the whole group.

• Listen for one instrument (the bass, a synth, the backing vocals) and move only to it.
• Take a move you already have and change one thing: level, direction, speed or size.
• Act out a lyric for one count, then go back to the motif.
• Film yourself improvising for one chorus and keep the best two counts.