ABSTRACT

On choreography: "Choreography is a negotiation with the patterns your body is thinking"

On rules: "Try breaking the rules on a need to break the rules basis"

A Choreographer’s Handbook invites the reader to investigate how and why to make a dance performance. In an inspiring and unusually empowering sequence of stories, ideas and paradoxes, internationally renowned dancer, choreographer and teacher Jonathan Burrows explains how it’s possible to navigate a course through this complex process.

It is a stunning reflection on a personal practice and professional journey, and draws upon five years’ of workshop discussions, led by Burrows.

Burrows’ open and honest prose gives the reader access to a range of exercises, meditations, principles and ideas on choreography that allow artists and dance-makers to find their own aesthetic process.

It is a book for anyone interested in making performance, at whatever level and in whichever style.

chapter |4 pages

Dancing / Principles

chapter |2 pages

Material

chapter |1 pages

Habits

chapter |16 pages

Repetition

chapter |1 pages

Form

chapter |1 pages

Exploration / Risk

chapter |2 pages

Breaking the rules

chapter |3 pages

Collaboration / Audience

chapter |5 pages

Originality / Paradox

chapter |2 pages

Virtuosity

chapter |3 pages

Hoarding / Beginnings

chapter |2 pages

Endings

chapter |4 pages

Keeping it going / Pacing

chapter |2 pages

Minimal and maximal

chapter |4 pages

Does it work? / Showings / Mentoring

chapter |3 pages

Other bodies / States

chapter |4 pages

Narrative / Ballet / Continuity

chapter |5 pages

Relation / Time / Rhythm

chapter |7 pages

Time

chapter |3 pages

Abstract dance

chapter |11 pages

Scores / Studios / Improvisation

chapter |2 pages

Place or space?

chapter |3 pages

Audience

chapter |4 pages

Performance / Principles

chapter |5 pages

Music / Collaboration / Silence

chapter |3 pages

Text

chapter |2 pages

Titles

chapter |1 pages

How can I simplify all of this?

chapter |1 pages

Forget all this

chapter |3 pages

Bibliography

chapter |3 pages

Thanks

chapter |1 pages

Biography of the author