Look mom, I made a dance!

Dances, are not choreographies. They are two completely different and separate things. Saying dance and choreography are one, is like saying a computer IS the internet, a light bulb IS the electrical grid and so on.

In that sense, saying something like “I choreographed this dance”, is like saying “I interneted this tweet”.

Choreography is a platform, a networked technology, an operating system - which enables individuals and groups to engage in creating and sharing content and meaning through action.

Dance, is a fantastic type of action. It lends itself perfectly to the platform, the network, the operating system, choreography is.

The problem arises though, when dance (or any other form of action derived content for that matter), is mistakenly considered to BE choreography.

Choreography is an enabling practice. It enables the existence of other things. It’s an infrastructure to build upon. It’s foundational in its nature. When it is not treated in this way, the result is an incoherent, un functioning infrastructure and a fragile (or non existing) foundation. All the dancing in the world won’t help in that case. It can be the best dancing there is, it still won’t change the fact there is no solid foundation to the whole, hence, no meaningful artistic value. However strange it may sound, dance cannot become art in the absence of a solid choreographic foundation.

The elusive concept to try and grasp here is, that it’s not choreography who needs, uses and is built on dance (or any other type of content being used), but dance, which needs choreography in order to happen as art (In the same way a light bulb, needs the electrical grid in order to spread its light).

The internet, as a networked technology, is different and separate from the data which is stored and shared on it. It simply enables it. The electrical grid, is different and separate from all of the appliances connected to it. It simply enables the distribution of electric energy.

Looked at from this angle, it is easy to understand why the choreographic thing, is different and separate from the content it enables, serving as an infrastructure, a platform, enabling the dance/action to happen. What the choreographic platform, grid, network, operating system and so on allows for, is an emergent, clearly defined space, for different types of content to be created and shared.

What defines choreographic creation, lie not in the things that happen, but rather in the specific conditions and the resulting incentives, which allow them to happen. It’s the mapping and engineering of the HOW and WHY, rather than the WHAT. The WHAT then, is an enabled outcome. (A tweet isn’t the social network X, nor is it the internet. Its creation depends on the presence of both these networked technologies).

That which choreography enables, is human action/interaction. The fact that any set of conditions (HOW) result always in specific incentives (WHY) for the individuals involved, is what defines the choreographer’s role. As there is always the question of needing to pre define these conditions/incentives, based on ones world view. Primordial questions such as authority, sovereignty, freedom, truth, all come into play in the process of setting the choreographic conditions.

Dance, is probably to most ancient form of human expression. Choreography, as it’s defined above, seems to be the youngest among the art forms. I sometimes have a feeling it is still in its infant phase. So much is yet to be discovered.

And this is maybe the core concept to look into when thinking about the future inovation and evolution of the choreographic art form - choreography is not invented, it is continuously discovered. It’s an extension of the universe and the laws which govern it. It is a deep look into the platform, the infrastructure, the foundation, of everything that is.