Thread: Is there a "going rate" for creating choreographies?

Fellow Bhuzzers, I would love your input! I've been approached to create a choreography for a local troupe and would love some advice on what to charge. I plan to provide music, printed choreography, and a DVD of me demonstrating the choreography. I'm envisioning maybe 3-4 hours of instruction initially, plus a coaching session or two once they've had the chance to work with the dance and feel comfortable with it. I haven't selected the music yet but we're thinking of a dance that would be 5-6 minutes long.

Please share your experiences and opinions!

Latifa

It can help to figure out how many hours it'll take you.

Allow 3 hours of choreography development time for each minute of song length. So, for a 5 minute song, assume 15 hours of choreography creation time.

Allow 1 hour per minute of length for the song to teach the choreography to them. So, for a 5-minute song, assume 5 hours of instruction time.

Not sure how much time to suggest you allow for written choreography notes, because it depends on how much detail you would include.

For demo DVD, allow 30-60 minutes to create it, depending on how proficient you are with the technology and what kind of tools you have for transferring from camera to DVD. Also, if you plan to insert chapter breaks, that'll require more creation time than just a straight dump from beginning to end.

The coaching session time, of course, could be anything. Whatever you agree on with them.

Other factors to weigh:

1. Will your agreement require that they have exclusive rights to use it, or will you be allowed to reteach/sell it elsewhere? If you'll be allowed to use it elsewhere, then you can give them a lower price because you'll get additional use out of it.

2. Is the song being used something you COULD teach/perform elsewhere if you wanted to? Or is it something that you wouldn't want to teach elsewhere anyway?

3. What do you think your hourly time is worth?

4. Are there other benefits, besides money, you would derive from doing this project?

In Vegas to do a choreography for say a hotel, we charge around $125 per minute of music, plus teaching time, etc.

That sounds about right to me.