Overcoming Choreographer's Block

By Nancy Wozny

What to do when creativity fizzles and your muse calls it quits.

Whether you’re a full-time teacher or choreographer or you merely dabble in dancemaking from time to time, at some point you’re going to hit a choreographic roadblock. Making dances comes more easily to some than others, it’s true. But the occasional block is the great equalizer— whether we are old pros or novices, we are bound to run into a dry spell now and then. That’s what Debra, an experienced dance teacher and a Goldrush Online reader, recently discovered. She teaches at a private studio and in higher education, where she faces an abundance of choreographic duties. Her audiences have not noticed, but she feels she’s gotten stale. So she went to Goldrush readers for help, asking, “What do other teachers do for inspiration? What performances do you see? Do you go to special choreography workshops?”

Several dance teachers offered sound advice to help Debra out of her choreographer’s block. Goldrush also invited Tom Ralabate, Trey McIntyre, and Karen Stokes to contribute their ideas. Ralabate is an associate professor of dance at the University of Buffalo, a former United States and North American Latin Ballroom Dance champion, and the national education chairperson for Dance Masters of America. McIntyre, a contemporary ballet choreographer, has some 70 ballets to his credit and holds posts at Houston Ballet, Ballet Memphis, and The Washington Ballet. Stokes teaches at the University of Houston and choreographs for her own company, Travesty.

See More Dance

Several contributors suggested that when we get stuck in our tracks we should look to our mentors. Who inspired us to love dance? Whom do we admire and want to emulate? What is it about watching our favorite choreographer that loosens those squeaky, creative wheels? Sometimes seeing the experts at work can stoke the fire and get us back on track.

Rolann Owens, owner and director of Rolann’s School of the Dance in Longwood, FL, and codirector of Music Theater Bavaria, choreographs at both schools as well as for opera and musical theater. She finds that embracing all the arts can make the difference, especially the visual arts. “Attending art exhibits, opera, and dance events throughout the world have inspired me to more unusual elements of style in my choreography,” says Owens.

Pam Rowen, a teacher at Starlight Dance Studio in Scottsburg, IN , finds that Dance Masters workshops do the trick. She draws creative fuel from attending L.A. Dance Magic and Showstoppers competitions, along with watching her favorite choreographers, Frank Hatchett, Charles Kelley, and Cathy Roe. “For me it is a combination of things. I attend three workshops and dance competitions a year,” says Rowen. “I also purchase a new video or DVD every three months and try to see Broadway shows and dance company performances.”

Debra Befumo of New York City thinks that what’s important is not just seeing dance, but whom you see. “I go to every performance I can in the genre [in which] I am creating. I go out of my way to see emerging companies,” says Befumo. “That is where the hottest, freshest talent lies. I often go by myself and think about what I have seen on the way home.” It’s not always the up-and-coming groups that motivate Befumo; sometimes she returns to dance legends for ideas. “I also go to performance libraries and borrow old footage of pioneers in the field,” she says. “I don’t copy anything; I just enable myself to think of things in a new way.”

Not everyone agrees that seeing more dance is always a valid approach. Ralabate says it depends on timing; if he is looking for new approaches, other choreographers’ ideas can get in the way. “I do not like to view dance when I am in the process of developing a new work,” he says. “For me it becomes a distraction.”

Pay Attention to the World

The rhythms and sights of the world around us are ripe with ideas for the taking. Sometimes the stuff of dance is found not in the studio but in everyday life. Some people say it’s time to leave the dance world and start paying attention to the world around us.

George Balanchine, one of the greatest choreographers of all time, drew from the impressive American landscape and from his travels across the United States for his 1954 piece, Western Symphony. “I have crossed the United States by car some dozen times, have camped in the open air in New Mexico and Wyoming, in Montana and South Dakota,” he wrote in his book, 101 Stories of the Great Ballets. “The vast sweep of the land, the impression of the Rockies and the plains, and the vision of the men who crossed the mountains and worked the plains, on foot and on horseback, cannot fail to move any newcomer . . .”

Lisa Pilato agrees with Balanchine’s open-eyed approach. She opened her own studio at age 20 in Dracut, MA, and has been teaching and choreographing ever since. She has received several nominations for American Choreographer of the Year from Rhee Gold’s former company, American Dance Awards, and is a two-time recipient of the Carol Miller Award (for upholding the highest standards in the art of dance) from Dance Ovations. “Choreographer’s block isn’t in your mind, it’s in your eyes. Open them,” she says. “I watch dance performances, look at art work, take my worst day and write my feelings down in a book. Even headlines in a newspaper lend ideas. I look around at everything.”

Jennifer Chin, owner of Dance it Up in Hamilton, NJ, likes to think outside the box when it comes to generating new ideas. “When I hit a choreographer’s block I take inspiration from everywhere—from kids playing basketball, jumping rope, or even people walking in the park or picking flowers for more lyrical pieces,” she says. When you least expect it, something from the everyday world can catch your eye. Chin advises getting out of the house. Go to the park, the zoo, anywhere where there are people to watch. “Two young children spinning each other might spark something.” Chin takes movements from real life and adds something of her own to spice up her dances.

Trey McIntyre always liked making dances more than taking class. “I used to skip class so I could make up steps in the parking lot,” he says. One day, while jogging in the park and listening to the Kronos quartet, he saw a dog chasing a squirrel. Kronos’ saucy Latin melodies seemed to go perfectly with this wild chase. Later, he funneled the memory into a new piece called Chasing Squirrel, an athletic romp about the romantic pursuit.

