Dancers and Choreographers

Dancers and Choreographers typically perform the following tasks: • Direct rehearsals to instruct dancers in dance steps and in techniques to achieve desired effects. • Advise dancers on standing and moving properly, teaching correct dance techniques to help prevent injuries. • Teach students, dancers, and other performers about rhythm and interpretive movement. • Record dance movements and their technical aspects, using a technical understanding of the patterns and formations of choreography. • Direct and stage dance presentations for various forms of entertainment. • Choose the music, sound effects, or spoken narrative to accompany a dance. • Experiment with different types of dancers, steps, dances, and placements, testing ideas informally to get feedback from dancers. • Seek influences from other art forms, such as theatre, the visual arts, and architecture. • Develop ideas for creating dances, keeping notes and sketches to record influences. • Coordinate production music with music directors. • Design dances for individual dancers, dance companies, musical theatre, opera, fashion shows, film, television productions, and special events, and for dancers ranging from beginners to professionals. • Audition performers for one or more dance parts. • Assess students' dancing abilities to determine where improvement or change is needed. • Design sets, lighting, costumes, and other artistic elements of productions, in collaboration with cast members. • Train, exercise, and attend dance classes to maintain high levels of technical proficiency, physical ability, and physical fitness. • Read and study story lines and musical scores to determine how to translate ideas and moods into dance movements. • Manage dance schools, or assist in their management. • Restage traditional dances and works in dance companies' repertoires, developing new interpretations.