EXPANDED CHOREOGRAPHY UNCHOREOGRAPHED
Introduction: The question of authorship in expanded choreography
Expanded choreography, as I understand and practice it, is fundamentally an opening of the dance form—a deliberate loosening of fixed categories, hierarchies, and boundaries. It embraces dance as a plastic, mutable material, shaped not only by the individual human body but by collective processes, relational dynamics, and even non-human agencies. This approach foregrounds multiplicity, emergence, and fluidity, inviting movement and meaning to be co-created in ways that resist singular ownership or definitive form.
Such a conception radically challenges conventional ideas about what choreography is and how it functions. Traditionally, the choreographer has been understood as the central authorial figure—an individual who directs, shapes, and ultimately claims ownership over the work. This role carries with it authority, decision-making power, and legitimacy within institutional and cultural frameworks. It is a role deeply embedded in hierarchical structures of artistic production and cultural value.
The tension arises when these two visions collide. How can the figure of the choreographer, with its implicit demands for authorship and authority, coexist with an expanded choreography that strives for openness, collective participation, and decentered agency? Is it possible to embody both the role of choreographer and the ethos of expanded choreography without contradiction? Or does claiming the choreographer title inevitably reinscribe the very hierarchies and exclusions that expanded choreography seeks to undo?
This question is not merely theoretical. It is a practical and political dilemma facing artists today who wish to push the boundaries of dance while also navigating existing systems of power and recognition. It demands critical reflection on what it means “to choreograph” in a landscape where dance is no longer solely the product of a singular creative genius but a fluid, evolving process shaped by many forces.
In this text, I explore this paradox and its implications—both through a critical lens on prominent figures often heralded as pioneers of expanded choreography, and through the lens of my own practice, where the tensions between naming, authority, and openness are laid bare. Ultimately, I ask: can choreographers choreograph expanded choreographies at all?
The traditional choreographer and neoliberal logics
Despite the radical ambitions of expanded choreography to open dance to collective, fluid, and non-hierarchical forms of creation, many of its most celebrated figures continue to operate within traditional models of authorship and authority. These choreographers, often hailed as pioneers of innovation, remain embedded—whether consciously or unconsciously—in structures that uphold hierarchical control, individual branding, and the commodification of creative work.
In the context of neoliberal cultural economies, the figure of the choreographer is frequently positioned as an entrepreneurial subject, whose name functions as a brand and whose artistic identity is a marketable asset. This branding consolidates personal recognition and often sustains careers through institutional funding, international tours, and media visibility. While this visibility can amplify the reach of expanded choreographic practices, it simultaneously reinscribes power relations rooted in individual authorship and proprietary control over movement material and creative direction.
Such consolidation runs counter to the stated ideals of expanded choreography, which emphasize the decentralization of authority and the sharing of creative agency among multiple participants—human and non-human alike. The ethos of fluidity and openness risks being undermined when the work remains tied to a singular named choreographer who ultimately retains decision-making power, curates the narrative, and controls access to resources and legitimacy.
This tension reveals a persistent contradiction: expanded choreography’s political and aesthetic project to unsettle hierarchical modes of production frequently coexists with neoliberal imperatives that valorize individual achievement and clear authorship. The choreographer’s role as an authoritative creator can thus function as a stabilizing force within otherwise experimental and anarchic artistic forms, tempering the radical potential of expanded choreography by anchoring it to familiar systems of power.
Understanding this dynamic is crucial for critically engaging with expanded choreography today. It challenges us to question not only the formal innovations of choreographic practice but also the institutional and economic contexts that shape who gets to lead, who is credited, and how creative labor is valued. Only by naming these contradictions can expanded choreography move toward genuinely transforming the politics of authorship and authority in dance.
Expanded choreography as plastic and collective
At the heart of expanded choreography lies a profound shift in how movement, authorship, and creative agency are understood. Rather than viewing choreography as the product of a singular, authoritative creator imposing form on bodies, expanded choreography embraces plasticity—a quality of malleability, openness, and continuous transformation. It recognizes dance as a collective process shaped by a multiplicity of forces, including human bodies, social relations, environments, technologies, and even non-human agencies such as sounds, objects, and spatial dynamics.
This approach dissolves rigid boundaries around who choreographs and what counts as choreography. Creative agency is distributed across participants, materials, and contexts, inviting unpredictability and emergent outcomes rather than fixed compositions. Movement arises through interaction, improvisation, and negotiation, often blurring distinctions between maker and performer, subject and object, individual and collective.
In this expanded frame, the act of “choreographing” is less about authorial control and more about cultivating conditions for movement and meaning to arise. It becomes a practice of facilitation, collaboration, and responsiveness—where the choreographer’s role, if named at all, is partial, provisional, and embedded within a wider ecology of influences.
Such a reimagining poses significant challenges to the coherence of singular authorship. If choreography is plastic and collective, can the traditional figure of the choreographer as sole author still hold? Or does the very notion of “the choreographer” become anachronistic—out of step with the complex, multi-agent processes that define expanded choreography?
