Remembering Rosemary Butcher – the choreographer who changed the way I see dance

My ancient Liddell and Scott Greek dictionary of 1849 defines choreia as ‘a dancing, especially with joy’. The word choros has a more technical definition: a round dance, or a dance accompanied with song (hence the word chorus). From whichever word ‘choreographer’ is declared to derive, the British dancemaker Rosemary Butcher, who died last month at 69 after a career barely visible to the public, embodied the first idea in a way that I see with hindsight changed my eyes emphatically in realising the marvellous range of ways to enjoy dance-going.

Choreia: ‘a dancing’ – an act of dancing, a piece of activity, rather than the choros, a dance creation. Choreia: not a joined-up circle of answers in a finished work of art, but something that hasn’t an end product in mind, jazz-like, improvisation, provoking questions uncomplicated by anything else than the pleasure of asking them. There’s no box office tinkle to categorise its worth.