Choreography

Choreography (ancient Greek χορεία "dancing, dance" and -graphy) today refers to the invention and rehearsal of movements, usually in connection with dance. Choreography, like a musical composition, is considered a work of art. It ranges from a short solo or show dance (e.g. Michel Fokine's The Dying Swan, 1907) to the production of a dance theatre piece lasting several hours with many performers and a complex plot.

A choreographer is the creative designer of a choreography. He is at the same time the inventor and director of the piece and thus, in comparison to the play, equally represents the role of author and director. This dual function gives rise to complex copyright issues. In opera, drama and musicals, the choreographer usually works with higher-level directors.

History

The term choreography originally described the notation of the movements of the chorus in Greek drama and was later expanded to describe any form of recording dance movements.

For Jean Georges Noverre (1727-1810), a "chorégraphe" was still the one who wanted to record dance movements in writing, and this was meant rather disparagingly. At the same time, a ballet repertoire was developing that was transferable to other ballet companies, but without written records. The teaching dance master therefore wrote these ballets directly into the bodies, as it were. This process is still called choreography today: the composition of movements in dance, and in a broader sense also any staging of movement sequences. The written recording of dance movements, on the other hand, is today called dance notation. In the practical re-recording of older works, however, dance notation hardly plays a role. Despite the common existence today of video recordings of earlier performances, choreographies are usually passed on by former dancers/assistants in a process of showing and learning. In terms of communication theory, choreography is thus one of the few forms of communication in which transmission is still of central importance in contemporary practice. Since the avant-garde currents around 1900, stage dance has freed itself from the demand for action that had distinguished it from social dance since the 18th century. Since then, dance can once again be completely abstract, in pure form without concrete content, as can be found, for example, in George Balanchine's work. Contemporary dance does not primarily distinguish between narrative, associative and abstract productions. Very often, however, dance theatre has a content which may be conceived as an original work by the choreographer, as is often the case with expressive dance and modern dance, or which goes back to a literary model, such as the choreographies based on stage plays by John Cranko (Romeo and Juliet, Stuttgart 1962) and Tom Schilling (Undine, Berlin 1972; Schwarze Vögel, Berlin 1974; Ein neuer Sommernachtstraum, Berlin 1984). Modern dance was able to develop into a groundbreaking and diverse art form in both parts of Germany until reunification.

Relationship to music

The choreographer either chooses an accompanying music that matches his ideas or is inspired in his work by a specific musical work. The latter can be found, among others, with John Neumeier (Mahler's Third Symphony and Bach's St. Matthew Passion) and Uwe Scholz (Haydn's Creation).

A third possibility is to collaborate with a composer who writes new music specifically for a particular dance piece. This can also be found with Neumeier (Odyssey - ballet, with the Greek composer George Couroupos), as well as with Bernd Schindowski (Epic of Gilgamesh - with Stefan Heucke), Frederick Ashton (Undine - with Hans Werner Henze), Sergei Pavlovich Djagilew (The Firebird - ballet, with Igor Stravinsky) and Michel Fokine.

At the same time, the dissociation from music in the form of dancing to noise collages or spoken texts has always played a role, already in expressive dance, then also in contemporary dance. Even complete silence is used again and again in choreographies because of its strong emotional significance as a means of evoking awe, promoting both tension and relaxation, and thus as a counterpart to music.