{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/choreographers/", "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology", "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.", "scored_at": "2026-08-11", "model": "claude-opus-5", "occupation": { "title": "Choreographers", "soc_code": "27-2032", "category": "Media", "us_employment": 2860, "median_annual_wage": 55310 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 61, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 16, "embodiment": 18, "liability_shield": 1, "trust_premium": 13, "judgment_accountability": 13 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Setting a phrase means counting a company in, watching eight dancers do it wrong in eight different ways, and re-shaping the movement on the spot for the one with a bad ankle and the one whose extension changes the picture — the only genuinely digitisable parts are the pre-viz sketches, Labanotation write-ups, and reel edits, which is what keeps this at 16 and not 19.", "embodiment": "You demonstrate full-out on marley, spike spacing against a set that arrives late, and adjust wing entrances during tech with a live lighting cue; the studio and stage are uncontrolled spaces where floors, sightlines and bodies change every day, so 18 rather than a controlled-lab 13.", "liability_shield": "There is no choreographic licence, no board, no exam — you can be hired to set work on a Broadway ensemble with nothing but a reel, and when a dancer is hurt it is the producer's insurance and the AGMA agreement that answer, not your credential.", "trust_premium": "Artistic directors rehire choreographers they have survived a tech week with, and dancers give you the risky lift because they trust you specifically — but the work is also cast by reel, credits and audition, which is why this sits at 13 rather than into the high teens where the person truly cannot be substituted.", "judgment_accountability": "You decide whether a lift is safe enough to keep with a fatigued cast, whether to cut a section three days from opening, and how to restage a dead spot in the music — real authority with genuine consequences, but the director, producer and music hold veto above you, which caps it below the 14+ band." }, "rationale": "Choreography is made in a studio, on specific bodies, in real time — teaching phrases, adjusting for a dancer's injury or line, fixing spacing against a live set and a lighting cue. AI can already generate movement concepts, reference reels, notation, grant narratives and audition marketing copy, but it cannot rehearse a company or take responsibility for what happens onstage on opening night. The occupation has no licensure or liability shield at all, and the real threat to this tiny field is budget contraction in dance, theater, film and commercial work rather than a machine replacing the rehearsal room.", "outlook": "Generative tools will absorb the ideation, notation and admin layer, but paid work will keep flowing to whoever can stand in the studio and get 14 dancers performance-ready by Friday.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "Union and festival-level provenance rules that make human authorship a marketed credential: e.g. an AGMA or SDC (Stage Directors and Choreographers Society) contract clause requiring disclosure of AI-generated movement material and barring choreographic credit to AI output, plus grantmakers (NEA, state arts councils, Creative Capital) adding a human-authorship attestation to eligibility. Audiences and presenters already pay a premium for named-choreographer work; formal certification of it hardens that.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Insurer and venue safety requirements naming a specific human as movement-safety authority for aerial, partnering, stage-combat and rake/set-integrated work — Actors' Equity and film production insurers already require a named stunt or fight director; extending an equivalent 'choreographer of record' sign-off for injury-risk sequences puts consequential calls formally on one person.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Not licensure, but a contractual near-equivalent: producers' liability carriers requiring a credentialed movement/stunt coordinator (SAG-AWA stunt coordinator standards, or a certified stage-combat credential such as SAFD) to sign off on choreography involving falls, lifts or heights before coverage attaches. This applies mainly to the film/theater slice of the occupation, not concert dance.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Task-mix shift: if reference-reel generation, notation, grant narratives and marketing copy are absorbed by tools, what remains is the rehearsal-room tier — casting to bodies, injury adaptation, live spacing against set and light. The field genuinely has these two tiers, so the residual job is more resistant even as total paid hours shrink.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 2 } ], "ceiling_note": "Even with every lever, the binding constraint is budget: 2,860 workers in a field where the threat is contraction of dance, theater and commercial production budgets, not machine substitution. High resistance scores do not protect a job that is defunded." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 5310, "wage": 48420 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 5090, "wage": 47800 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 4630, "wage": 46330 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 3580, "wage": 43680 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 3990, "wage": 42700 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 5400, "wage": 50990 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 4190, "wage": 52000 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 3430, "wage": 55600 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 2860, "wage": 55310 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": -46.1, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }