Techniques
Dances are designed by applying one or both of these fundamental choreographic methods:
- Improvisation, in which a choreographer provides dancers with a score (i.e., generalized directives) that serves as guidelines for improvised movement and form. For example, a score might direct one dancer to withdraw from another dancer, who in turn is directed to avoid the withdrawal, or it might specify a sequence of movements that are to be executed in an improvised manner over the course of a musical phrase, as in contra dance choreography. Improvisational scores typically offer wide latitude for personal interpretation by the dancer.
- Planned choreography, in which a choreographer dictates motion and form in detail, leaving little or no opportunity for the dancer to exercise personal interpretation.
Several underlying techniques are commonly used in choreography for two or more dancers:
- Mirroring - facing each other and doing the same
- Retrograde - performing a sequence of moves in reverse order
- Canon - people performing the same move one after the other
- Levels - people higher and lower in a dance
- Shadowing - standing one behind the other and performing the same moves
- Unison - two or more people doing a range of moves at the same time
Movements may be characterized by dynamics, such as fast, slow, hard, soft, long, and short.
Read more about this topic: Choreography (dance)
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