Choreography craft and vision

This book offers a comprehensive toolbox of approaches to analysing and creating contemporary choreography. Are you ready to deepen your understanding of the world of dance and the creative process of choreography? In this book about choreography you will learn how to develop dance and performance. In order for you to truly enjoy the process of choreography, I will offer you tools to help you enter into a creative flow. Because ultimately, that's what it's all about: getting into a free flowing joyful process with the dancers and having plenty of fun along the way, as you develop a solo, a duet or a group piece for the stage or a film. You will learn how to expand your repertoire and how to trigger in your dancers, identification and connection with your theme. I will present various ways in which you can develop and structure your work. Tools with which you can introduce tension, multiple facets, variety and powerful dynamics into your dances, allowing a dramaturgy to emerge. You will receive over 120 exercises to inspire you for your rehearsals or classes. You can now preview the entire book online for free or download a reading sample. Take a look. It will inspire you and your dancing and it will improve your choreography. When it comes to choreography, many dancers are initially lost. Nevertheless, there are people who can't dance and still develop great pieces. Maybe you're a gifted mover, but that doesn't mean that your material works in one piece. Even if your movements are great and others admire you for how you dance, it can happen very quickly that the sensation of your skills wears off very quickly and your movements seem arbitrary. Especially if you have transferred them to a group. And you ask yourself in such a moment: What am I doing wrong? My dancers are great, my movement material is innovative, but on stage it all seems interchangeable and it's just movement. And you think: This is all pointless. No, that's not it! It's about how you deal with everything. How you connect the dancers with your ideas and with your material. How you manage that the dancers make your visions and your movements theirs. How to get them there to identify with what moves you. But even that is not enough. You need to know more about how dramaturgy works in dance. How you build up an arc of suspense and what that has to do with space and rhythm. How to create interesting contrasts and how to deal with music and movement. This book covers all of that.

Konstantin Tsakalidis, born 1966, studied acting, dance, and choreography in Stuttgart, Konstanz, Zürich and London. He has worked as a choreographer, director, actor, and teacher for various theatres, film, TV and other events. He has taken part in productions with the Staatsschauspiel in Dresden, Berlin, London and Zürich, but has also choreographed for free ensembles and created solo performances. Since 1992, he has been presenting his work to audiences all over Europe. Konstantin has been teaching choreography in various danceeducations for more than 20 years. When I was about five years old, I heard the word 'choreography' for the first time. I asked my father what it means, and he said it was a Greek term which contained a word for 'circle'. The choreographer, he said, was the one who recorded and determined the circles of dance in a theatre. I knew straight away that this had to be a kind of magic. From that moment, this profession held a mystery for me, a profession which drew circles around things that were elusive and inexplicable. A lot of time has passed since then, and I have learnt how to draw different circles, how to let go of them, and always find them anew.