Facials Explanation:
When we ask you to do ‘facials’ all that means is that we want you to be entertaining the audience with the your face. Now, that sounds a little silly, but your expressions are a highly visible aspect of your performance.
For example, which of these pictures looks more entertaining and fun?
Here are some reasons why we do facials:
First, facials are way better instead of 😐 or 😕. It’s an adjustment for flaggers especially since you’re trying to focus on like 50 different things at once. But I promise you that all of us feel better about the team’s performance if you look like you’re having fun. Especially as your coach, I never want to feel like our team is miserable while performing. Your families and friends come out to watch you and don’t want to see you miserable! And best of all, you feel better doing while doing facials. The mere act of smiling is proven to make you feel better! A great way to get rid of performance jitters is smiling and grooving with the music.
Secondly, because we usually perform so far away from our audiences and judges, it’s crucial to make your facial expressions exaggerated and varied to keep the attention of your audience. From far away in the stands, this: 🙂 literally looks like this: 😕. So make it BIG! You may feel like you’re smiling, but as you start to focus on your flagging and dancing, one tends to lose the smile because you’re so focused. That’s why we practice this so much, so you don’t have to think about smiling and switching expressions, it’s ingrained.
Extra bonus: if you’re smiling and using your whole face you see less of the audience in your vision… might help with nervousness. :)
Different facials techniques:
A, E, I, O, U - voicing your vowels!
Literally go through and mouth the vowels but extra exaggerated!
Mouthing Exclamation Words
This means mouthing “Wow”, “Yay”, “Woo-hoo”, “Whoa!”, “Yeah!”, etc.
Nodding Your Head/Using Your Whole Face
A common mistake is thinking that facials are just smiling and that’s it. That is the bare minimum. Another way to amplify your facials is to use your whole face to convey emotions. Use your eyebrows to show surprise, widen your eyes or one of my favorite techniques is the wink! ;)
Continuously Varying Facials
Something that really helps improve your performance is not just going 😁😃😁😃😁😃😁😃(when you open and close your mouth over and over it looks like you’re catching flies in your mouth). Instead, really try to vary what you are expressing. A rule I used was changing my facials every move or every other move to keep it entertaining.
Mouthing Lyrics of the Song
Now, this can get overused, so use this sparingly, especially during comp (some judges like it and some don’t? I have no idea why cause it looks great). But when we perform to songs that have upbeat lyrics, try voicing key words. A good example is the band song ‘Hey Baby’, try singing along with the chorus!
Exercises to Improve Facials
Practice in the Mirror: One of the most fundamental practices, you will start to notice how much effort is needed to maintain facials, so practice it.
Practice with Your Favorite Upbeat Songs: Voice the lyrics as if you were saying them to someone.
Coordinate with Movements: Assigning certain facials to specific moves can help so that way it’s muscle memory. When you perform a certain move, you are trained to have a specific expression with it.
Partner or Group Interaction: Get feedback and tips from teammates on how to improve.
Feedback Loop: Record yourself while practicing and review the footage. Analyze how your facial expressions align with the emotions and narrative of the dance routine. Take note of areas where your expressions could be more pronounced or better synchronized with your movements.
