By Melissa Anduiza, Charlotte Ballet dancer

On a daily basis, choreographers and dancers have the privilege of diving into the ever so varied “choreographic process”. The choreographic process is especially unique when it comes to a contemporary show, such as Innovative Works, because of the endless possibilities that both artists (choreographer and dancer) can explore through movement and ideas.

Photo by Christopher Record

A choreographer’s focal aim is to execute their visions onto their dancers’ bodies through movement and performance. Dancers are carefully selected to be in specific pieces based on how accurately they will bring the choreographers vision to life. Once chosen, they become live subjects of the piece, who are now responsible for representing the choreographer’s voice.

As a dancer and emerging choreographer, I believe that the choreographic process is a collaborative project, as in its nature, dance, is a collaborative art form. It is a human to human relationship that requires a commitment to shared goals, accountability for success, and sharing of resources, risks, and rewards.

The birth of a piece originates from choreographic inspiration. Some choreographers can be moved by the mere idea of exploring movement and motion. The human body is fascinating! And a dancer’s kinesiology and physical ability is even more intriguing to work with. Others may be driven by emotional expression. Some choreographers work with designs of visual arts, masterpieces of music, social or political issues, or images and ideas of nature. They spend much time researching in advance, maybe by traveling, studying theories, listening to music, viewing art work and paintings, tasting food or drinks, and reading stories or poems so that they may develop their concepts more thoroughly. Each of these inspirational tools serves as a muse to the choreographer to help ignite the creative process.

In the studio, some choreographers direct a rehearsal usually knowing exactly what they want. They may teach a dance phrase for the dancer to learn and describe specifically what they want to see. In a more exploratory creation, starting from a blank slate, words, images, ideas or music are communicated to the dancer in order to generate movements. The beauty in this process is allowing the dancer’s own personal and intellectual interpretation to be expressed. This is easily achieved through improvisation which allows for movement invention and new discoveries to be found. Once movement is produced, the choreographer can start to add more elements to completing their work like, structure and essential architecture. I like to call it the organizational part of the process. All of these elements are necessary to put together for a piece to be ready to put on stage.

Developing artistry is one of the important goals in completing a work. You can’t really get artistry until there is a trust between choreographer and dancer, when they feel that they can make mistakes in an effort to achieve something. Artistry can be developed through awareness. There is an inner core, an understanding…

Dance is a live art, in order for the chorographic process to be complete, the finished work must be presented to the audience. The performance is a critical moment for a choreographer because the audience’s response tells the choreographer how their vision has been communicated.

Photo by Christopher Record

You are invited to be part of the audience and to see Melissa perform in Charlotte Ballet’s Innovative Works January 30-February 21 at the Patricia McBride & Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux Center for Dance. For more information, visit charlotteballet.org.