Reddit mentions: The best choreography books

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Read. There are some fantastic books about choreography :

http://www.amazon.ca/Intimate-Choreography-Lynne-Anne-Blom/dp/0822953420/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1398315293&sr=8-5&keywords=choreography

Great book to start. In the end, know why you're making a dance, even if it's because of a song, or because of a feeling. Once you have that, hold onto that and see where it takes you.

Improvisation is exactly the same idea, except instead of a feeling or song, create tasks for yourself. Improvisation is a place for you to explore your physical body trying out tasks or ideas. So give yourself a simple idea or task or emotional state and go from there, the deeper you go, the more interesting your movement will become. Simple ones to start are creating shapes with your body, circles with your nose/limbs, circles in space, lines in space. Perhaps playing with tempo, quick movements, slow movements or no stillness. Level changes both quick and slow. What is it to dance happy, sad, heavy, jealous. Also know, certain tasks also create emotional responses, so dancing quickly with your feet may make you feel happy, but dancing slowly while making circles could perhaps create a melancholic feeling. Write these things down, remember and most importantly, have fun. Improvisation is about exploring and expanding what you think is possible, it's okay to fail, it's okay to look bad and dumb because only once you've done all that do you know how to look good.

Good luck! Message me if you have any more questions!

That is simply a poorly written article.

Dance theory, choreography, and general concepts of contemporary dance are quite well defined and clearly articulated.

In the history of dance, there have been a number of approaches to formalize specific principles and vocabulary, even actual dance notation (Labanotation) was created to record specific choreographic movement in order to be reproduced. The availability of film and especially video made this obsolete.

Ballet is still actually the foundation of modern dance, which introduces variations of technique and extended vocabulary. It would literally be impossible to be a professional performer or choreographer in the contemporary sphere without not only a solid ballet foundation, but other well known principles set out since the Denishawn school (school founded by Ted Shawn and Ruth St. Denis that is considered the origin of contemporary dance's break with ballet).

Anyway, here are some essential reads that I would strongly encourage anyone that is interested in choreography or staging, especially in the context of marching arts, to read:

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The Art of Making Dances - Doris Humphrey (<<< critical read!)
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Making-Dances-Doris-Humphrey/dp/0871271583

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The Intimate Act of Choreography - Lynne Anne Blom & L. Tarin Chaplin

https://www.amazon.com/Intimate-Choreography-Lynne-Anne-Blom/dp/0822953420/

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Anatomy of Movement - Blandine Calais-Germain

https://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Movement-Revised-Blandine-Calais-Germain/dp/0939616572

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Dance and the Specific Image - Daniel Nagrin

https://www.amazon.com/Dance-Specific-Image-Daniel-Nagrin/dp/0822955202

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Technical Manual and Dictionary of Classical Ballet - Gail Grant

https://www.amazon.com/Technical-Manual-Dictionary-Classical-Ballet/dp/0486218430/

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The Routledge Studies Dance Reader - Alexandra Carter

https://www.amazon.com/Routledge-Dance-Studies-Reader/dp/0415485991

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Every Little Movement: A Book About Delsarte - Ted Shawn

https://www.amazon.com/Every-Little-Movement-About-Delsarte-ebook/dp/B01N1YQQXX/

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What Is Dance?: Readings in Theory and Criticism - Roger Copland & Marshall Cohen

https://www.amazon.com/What-Dance-Readings-Theory-Criticism/dp/0195031970

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The Illustrated Dance Technique of José Limon - Daniel Lewis

https://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Dance-Technique-Jos%C3%A9-Lim%C3%B3n/dp/0871272091/

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There are so many more!

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Also recommended, free OCW course from MIT:

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Dance Theory and Composition

https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/music-and-theater-arts/21m-675-dance-theory-and-composition-fall-2003/

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Well , you want to look up dancing, cadence as it relates to dancing, fighting, and so on. The last time I saw a thread like this, or I inquired about it I came across these materials here and this here

I hope that's helpful to you :)

Read: The Choreography of Presenting, by Kendall Zoller and Claudette Landry. I've seen Kendall teach some of his skills to various presenters/teachers, and it is really helpful material. Having good material is negated if not presented well.

A friend of mine got me interested in stage combat and other choreography. Consider picking up a copy of this.

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HyperX Cloud II (ebay)
HyperX Cloud I (ebay)
HyperX Cloud Core (ebay)
HyperX Cloud (amazon)