Ralabate reminds us that ideas can await us where we least expect them. “Inspiration can come from most any place. It truly is about connecting to one’s experiences,” he says. “I remember creating a work about the lighter side of death and dying by looking at the architectural flow of the ceiling rafters in my church. Apparently I was not listening to the homily.”

Stokes, a keen observer of her urban environment, recently made a dance about Houston, called Hometown. In a humorous section called “Traffic,” she explored Houstonians’ wild driving habits with intricate spatial patterns. She could not have made this dance without letting all the nuances of Houston penetrate her consciousness.

Watch for Drains on the Creative Brain

Stress can be an enemy of creativity. The juices rarely flow when we still have to do the taxes, order the recital costumes, or deal with a pile of papers. Sometimes the simple act of cleaning up a workspace gives renewed energy to the creative process. Clutter and looming obligations rarely enhance creativity. Before beginning a new piece, attend to leftover projects and start on a new dance feeling unencumbered.

Tune into other potential stumbling blocks. Stokes finds television counterproductive to the creative process. “I try to avoid watching TV . While it can be relaxing at times, it seems to drain me of creative ideas because it is so easy,” says Stokes. “It doesn’t require me to think or participate in any way, so I can become very dull both physically and creatively.”

Fatigue is also difficult to work through. Look at your schedule. Have you cleared some time to make a new dance? Good idea. Do you plan to work when you have just taught three classes in a row? Bad idea. Creativity needs to be nurtured. If we make time for it, it comes through for us. Stokes believes activities that wake us up spur us forward. “Any activity that forces me to interact, actively observe, engage,” says Stokes, “tends to lead to inspiration, and then to creativity.”

Mix It Up All of us have deeply ingrained habits in making dances, and they are part of what makes our work unique. But often we can be in a rut and not even know it. Do we always start on stage left? Do we prefer the same kind of music? Have we slipped into a formula as a kind of default mode? It may be time to shake it up a bit. Every now and then we should sit down and scrutinize our work. Is it all starting to look alike?

Experimenting with music is one way to stimulate the imagination. Changing the music from what we normally gravitate to can change the way we think about movement. “To make a piece more interesting I sometimes mix music,” says Chin. “That way you have a change of tempo, and sometimes that little bit of change spices up the whole piece and gets your brain working.”

Ralabate suggests using simple techniques to stimulate thinking differently. “Take your usual warm-ups, exercises, and progressions across the floor and use some basic choreographic devices such as canon, shifts in lines of direction, or mirroring,” he advises.

McIntyre describes his pre-production time as very freeform. “My costume designer, Sandra Woodall, calls me ‘the archeologist’ because preparing for a ballet is a bit like excavating,” he says. “I start off with conversations, with myself and others, about things that may or may not relate directly to the piece, and see what associations they might bring up.” McIntyre draws from what he calls his “treasure chest of inspiration,” which may include fabric swatches, photos, and various pieces of music.

Erica Dove, a teacher at Toby’s School of Dance in Richardson TX, who has 20 years of experience, finds that improvisation is a great tool for rethinking how things go together. “Every once and a while, put on different music with your students and have them improvise,” says Dove. “See what they relate to, or even have them bring in their own music. You will be amazed at the ideas you get by sitting back and watching them create.”

Stokes uses simple composition exercises to let new ideas creep in. “I create a very simple movement phrase, then I use craft manipulations to turn it inside out, to expand and develop the phrase,” she says. “I have a pretty wide array of tools to draw from, ranging from improvisation to more formal manipulations like inversion and retrograde.”

Learn Something New

In life, we alternate between periods of learning and periods of doing. Sometimes when we have been heavy on the “doing” end, it’s time to become a student again. Attending classes and workshops is an obvious way to renew, but it’s up to us to clear our schedules and make room for learning opportunities. Teachers need to be mindful of burnout and know when to refill the creative coffers.

Chin finds that taking class is a perfect solution. She regularly attends classes in tap, jazz, ballet, hip-hop, lyrical, and modern, so she can take a bit of everything back to the drawing board. “I take classes anywhere and everywhere,” she says. “They spice things up.”

Breathe and Take a Break

A choreographic dry spell every now and then is par for the course. Down time can be key in working through these periods. Stokes likes to look inward for inspiration. “I have found that giving myself time to be introspective is crucial,” she says. “I need time by myself; solitude can lead to thinking, which can lead to inspiration.”

Ralabate suggests taking a break as well. “Step away from the work. Give yourself some incubation time,” he says. “Connect to silence to find some answers.”

Pilato advises heeding a weary creative spirit as a sign that we need to do something else for a while. “When I am stuck I will not choreograph,” says Pilato. “I liken it to running out of gas; you don’t drive your car when you’re [on empty]. You go to the gas station to refuel.”

Even great artists experience fallow periods. Perhaps they are reminders that it’s time to do something else and not push the creative engine. Creativity is a natural process that is subject to periods of dormancy. It’s up to us to ride the ebb and flow of the creative river. Recognizing that there is an ebb tide as well as a flood tide will help choreographers bridge those times without feeling defeated or inadequate. And the techniques presented here can help floundering dancemakers jumpstart the creative process.