What is choreography in dance?

Choreography is the art of creating and arranging dances by gathering and organizing movement into order and pattern. The word choreography comes from the Greek words for "dance" and "write". The choreographic process involves three phases: * Gathering movement material * Developing movements into dance phrases * Creating the final structure of the work Methods of composition vary, with some choreographers using dancers’ improvisations and others devising every movement prior to rehearsal. Choreography shapes dance in the dimensions of space and time, according to the potential of the human body.

Who creates choreography for a dance performance?

Choreography is the art of creating and arranging dances. In Western theater, single choreographers are typically seen as the authors of their works, much like writers or composers. However, social, recreational, and many non-Western dances often evolve through generations, with changes made gradually by groups or anonymous individuals. Choreographers may create new works or rework traditional dances, driven by varied motivations such as fulfilling a specific function, responding to external stimuli like music or literature, or expressing a concept or emotion. Methods vary, with some choreographers collaborating closely with dancers from the start, while others have clear ideas before rehearsals.

What steps are involved in making a dance composition?

Choreography, the art of creating dances, involves gathering and organizing movement into order and pattern. The choreographic process consists of three phases: 1. Gathering movement material, which may involve creating variations within a traditional pattern of movements. 2. Developing movements into dance phrases, defined as a series of movements bound together by a physical impulse or line of energy with a discernible beginning and end. 3. Creating the final structure of the work, which may be influenced by the purpose of the dance or the musical score.

How does a choreographer choose music and movement for a dance?

Choreographers consider various factors when choosing music and movement for a dance. Music, design, and drama play important roles in dance evolution, and choreographers often view them as integral to their works. When choreographers create or rework dances, their motivations vary widely. A piece might fulfill a function, respond to external stimuli like music, or express a concept or emotion. Music can determine a dance's style or dramatic quality, with composers sometimes instructed to emphasize the choreography's inherent drama. The methods choreographers use to create their work also vary. Some collaborate closely with dancers, while others start with clear ideas about the piece's shape and content before entering the studio.

How do dancers work together when practicing choreography?

When dancers practice choreography, they collaborate closely, and some choreographers involve dancers from the beginning, valuing their input. Each dancer brings a unique style, with varying strengths in skills such as jumping, balance, and control. Despite individual differences, dancers generally subordinate their personal style to the choreography's demands. Music is an important element, and the rhythm of the music may be used to determine the rhythm of the dance. The most fruitful relationship is often one in which an element of collaboration exists between composer and choreographer from the start.

What creative tools do choreographers use to express emotions or tell stories through dance?

Choreographers use various creative tools to express emotions and tell stories through dance. Music, an important element, provides rhythm and emphasis. They also use movement to communicate action or emotion, like aggression in stamping or exhilaration in jumping. Mime, or narrative gesture, can imitate movement realistically or function as a symbol. Costumes, sets, and lighting enhance the dramatic effect and aesthetic qualities of the dance, creating a heightened experience for the audience.

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Key People:: Busby Berkeley; Herbert Ross; Martha Graham; Bob Fosse; Stanley Donen

Related Topics:: dance; dance notation

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Top Questions

What is choreography in dance?
Choreography is the art of creating and arranging dances by gathering and organizing movement into order and pattern. The word choreography comes from the Greek words for "dance" and "write".

The choreographic process involves three phases:
* Gathering movement material
* Developing movements into dance phrases
* Creating the final structure of the work

Methods of composition vary, with some choreographers using dancers’ improvisations and others devising every movement prior to rehearsal. Choreography shapes dance in the dimensions of space and time, according to the potential of the human body.
2 Britannica Sources
1. dance: Choreographers’ motives and methods
2. choreography
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
Who creates choreography for a dance performance?
Choreography is the art of creating and arranging dances. In Western theater, single choreographers are typically seen as the authors of their works, much like writers or composers. However, social, recreational, and many non-Western dances often evolve through generations, with changes made gradually by groups or anonymous individuals. Choreographers may create new works or rework traditional dances, driven by varied motivations such as fulfilling a specific function, responding to external stimuli like music or literature, or expressing a concept or emotion. Methods vary, with some choreographers collaborating closely with dancers from the start, while others have clear ideas before rehearsals.
2 Britannica Sources
1. dance: Choreographers’ motives and methods
2. choreography
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
What steps are involved in making a dance composition?
Choreography, the art of creating dances, involves gathering and organizing movement into order and pattern. The choreographic process consists of three phases:
1. Gathering movement material, which may involve creating variations within a traditional pattern of movements.
2. Developing movements into dance phrases, defined as a series of movements bound together by a physical impulse or line of energy with a discernible beginning and end.
3. Creating the final structure of the work, which may be influenced by the purpose of the dance or the musical score.
2 Britannica Sources
1. dance: Choreographers’ motives and methods
2. choreography
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
How does a choreographer choose music and movement for a dance?
Choreographers consider various factors when choosing music and movement for a dance. Music, design, and drama play important roles in dance evolution, and choreographers often view them as integral to their works.

When choreographers create or rework dances, their motivations vary widely. A piece might fulfill a function, respond to external stimuli like music, or express a concept or emotion. Music can determine a dance's style or dramatic quality, with composers sometimes instructed to emphasize the choreography's inherent drama.

