Choreography
Shaping of dance to a composition.
What it means
Choreography designates the shaping of dance: the invention and fixing of movements, step sequences, paths through space, and groupings for a dance work. The choreographer is to dance what the composer is to music.
The word comes from Greek and originally meant “dance writing,” that is, the recording of dance. Only later did the meaning shift to the shaping itself. This double meaning is still recognizable: dance notations, with which movements are recorded, remain part of the field to this day.
Musically, choreography is closely related to the composition. It follows its metre, phrase structure, and character but can also work deliberately against the music. The relationship between the two is a matter of constant negotiation.
In the notation
Choreography is not notated in the score but in dance notations of its own, in descriptions, or increasingly in film recordings. In ballet scores there are occasionally notes on the plot or on particular dancers that hint at the relationship between music and movement.
Musical use
In the court dance of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, choreographies were recorded in notation systems of their own, which are important today for the reconstruction of historical dances. In the ballet of the nineteenth century, composer and choreographer often work closely together. In the twentieth century, choreographies are also created to music that was not written for dance.
Raoul-Auger Feuillet’s 1700 manual of dance notation, which goes back to Pierre Beauchamp, bore the title Chorégraphie, ou l’art de décrire la danse. Great ballet composers worked closely with choreographers, for instance Tchaikovsky with Marius Petipa (The Sleeping Beauty, 1890) or Stravinsky with Michel Fokine (The Firebird, 1910) and later George Balanchine (Apollon musagète, 1928).
Performance practice
Whoever plays for dance should know the choreography or at least the decisive points: tempo, entries, places with jumps or lifts. Keep the tempo reliable and agree changes with the dance director. Watch the movement on stage, not just the notes.