Choreography

choreography

Art of creating and arranging dances. The word is derived from the Greek for “dance” and “write,” reflecting its early meaning as a written record of dances. By the 19th century the term was used mainly for the creation of dances, and the written record became known as dance notation. In the 16th century dance masters at the French court arranged their social dances into specific patterns. In the 17th century such dances became more complex and were performed as theatrical ballets by trained professionals. In the late 18th century Jean-Georges Noverre and Gasparo Angiolini introduced choreography that combined expressive mime and dance steps to produce the dramatic ballet. This was further developed in 19th-century Romantic ballets by Marius Petipa, Jules Perrot, and August Bournonville. Radical change in the 20th century began with choreographers of the Ballets Russes, including Michel Fokine and Léonide Massine, and continued with George Balanchine, Martha Graham, Frederick Ashton, Jerome Robbins, Merce Cunningham, and Twyla Tharp. See also Alvin Ailey; Agnes de Mille; Serge Lifar; Bronislava Nijinska; Salvatore Viganò.

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choreography, choregraphy

1. the composition of dance steps and sequences for ballet and stage dancing

2. the steps and sequences of a ballet or dance

3. the notation representing such steps

4. the art of dancing
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Choreography 

(1) A term originally used for the art of notating dances. The first attempts to record dances were made in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, but it was not until the late 17th and early 18th centuries that French choreographers and dance teachers, such as P. Beauchamp, R.-A. Feuillet, and P. Rameau, devised a system of dance notation, which later became widespread. The term “choreography” was introduced by the choreographer Feuillet, author of Chorégraphie ou l’arte de décrire la danse (1700). In Russia, two systems of dance notation were devised in the late 18th century: the system of F. A. Zorn (in Russian, A. Ia. Tsorn; 1889), used mainly by teachers of ballroom dances, and the system of V. I. Stepanov (1891). Stepanov’s system was used to record 27 ballets from the repertoire of the Mariinskii Theater in St. Petersburg.

(2) The art of composing dances and ballets. In this sense, the term has been used since the mid-19th century. Authors of the steps and dances in a ballet are called choreographers.

(3) The art of the dance as a whole. It is one of the oldest forms of art, whose means of expression are movements of the human body to music (seeDANCE).

REFERENCE

Lisitsian, S. Zapis’ dvizheniia (Kinetografiia). Moscow-Leningrad, 1940.