The methods choreographers use to create their work also vary. Some collaborate closely with dancers, while others start with clear ideas about the piece's shape and content before entering the studio.
1 Britannica Source
1. dance: Developing movements into phrases
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
How do dancers work together when practicing choreography?
When dancers practice choreography, they collaborate closely, and some choreographers involve dancers from the beginning, valuing their input. Each dancer brings a unique style, with varying strengths in skills such as jumping, balance, and control. Despite individual differences, dancers generally subordinate their personal style to the choreography's demands. Music is an important element, and the rhythm of the music may be used to determine the rhythm of the dance. The most fruitful relationship is often one in which an element of collaboration exists between composer and choreographer from the start.
1 Britannica Source
1. dance: Choreographers’ motives and methods
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
What creative tools do choreographers use to express emotions or tell stories through dance?
Choreographers use various creative tools to express emotions and tell stories through dance. Music, an important element, provides rhythm and emphasis. They also use movement to communicate action or emotion, like aggression in stamping or exhilaration in jumping.

Mime, or narrative gesture, can imitate movement realistically or function as a symbol. Costumes, sets, and lighting enhance the dramatic effect and aesthetic qualities of the dance, creating a heightened experience for the audience.
1 Britannica Source
1. dance: Choreographers’ motives and methods
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.

choreography, the art of creating and arranging dances. The word derives from the Greek for “dance” and for “write.” In the 17th and 18th centuries, it did indeed mean the written record of dances. In the 19th and 20th centuries, however, the meaning shifted, inaccurately but universally, while the written record came to be known as dance notation.

A brief treatment of choreography follows. For full treatment, see dance: Choreography; dance, Western.

The composition of dance is creative in the same way in which the composition of music is. The notation of dance, however, is a work of analysis and reporting, performed generally by people other than the choreographer, in language or signs that may well not be understood by the creator.

Peasant Dance by Pieter Bruegel the Elder shows villagers dancing, drinking, and socializing outdoors near rustic buildings, with musicians playing in the foreground.

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dance: Choreography

During the Renaissance, dance masters in Italy, such as Domenico da Piacenza, taught social dances at court and probably began to invent new ones or arrange variants of known dances, thus combining a creative function with their educational ones. Staged ballet employed the same steps and movements as social dance and differed from it principally in floor arrangement and visual projection.

In the 16th century, dance masters at the French court so organized the floor patterns and theatrical and artistic contexts of their social dances as to initiate a choreographic form, the ballet de cour. In the two centuries that followed, the gap between social dance and theatrical dance widened until ballet in the 19th century achieved a basically independent vocabulary.

The ballet master of this era, the choreographer, was an arranger of dance as a theatrical art. The giant of late 18th-century choreographic art was Jean-Georges Noverre, whose work and writings made the dramatic ballet, or ballet d’action, celebrated. In this, ballet incorporated mime as well as academic dances, giving expression to the dance by narrative and histrionic context. After Noverre and his contemporary Gasparo Angiolini, others developed this trend in various ways—especially Jean Dauberval in the realistic depiction of contemporary country folk, Charles Didelot in moving toward Romantic stage illusion and fantasy, and Salvatore Viganò in the dramatic use of the ensemble (choreodramma) and naturalness of tragic gesture.

The choreographers of the Romantic movement employed ballet, as codified by such masters as Carlo Blasis, chiefly in the ballet d’action theatrical forms of Noverre’s day or in opera divertissements (balletic interludes). The ballerina, her role heightened by the newly invented pointework (position of balance on extreme tip of toe), and the female corps de ballet both acquired new prominence. The choreographers who best developed the art of theatrical dance narrative were August Bournonville in Copenhagen; Jules Perrot, particularly in London and St. Petersburg; and Marius Petipa, who in St. Petersburg brought the spectacular classical ballet d’action to its peak in such works as The Sleeping Beauty, in which extended and complex suites of classical dance brought poetic and metaphorical expression to the plot.

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Early modern dance in the United States introduced new elements of movement and expression; and in ballet the work of Michel Fokine emphasized more naturalistic styles and a more potent theatrical image than had Petipa’s ballet classicism. Since then, choreographic forms have varied between the poles of representation and abstraction.

Dance notation in the 20th century came to be concerned with basic movement as well as formal dance and was assisted by the invention of new systems of abstract symbols—those of Rudolf von Laban and Rudolf Benesh being the most influential. Labanotation was the first to indicate duration, fluency, or intensity of movement. Today, these systems and others continue to evolve rapidly, amplified by film and videotape.

Choreography evolved no less rapidly. Methods of composition vary radically—some choreographers using their dancers’ improvisations as raw material, others devising every movement prior to rehearsal. Merce Cunningham radically changed the context for choreography in his attitude to music and decor as coincidental (rather than collaborative or supportive) to dance, in his employment of chance methods in dance composition and organization, and in his use of nontheatrical performance space. He, George Balanchine, and Sir Frederick Ashton became the leading exponents of classical or abstract dance; but the latter two—like Martha Graham, Leonide Massine, Jerome Robbins, and others—also produced major representational works of choreography. The only absolute rules in choreography today are that it should impose order upon dance beyond the level of pure improvisation and that it should shape dance in the three dimensions of space and the fourth dimension of time, as well as according to the potential of the human body.

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