The Role of a Choreographer

What are the duties and responsibilities?

This post will exhibit the daily life of choreographers and the knowledge and abilities they must have to live up to the role.

Required Knowledge

Choreographers have to know a lot of information in order to put together a section of choreography. This includes:

Knowledge of music: Knowing a variety of music genres so that they are able to choose the music that will accompany the dance routine. This will also help you work closer with the composer to better convey the idea you want. If the music isn't being composed for you then its also good to keep updated on popular/recent songs.

Know all components of dance: (Action, Dynamics, Space, Relationships) This will allow them to tell a story and engage the audience more. Its often that dances that audience can better understand or even relate to become more popular and preferred over choreography with no meaning or choreography that communicates the storyline poorly. For example, I personally prefer Christopher Bruce's Swansong over Martha Grahams Lamentation as Bruce uses dance to tell a story of a tortured prisoner. The story is made clear by parts of unison and canon and the dynamics for those pieces. Lamentation on the other hand would be harder for a lot of people to understand without the constricting costume as the choreography doesn't tell a clear story with her being limited to sitting, making it hard to portray many components of dance.

• Actions: gestures, travelling, turning, elevation, stillness, use of body parts, floor-work and the transference of weight.

• Dynamics: smooth/jagged, fast/slow, sudden/sustained, acceleration/deceleration, strong/light, direct/indirect.

• Relationships: canon, unison, lead and follow, mirroring, call and response, complement and contrast, counterpoint, contact, formations.

• Space: pathways, levels, directions, size of movements, patterns, spatial design.

Know different dance styles: Even though a lot of choreographers develop their own style, it is good to understand new and emerging types of dance to design more creative dance routines. Knowing more styles can also give the audience connotations of a certain emotion. For example the soft, smooth dynamics of ballet gives connotations of peace and harmony however a flexed foot in contemporary could be a sign of anger, distress or another negative emotion. Flexed feet is a stylistic feature of the Graham technique, showcased in her choreography for Lamentation - a dance created to show the effects of grief. If this choreography was to be danced by Merce Cunningham for example, though his technique does also involve a lot of torso movement, he comes from a much more balletic background and so would point his feet. Pointed feet would not suit Lamentation and so wouldn't communicate the same feeling we get from Martha Graham and her flexed feet.

Knowing new styles definitely makes the task of viewing auditions and hiring dancers easier as you can better understand them as a person as well as their choreographic intent.

2 Famous Choreographers

Christopher Bruce

Stylistic features: balletic movement such as long extended lines but with a contemporary twist with off-balance tilts and low altitudes, contraction + release, characterisation.

Influenced by: His father, a vaudevillian (first introduced him to dance), Walter Gore, Norman Morrice, Glen Tetley, Martha Graham (often uses her technique), Marie Rambert (he went to Rambert Ballet school)

Influenced: Young contemporary/ballet dancers

Schools attended: Benson Stage Academy (early training), Ballet Rambert, Walter Gore's London Ballet

Inspiration: Bruce's work generally develops from an external stimulus - music, paintings or literature (fact, fiction, journalism, prose, poetry or history). For example Swansong is about political oppression and Shadows focuses on the historical period of the Holocaust.

Choreographer approach: Choreographer - performer collaboration

Jerome Robbins

Stylistic features: jazz in combination with classical ballet and cultural styles, gestures, characterisation, rhythmic complexity, dynamic variation

Influenced by: Agnes de Mille’s ( took her lead in making dance of equal importance to drama and music in the development of the storyline), George Balanchine (head of New York City Ballet), Leonard Bernstein

Influenced: Stephen Sondheim, Bob Fosse

Schools attended: New York City Ballet,

Inspiration: Robbins loves to tell stories and focuses greatly on strong characterisation using costumes and gestures. He also took inspiration from music as he believed dance and music can develop a plot.

Choreographer approach: Choreographer lead

Comparing the 2

Though both practitioners have a ballet influence, Christopher Bruce has a lower sense of gravity because of the contemporary influence. Because of the contemporary (specifically Graham) influence he communicates emotion through torso movement however Jerome Robbins makes more use of gestures and expression to send a message to the audience. Both choreographers do use characterisation however the characters in Bruce's works are used to convey a much deeper meaning. Often his dances are focused on societal issues for example women's rights in Rooster and false imprisonment in Swansong. Whilst Robbins does still create a strong narrative, for example the one in West Side Story about 2 gangs dance fighting, it's much more light-hearted.

Not only do they dance and choreograph very differently, they use opposing teaching methods. Bruce loves to work with his dancers and so takes a choreographer - performer collaboration approach. Robbins however leads the space which doesn't allow dancers to play to their strengths and holds back creativity but also challenges the dancers more as they can choose to do what they're comfortable with.

Interrelationships

Choreographers constantly have to work with other people during the process of creating a dance. Communication between all people involved is vital in order for the choreographers ideas to be shown how they intended.

• Dancers - Help the dancers if they cant grasp your choreography, know your dancers skills and limit so that you can play to their skills for better/cleaner choreography and know their limits to prevent injury.

• Set designers - Communicate general ideas for choreography so that the set can be designed around the spacing of the movements.

• Lighting designers - Explain the mood the lighting must create so that it fits with the dance theme.

• Costume designers - Explain the intentions of the dance so that the costume designer knows what the connotations of the dance should be and can therefore decide of the type and colour of individual costumes.

• All of the above - Give clear instructions and communicate regularly

With all ideas initiating from the choreographer, choreographers have the most interaction with others. Interrelationships are key in making sure that a choreographer can communicate their idea clearly so that the final performance gives the visual and emotional effects intended. For example, if Matthew Bourne didn't communicate well with costume and set designers the bright and whimsical feel wouldn't have been brought to the stage.