Art & MusicGreek → English
Choreography
/ˌkɔːriˈɒɡrəfi/noun
The design of the steps and movements of a dance, and the notation used to record them.
The Greek roots
χορεία
khoreía
dancing in a ring
γραφή
graphḗ
writing
Literally: “dance writing”
The story of the word
Raoul-Auger Feuillet published Chorégraphie in Paris in 1700, a system of symbols for writing dance onto paper. The word therefore meant notation first, and only later slid across to mean the making of the dance itself. A Greek χορός was a group that sang and danced as one, and the flat circular floor of a theatre, the orchestra, belonged to them.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → French → English
- First recorded
- 1789
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
choruschoirchoralegeography
In a sentence
The choreography puts eleven dancers on a stage barely wide enough for eight.