The
choreographer

While a painter uses color, or a musician sound and notes, choreographers use body movements to express themselves.

Imagining new ballets is constantly on Thierry Malandain’s mind, who works a lot on documentary and musical research. This work helps fuel his imagination and design movement sequences with one, two or 20 dancers. When choreographies last from 30 minutes up to 1h30, we can talk about choreographic writing, and the number of movements and steps to remember for the dancer to play a ballet equals the process of learning a full book by heart…

At CCN-Malandain Ballet Biarritz, creating a one-hour-long ballet requires on average six weeks of work in the dance studio for the choreographer, the dancers, and the ballet masters. To finish up a show, the choreographer also works with a set designer, a costume designer, a light designer, etc. He acts as a sort of conductor who must coordinate many people's work.

To learn more, read Thierry Malandain's article and watch the video: