20 Rules for choreography

Many years ago Sharon Mansur and I came up with 20 things that we thought were important things to think about when making a dance. I am going to publish them as we wrote them but perhaps they deserve some more thought. These are things that annoyed and frustrated us when we watched dance concerts.

1. NO Reaching
2. Don't looking meaningfully unless it means something
3. Move from your core
4. Go off vertical often
5. Don't show something, do something
6. Pay attention to phrasing, especially watch stops or pauses between phrases
7. Do not give subtle messages, be very clear
8. Don't substitute powerful music/sound for physicality
9. Falling on the floor and jumping does not always translate into being physical
10. If you don't have to build up your stamina to get through your choreography then it is too easy and will look that way
11. Don't slap markers of meaning on your work in terms of its artistic importance
12. Don't hear silence
13. Your first impulse is no different from a first draft of a paper. While there may be something important there you can make it better by developing your ideas
14. Show yourself and allow the form to shape your work
15. Challenge yourself when you make work. Push yourself to experiment
16.Take risks even if the outcome is not so good. The more dances you make the better your skill becomes
17. Make a statement and commit to it
18. Your unique perspective lies in the details
19. Let the dance take you places that you don't control, let the process teach you something you did not know
20. Come to some conclusion or give some insight, the age of abstraction was in the 1960's make work about and influenced by now