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Books on Choreography & the Creative Process

Choreographers learn best from other choreographers!

 

Besides viewing masterworks on stage and screen, and struggling in the dance studio, young and emerging choreographers can also turn to books and learn more about the creative process of making dances. We’re open to hearing your suggestions and feel free to contact us.

      
 

Jean Georges Noverre
Letters on Dancing and Ballets
1760, Chez Aime Delaroshe
Multiple prints: 1760 – 2004
English version by Princeton Book Co.

Doris Humphrey
The Art of Making Dances
1959, Grove Press NY, Mutiple prints,

1991, Princeton Book Co.
   

Vladimir Angelov
YOU, THE CHOREOGRAPHER 
Creating and crafting dance

2023, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group

Kattie Flatt
Creating and Developing Dance for Performance
2019, Crowood Press

   

Lynne Anne Blom and L. Tarin Chaplin
The Intimate Act of Choreography
1982-94, University of Pittsburg Press
 

Jacqueline M. Smith-Autard
Dance Composition
,
1976- 2010 , Methuen Drama Press , Great Britain
Five prints, including a new DVD

   

Twyla Tharp
The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life
2009, Simon and Schuster

Jo Butterworth (Editor),
Liesbeth Wildschut (Editor)
Contemporary Choreography: A Critical Reader

2009, Routledge

   

Melinda Buckwalter
Composing While Dancing:  An Improviser’s Companion Paperback

2010, University of Wisconsin Press

William Forsythe
William Forsythe:  Improvisation Technologies:  A Tool for the Analytical Dance Eye

Multimedia CD
2010, Hatje/Cantz, Germany

   

Liz Lerman
Liz Lerman's Critical Response Process: 
A Method for Getting .Useful Feedback on anything you Make, From Dance to Dessert

2003, Dance Exchange ©, 

Andrea Olsen
The Place of Dance:  A Somatic Guide to Dancing and Dance Making
2014, Wesleyan University Press 

   

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51eu1HOcKyL._SX386_BO1,204,203,200_.jpgSandra Cerny Minton
Choreography: A Basic Approach Using Improvisation
3rd Edition
2007, Human Kintecs

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51RdcfWQblL._SX386_BO1,204,203,200_.jpgPamela Anderson Sofras
Dance Composition Basics:
Capturing the Choreographer's Craft

Paper/DVD Edition
2006, Human Kinetics
   

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31RZCsHl%2BwL._SX324_BO1,204,203,200_.jpgLuis Ellfeldt
A Primer for Choreographers 

1967, Waveland Press, Inc

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Vk2A9iw2L._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Diana F. Green
Choreographing From Within: Developing the Habit of Inquiry as an Artist

2010, Human Kinetics

 

   

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31RZCsHl%2BwL._SX324_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Larry Lavender
Dancers Talking Dance: Critical Evaluation in the Choreography Class 
1996, Human Kinetics

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Vk2A9iw2L._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Janice Pomer
Dance Composition

2009, Human Kinetics

 

   


Holly Shaw,
The Creative Formula: Compose, Choreograph, and Capture Your Masterpiece,

2016, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform


Jonathan Burrows,
A Choreographer's Handbook

2010, Routledge
   


Group Motion in Practice: Collective Creation Through Dance Movement Improvisation
Multiple Authors, McFarland , 2018

 

Louis Horst and Carroll Russell 
Modern Dance Forms
In Relation to the Other Modern Arts

Dance Horizons, 1992

 

   

 

Wendy Lesser, 
Jerome Robbins, A Life in Dance,
 

Yale University Press, 2018 

Einav Katan-Schmid,
Embodied Philosophy in Dance: Gaga
and Ohad Naharin’s Movement Research 

Palgrave Macmillan, 2016

 

 

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