What’s the difference?
I was long unconfident in my dancing, but spending time in a show choir program in high school (and then the show choir-adjacent Gold Company in college), I came to be very confident in performing choreography. For a long time I drew a hard line between dancing, defined as improvisatory and free, and choreography, defined as performing the exact same movements every time.
The truth is somewhat more complex. I think good dancers have internalized pre-determined motions in a way that allows them to put them together in different ways in the moment. They aren’t freely improvising, they are improvising within a framework they’ve developed. This, of course, is how many jazz teachers talk when talking improvisation – it’s not just freely creating a melody, it’s relying on phrases, licks, scales, and other tools to scaffold an improvisation.
Dancing and choreography aren’t two separate things, then – they’re two related things that exist on a continuum. The parallel for jazz would be a continuum from transcription of a recorded solo to open solo improvisation.
And in choral music? There can be a sense that younger ensembles have of trying to attain and then repeat an excellent performance each time – choreography. But the most confident ensembles move past choreography into dancing, where they are adjusting, interacting, and creating something new every time, within the framework of the piece they’re singing.