A company director may need to make a dance to challenge, entertain, or inspire an audience. A commercial choreographer, working in show business, may have to make a dance that expresses the feelings of someone else, the composer, the writer, or the director. A dance may be intended to delight an audience, soothe them, shock them, inform them, or simply share with them things that cannot be said in words. Many choreographers report that whenever they hear certain pieces of music they see a whole dance in their heads. Such inspiration is important, but taking that vision and making it into an actual dance requires something even more important, craft.
Time management is of utmost importance.
The choreographer must take time alone to think about the dance he or she is going to make, then the time to work alone in a dance studio, time to teach the dance to the performers, to see that it is accompanied by appropriate costumes, music and lighting, and time to polish it for public performance. A dance is planned to take a pre-determined amount of time. The choreographer then divides that time and the dancing space into smaller increments, punctuated by changing rhythms and movements. It is important for the choreographer to choose accompanying sound or music that not only supports the mood of the dance, but matches its subdivisions as well. This means hours and hours of listening to all kinds of music.