This question invites us to reconsider not only artistic practice but also institutional recognition, funding models, and cultural valuation. It demands new vocabularies and frameworks that honor multiplicity and shared creation rather than individual mastery. Without this critical rethinking, the ideals of expanded choreography risk being co-opted or diluted within familiar hierarchies.
In this light, expanded choreography challenges us to envision choreography as an open-ended, relational process—one that unsettles fixed categories of authorship and authority, and foregrounds the collective, contingent, and dynamic nature of movement-making itself.
The paradox in my own work: ‘PETER’ as self-titled exploration
In grappling with the tensions inherent in expanded choreography, I have turned to my own practice as a site of inquiry. The works collectively titled PETER serve as both a personal and public exploration of the paradoxes embedded in choreographing within a framework that resists singular authorship.
PETER is not merely a series of performances; it is a conceptual and physical space where authorship, identity, and agency are in constant flux. The title itself—PETER—functions as both the name of the work and the author, collapsing the distinction between creator and creation. This self-naming practice intentionally foregrounds the act of naming as a performative gesture, inviting reflection on the implications of authorship in a context that seeks to decentralize authority.
The installations and performances that constitute PETER are characterized by their openness and inclusivity. They are designed to be inhabited, altered, and co-created by participants, challenging the conventional boundaries between performer, spectator, and choreographer. Materials accumulate over time—papers, objects, recordings, and interactions—becoming part of the work’s evolving narrative. This accumulation embodies the ethos of expanded choreography: a practice that is emergent, collective, and resistant to fixed interpretations.
However, the very act of titling these works as PETER introduces a contradiction. By naming the work after myself, I reassert a form of authorship that the practice seeks to dismantle. This tension is not a flaw to be resolved but a critical point of engagement. It serves as a mirror to the broader field of expanded choreography, reflecting the complexities and contradictions inherent in attempting to decenter authority while still operating within systems that valorize individual recognition.
Through PETER, I do not offer a resolution to this paradox but rather an invitation to engage with it. The work becomes a site for questioning the very structures it inhabits, a space where the act of choreographing is both a practice of liberation and a confrontation with the limits of that liberation. In this way, PETER embodies the ongoing negotiation between the desire for openness and the realities of authorship within the neoliberal contexts of contemporary dance.
Reimagining authorship: toward a distributed practice
Confronted with the paradoxes of traditional authorship in expanded choreography, it becomes imperative to explore alternative models of creating and claiming work. Reimagining authorship means moving beyond the singular figure of the choreographer as sole originator toward a distributed, networked practice that acknowledges multiple contributors and agencies.
This distributed approach recognizes choreography as a collaborative, relational process, where authority is shared and creative input emerges from the interactions between performers, collaborators, environments, and even non-human elements. Rather than imposing a fixed form or message, the choreographer’s role can shift toward facilitation, curation, or stewardship—cultivating conditions for movement and meaning to emerge collectively.
Such a practice challenges institutional norms that prioritize individual ownership and authorship, calling for new frameworks of recognition, accountability, and value that reflect the complexity of contemporary dance-making. It also invites ongoing critical reflection on power dynamics within creative processes, ensuring that the distribution of authority does not simply replicate exclusion in new forms.
This vision aligns with expanded choreography’s foundational ethos of plasticity, multiplicity, and openness. It demands both artistic experimentation and political commitment—embracing uncertainty, difference, and shared responsibility. Reimagining authorship in this way holds the potential to transform not only how dance is made, but how it is understood, supported, and valued within wider cultural systems.
Conclusion: Toward a rethinking of choreography and authorship
Expanded choreography calls for a fundamental rethinking of what it means to author movement. This is not a call for the abolition of authorship—after all, the act of naming, shaping, and guiding remains a vital part of creative practice—but rather a demand for its transformation. Authorship in expanded choreography must become porous, relational, and provisional, recognizing that no single figure can fully claim ownership over the complex, multi-agent processes that constitute dance today.
Such a reimagining requires embracing paradox: the choreographer as both a presence and a partial absence; an authority that decentralizes itself rather than consolidating power. It means valuing multiplicity and collective agency without dissolving responsibility or care. Importantly, this transformation must be understood within the political economies and institutional contexts that often seek to co-opt and commodify artistic innovation.
To resist neoliberal logics that insist on singular branding, ownership, and market-driven visibility, a politics of choreography must foreground transparency and critical self-reflexivity. This includes acknowledging contradictions, interrogating how authority is distributed, and creating structures that support collective creativity while remaining accountable.
Expanded choreography’s promise lies in its openness—to difference, to emergence, and to new forms of relationality. Its challenge lies in refusing to settle for comfortable myths of the solitary genius choreographer or the neat closure of fixed authorship. Instead, it invites ongoing negotiation, critical dialogue, and a politics that is as plastic and mutable as the dance it seeks to unleash.
In this spirit, the question “Can choreographers choreograph expanded choreography?” is not a call for negation but an opening—a prompt to rethink who choreographs, how, and to what ends. The future of choreography depends on our willingness to hold this question in tension, embracing the complexities of authorship as a site of creative possibility and political transformation.
PETER 