Little Mermaid

Choreography Style / Approach

Fluid, underwater-inspired movement blended with Broadway jazz and character-driven staging. The show draws heavily from Jamaican and Caribbean influences, especially in Sebastian’s music and dialect. Choreography reflected that with styles like soca, calypso, and dancehall.

Choreographed Numbers

• Fathoms Below
• Daughters of Triton
• Storm at the Sea
• Part of Your World 
• She’s in Love
• Under the Sea
• Under the Sea  (Reprise)
• Sweet Child
• Poor Unfortunate Souls
• Positoovity
• Beyond my Wildest Dreams
• Les Poissons
• One Step Closer
• Kiss the Girl
• Finale
• (and scene transitions)
  

Challenges / Innovations / Notable Moments

• Creating the Illusion of Water: Using inspiration from Chinese opera and Japanese kabuki, we incorporated large fabric to cover the entire stage to represent water. Additionally, movement was designed to suggest floating and swimming using ripple effects, canon timing, and other flowing fabrics that were attached to some of our dancers. 
• Costume-Movement Balance: Many characters wore tails, fins, or bulky sea creature costumes, so choreography had to adapt for mobility while keeping visual interest.
• Les Poissons: This was so fun to coordinate the “chaos”.  There was constant movement that looked like everyone was constantly about to get hit or run over, but it was all organized chaos.
  

• Poor Unfortunate Souls: We added modern dancers as “spirits” to add a visual interest to this Act 1 Finale. 
• Under the Sea: A standout moment. The number features a layered movement with props, puppetry, and a costume-driven rhythm to build a joyful, immersive sequence.
• Part of your World: We added an Ariel dream sequence where she saw her older self dancing with her younger self in the above world.
  
  

Video Highlights

Show Gallery

Photos by Sarah Stephens