The vast landscape of choreographing
Notes from the Director’s Desk:
What does it mean to choreograph?
In music, there are both composers and arrangers. The composer creates something completely novel. The arranger doesn’t just arrange sections of the song, but allocates the parts to a specific ensemble or instrument. Creativity exists in both; both are listed atop a piece of sheet music. In dance, we don’t distinguish between composer and arranger. Instead, I’d say we have different roles (interpreter, director, choreographer, dramaturg) and many processes that fit under the title of choreographer.
Cutting and pasting
Most dance styles have a standard movement vocabulary. These common steps can be arranged to music or into a structure and with formations, and yes, that creates a dance. In my opinion, it’s not quite the same as creating something entirely novel. There’s no distinct line, but I think this aligns more with arranging. Most choreographers start with the idea of cutting and pasting steps they already know.
This performance from the Kennedy Center in 2014 showcased my first steps in choreographing - mainly cutting and pasting steps.
Improvising
And what of improvising? Improvising could be considered choreographing in the moment, as the dance unfolds. An improvisational dance artist usually has a score or scaffolding - an outline of improvisational rules. Flamenco itself has built-in scores in the music and structures of dances. But is that choreography? In music, an improviser would just be a musician.
Snapshot from an entirely improvised piece at Cleveland Public Library as part of Literary Cleveland’s Inkubator Conference. Much of the structure was based on the shapes of the flowers and the life cycle of plants, accompanied by improviser Max Hyde - Perry on bass.
Etymology
The word choreography originates in the written notation of dances - translating three dimensional body movements into fixed written documentation. The idea of being unchanging then comes to the forefront when we address the history of the word.
Starting from a seed
For me, the most meaningful level of choreographing is starting with a seed, creating processes to foster and develop that seed, then arranging the ideas into a final product that can be more or less reproduced. A seed is an idea - almost like a hypothesis, and it will eventually be tested and new information should emerge.
Inspiration
Where do ideas come from? Usually an awareness of the world around us. So, since there’s a succulent in front of me right now, let’s say I want to make a dance about how the plant grows within the limited ecosystem of the pot. First, I’d need to research to gather info to structure my “experiment”: I’d want to learn about the soil composition, the chemical process of growth, the structures and energies at play. I could just go off of what I observe - shape, color, feel, patterns. Next, I might create improvised structures to generate movement material. Then, I could use arranging and translation skills to manipulate the material, building phrases and variations. Music can be added at any time - music can both add to or limit what emerges. From there, overall structures, formations, lighting, costumes, etc. can be added. Eventually, a final product emerges which usually looks nothing like the seed.
There’s no one way to make a dance. Someone else could take the same seed and develop totally different processes and final product. The key is, it’s a long and thought out process of development, filled with trials and errors.
Pitfalls of YouTube and TikTok
I grade hundreds of High School level dance compositions every year, and since the emergence of TikTok, I’ve found fewer and fewer students who delve into the process from the seed. In their papers describing their creative process, they often share that they look up videos on YouTube or TikTok for inspiration - copying moves they like, or film themselves improvising to the music, and simply recreate whatever came out in that moment. One of the biggest joys of working from the seed model is the conscious effort to discover new movement. It saddens me to see so many students, and dancers out in the professional realm too, robbed of this experience.
Is choreographing encouraged?
To explore and find new movement is rarely encouraged in most of my experience - not socially, economically, or through education. So, there’s a lot of copying and pasting going around. I don’t think it’s because people don’t want to choreograph; I think it’s that very few people have been given tools to create from scratch.
Time consuming
It takes significantly more time, not just in the studio, but incubation time - time for the choreographer’s vision to develop along the way. That is one of my favorite parts of the creative process - when everything seems to connect back to the dance making - a hyper-awareness of life that feeds the process further.
Creating new movement within traditional flamenco
In flamenco, we have many of the dance compositional tools embedded in the movements and structures, that we may not even realize we are making compositional choices when we dance a traditional piece. Learning about dance composition can heighten our awareness to the choices we make within flamenco’s idiom.
This season, we’ve offered a few workshops in creation of original steps in flamenco. When I mapped out the sessions, I thought - “why did I make these 2 hours?! How will I fill this time?!” And then, as the sessions took place, it was clear they could’ve been all day workshops. To layer the process of creation, even in a 1 compás (measure) step takes tremendous time. And as these were structured like dance “labs” we discussed and shared what emerged. This credit goes fully to the participants, who dove head first into movement creation and were willing and open to share what they found.
Snapshot from one of the workshops earlier this season. What a joy to see the students create their unique material and watch it spill out organically.
Does technique matter?
Participants in these workshops needed a base-level understanding of flamenco structures, but not much more. The other great thing about composition is, it’s very equalizing - regardless of a dancer’s technique level, they can find movement that spills out organically in their body and if they understand the musical structures, they can work within those to create personal movements. Sometimes, it even helps them improve technique as they dance without trying to imitate specific forms.
When I grade the High School dance exams, at first I struggled with separating technique from composition. Within the strict rubric, I focused on communicative intent - did the dance express what it intended and was there innovation and clarity in the dance? These can be answered without making judgements on typical technique skills. Pedestrian movements can be turned into unforgettable compositions.
So much more…
There’s so much more I could say about choreography…for now, here are some additional resources to dive into:
For a great overview of choreographic process: https://www.britannica.com/art/dance/The-three-phase-choreographic-process
And a more in-depth article: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/47189894.pdf
Liz Lerman’s Hiking the Horizontal: field notes from a choreographer https://lizlerman.com/hiking-the-horizontal/