'Tis the season of summer stock, music festivals, and
outdoor performances. For my own part, I took in Jacob's Pillow in the Berkshires, one of
the country's preeminent dance festivals. While an amazing
piece of dance can make everyone want to join in, there are some
dances no one should mimic without authorization, at least not as
part of a commercial "public performance," as that term is
defined by 17 U.S.C. § 101. Why not? It's not
because they won't look good performing the dance (we remain
agnostic on that), but because the choreography for the dance may
be under copyright.
Choreography and Pantomime
Although dance is an art form as old as time, copyright
protection for choreography in the United States is a relatively
recent development, created when the 1976 Copyright Act added
choreography and pantomime to the list of copyrightable subject
matter. Choreography, as opposed to dance itself, is the
composition and arrangement of "a related series of
