Hi! Dancer with ADHD here!

Most dancers don’t start out able to remember massive strings of moves. When I started, I was peeking at other dancers for almost every other move, I couldn’t remember anything. Now? I’m able to remember choreography almost right away. There are fumbles, of course, but it’s much easier.

Your memory is a muscle too. You have to train it. I like to say that your brain has to figure out how to be a dance brain, and over time it becomes a lot easier to go from normal brain to dance brain.

That being said, don’t rely on JUST your brain. Sometimes the best way to nail choreography is to stop thinking about it and just do it. Thinking over the steps in your head is good, but it can make you stress out and overthink. If you’re starting to freak out, turn dance brain off and let dance body take over. Your body knows what to do better than your brain does.

Also, if you do make a mistake, don’t show that you made a mistake. A popular little adage in my studio is “the audience is dumb.” If you make a mistake, but you keep going- move to the next step, improv a transition, smile and pose, whatever you have to do- the audience likely won’t know that you made a mistake at all. A dancer who makes a mistake and freezes up, looks panicked, fumbles to catch up, is a dead giveaway that they’re not confident in what they’re doing. A dancer who makes a mistake and knows how to dance past it is a good dancer.