In these post-Covid shutdown days, the American theatre is facing daunting challenges. Many of our major regional companies are scaling back or suspending production, affecting the number of opportunities available for directors and choreographers. At the same time, there is a vibrancy happening on stages throughout the country, and it is this abundance of creativity that is documented and celebrated on each page of this SDC Journal dedicated to choreographers and choreography.
I’ve always admired and been inspired by choreographers and have to confess that, for periods of my life, I wanted to be one. Like Laura, as she describes in her letter about her own formative experiences (p. 6), I danced throughout grade school. By high school I was taking ballet, jazz, tap, and something called “character dance” five days a week. (Modern wasn’t really a thing at the studio where I studied.) I became a member of North Carolina Repertory Ballet Company in Raleigh where I grew up. We did seasonal and annual performances and also toured the area doing “dance demonstrations” in schools and shopping malls.
I broke into directing in college by choreographing other directors’ musicals, and then I directed and choreographed my own, starting with Alfred Uhry and Robert Waldman’s The Robber Bridegroom, and eventually, I moved into directing plays. Now I have the privilege of working with a variety of choreographers who bring their expertise and kinesthetic vision to our collaborations. There’s a special alchemy in the director/choreographer collaboration, whereby pre-rehearsal discussions of story and intent become—through the choreographer’s art—a spectacular dance number fully integrated into the fabric of a production; or a rehearsal sketch develops into a safe and repeatable combat or intimacy sequence as director and choreographer work in tandem on the floor.
As we are in the rehearsal hall, directors and choreographers have been collaborators in our Union from the beginning, working side by side for fair compensation and the protection of property rights. As quoted in Ben Pesner’s “Agnes de Mille: A Pioneer On Stage + Off,” reprinted in last fall’s commemorative 10th anniversary issue of the Journal, de Mille, iconic choreographer of Oklahoma! and a founder of our Union, when addressing Congress on the question of copyright for choreography, stated that Choreography is neither drama nor storytelling. It is a separate art. It is an arrangement in time-space, using human bodies as its unit of design. It may or may not be dramatic or tell a story.
The definition of choreography and how it is practiced may shift from choreographer to choreographer or project to project as articles in this issue reveal. We have seen our Union umbrella expand over the years to include choreographers of dance, movement, and stage combat. Wherever there are humans moving in timespace on a stage in front of a live audience, there is choreography, and SDC unites, empowers, and protects the creators of that movement. These pages, beautifully guest curated by Joshua Bergasse, contain insights from more than 20 choreographers as they discuss their own understanding of what choreography is and can be, their personal artistic paths and processes, and their approaches to story and space, preparation and practice, composition and collaboration. Highlights include a fascinating conversation with the legendary Carmen de Lavallade; Rich and Tone Talauega on inspiration, music, and cognitive listening; a roundtable with choreographers who work in both the musical theatre and dance company/concert worlds; and extended, wide-ranging conversations between Jerry Mitchell and Harvey Fierstein and between Annie-B Parson and Sam Pinkleton.
The contribution of choreographers in our theatremaking and in our Union is profound and invaluable. They bring intuition and imagination along with considerable technical skill to their work in a variety of theatrical genres, collaborating with directors, with designers and composers/arrangers, with dancers and actors, with their Associates and each other, to create indelible experiences in the theatre and advance our art form. It is a pleasure to celebrate them with their own words in this issue of the Journal.
In Solidarity,
Evan Yionoulis
Executive Board President