A ballet's choreography (arrangement of dance movements) may be based on such sources as a story, a musical composition, or a painting. If a choreographer's idea comes from a story, the dancers take the roles of the story's characters. If a choreographer's idea comes from music or a painting, the dancers create a mood or image like that of the original work.

Developing a ballet. Few choreographers know what they are going to do when they start to rehearse a new ballet. Choreographers usually have only basic plans about what they want to create and the style of movement they want to use. They develop these plans with dancers at a rehearsal. It is almost impossible for choreographers to picture what the ballet will look like. Unlike most other artists, they cannot create alone.

Choreographers seldom use words to develop and teach a new ballet. Most of them can dance, and they show the dancers the movements they want. The dancers imitate the movements until they learn their roles. Some choreographers demonstrate steps exactly. Others give a general demonstration, watch the dancers try it, and then get more ideas from them. Sometimes the choreographer may simply say something like "Please waltz around a bit," and then adapt something a dancer happens to do. Although all choreographers have their own methods, most of these specialists are influenced by the dancers with whom they work.

If new music, costumes, and scenery are planned for a ballet, choreographers discuss their ideas with the composer and designer. Choreographers usually select these partners themselves, but sometimes the company's artistic director may make the decision.

Recording choreography. For hundreds of years, choreographers tried to work out a usable, accurate system for recording ballets. In the 1920's, such a system of dance notation was finally developed. It became known as Labanotation, after its inventor, Rudolf von Laban, a choreographer and teacher. The system can be used to record the choreographies of today's ballets. See the example of Labanotation in this section.

A few great ballets of the past, including Giselle (1841) and Swan Lake (1877), have been preserved. They were performed continually because they were so successful, and were passed down from one dancer to another. But we cannot know how much of the original ballets still exist. Dancers often change the steps somewhat. Dancers may find a certain movement too difficult, they may not like a step, or they may do another step better. Some choreographers object to changes in their work. Others do not mind. In fact, choreographers may change their ballet to suit a new dancer in the cast. In dance notation, all versions can be recorded.

Films may seem to be the simplest way to record the choreography of a ballet. But films provide a better record of a ballet's performance than of its choreography. Films move too quickly to record choreography, and they cannot show each detail of the movements performed by each dancer. In the future, films will be a valuable record of today's great performers. But they might not show what the choreographer wanted because the greatest dancers sometimes make the most individual variations in choreography.