Movement looks slower and weaker on the stage

One of the peaks of anxiety in choreography is that moment when the studio-born dance is transferred to the stage. Immediately space works magical and often appalling differences. Distance has weakened almost everything about the dance. Dynamics are not so strong, personalities are dimmer, timing looks slower; and so, with the essential vitality lessened, it now seems too long. In only one respect is it clearer--in its over-all design, because the eye can now see the whole in one glance without shifting from point to point, which is inevitable in the studio. Also, there is a seeming illogicality in the fact that detail is much more apparent at a distance. One would think that small movements and inaccuracies would be easier to see at close range. Not so, in practice. For instance, lack of precision in ensemble movements, overlooked in a studio, stands out on a stage embarrassingly. In fact, it screams for correction.

The obvious remedy for all this is to remember to compensate for the expected changes in the studio--what looks there a little too fast, too big, too aggressive in general will probably be about right.

The Art of Making Dances by Doris Humphry. 1959. Pages161-2.