Claudia Schreier choreographed her first dance, a solo for her summer camp talent show, when she was twelve years old. In her sophomore year of high school, she did it again, choreographing a pas de deux for herself and her best friend, Kaitlyn, which they danced as the school orchestra played music from. The year after that she made a solo and performed it with the accompaniment of the school jazz band.
Schreier, thirty-four, is now a full-time choreographer, and has made ballets for Miami City Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem, the Joffrey Ballet, Atlanta Ballet, and American Ballet Theatre’s second company. Her path into ballet choreography, and her presence in it, are both unusual.For one thing, Schreier was never a professional dancer.
There isn’t much of a clear or formalized path to becoming a ballet choreographer, but to the extent that one exists, this is not it. Most ballet choreographers were once professional ballet dancers, usually full-time at a company, and sometimes that company is the first place where they are paid to make dances. After college, Schreier did go to work for a dance company, but in the office, not the studio.
Choreographing, like all other creative pursuits, requires time and space. Rehearsing dances requires a very specific kind of space, and staging them requires another; neither of those spaces is free or even inexpensive, especially not in New York or other major cities. And of course, while choreography can be done alone, you will eventually require dancers, who need to be paid for their time and labor.
In 2020, among companies that had installed resident choreographers—“one of the most secure opportunities for the otherwise freelance choreographer” because it provides “a steady salary, the possibility of benefits, a group of dancers with whom to workshop, time, access to set, costume, lighting designers and a regular audience”—76 percent of companies worldwide had a man in the position. In early 2020, Schreier was appointed to a three-year term as the resident choreographer for Atlanta Ballet.