Choreographing Shakespeare: Dance Adaptations of the Plays and Poems

Choreographing Shakespeare presents a hitherto unexplored history of the choreographers and performers who have created dance adaptations of Shakespeare.

This book investigates forty dance works in genres such as ballet, modern dance, and hip-hop, produced between 1940 and 2016 by choreographers in Britain, America, and Europe, all of which use Shakespeare’s plays and Sonnets as their source material. By combining scholarly analysis of these productions with practice-based conversations from six contemporary choreographers, Elizabeth Klett offers both breadth of coverage and in-depth analysis of how Shakespeare’s poetic language is translated into the usually wordless medium of dance, and shows exactly how these dance adaptations move beyond the Shakespearean texts to engage with musical and choreographic influences.

Ideal for students of Shakespeare and Dance Studies, Choreographing Shakespeare explores how dance adaptations strive to design legible and intelligible stories, while ultimately celebrating the beauty of pure movement.

© 2025 Spoken Realms (Audiobook): 9798228675018

Release date

Audiobook: 16 September 2025