Choreographic Structures & Composition
📋 What it is
Choreography is composing movement — arranging steps and phrases into a structured whole, like a sentence.
🗣️ Coach says
CHOREOGRAPHY is making dances on purpose. You build small movement PHRASES (like sentences of movement), then arrange them with tools like repetition, contrast and variation into a whole. It's composition — the same shaping ideas a songwriter or writer uses, done with movement.
🧠 Memory hook
Choreography = compose movement: build phrases → arrange with repetition, contrast & variation.
😂 Giggle
Why did the dancer sit on the floor?
They were working on their floor routine!
😲 Whoa!
Choreographers use the SAME structural ideas as composers and writers — repetition, contrast, theme-and-variation — just built from movement instead of notes or words.
✅ Quick check: What is a movement "phrase" in choreography?
Say your answer out loud first — then reveal.
A short sequence of movements that works as a unit — like a sentence made of movement — which choreographers arrange into a whole dance.
A phrase is a building block of choreographic composition.
🧪 Try it! (2 minutes)
Invent a 3-move "phrase," do it twice (repetition), then do it once slower (variation).