Choreography Matters

January 9th is the International Choreography Day.

It is the day to celebrate the mastermind of dance and beautiful body movement.

The word choreography, rooted in Greek, literally means “dance-writing”. Like writing a story, authors skillfully arrange the paragraphs and dialogue to compose a scenario. Choreographers design a sequence of steps and body movements that form a storytelling environment.

The early 20th century was when many cultural activities flourished. In 1909, Serg Diaghilev created the world’s first and most exciting dance company in Paris. He revolutionized the art form by working with the avant-garde elite at the time. Composers such as Stravinsky and Debussy and artists including Picasso and Matisse collaborated on his dance performance. Other than the classical ballet, the musical “On Your Toes,” later adapted into a film in 1939, first used a “choreographer” in the production credit. Not even mention Martha Graham’s dance company, which she founded in 1926 to experiment endlessly with the basic human movement.

Reading the dance performance history reminded us of a WELL feature.

“Creating space within a building for physical activities is important, along with larger efforts to design communities to encourage movement.” — WELL V08, Physical Activity Spaces, and Equipment: Provided Indoor Activity Spaces.

On this day, we dedicate this card to the dancers, choreographers, and all the dance lovers. Thank them for beautifully writing our human civilization history with their love for art and skill of forming body movement.

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While we are fascinated by the dancers’ perfection and the choreographers’ emotional staging, we inevitably think about their practice venue and its performance surface.

Martha Graham began developing her most influential movements of contraction and releasing in a tiny Carnegie Hall Studio in midtown Manhattan. According to Wikipedia, Martha started teaching in her studio at 66 Fifth Avenue near 13th Street and the Neighborhood Playhouse at 340 East 54…