To choreograph is, originally, to trace or to note down dance. This is the meaning that Feuillet, the inventor of the word, assigns it in 1700, in the title of his work 'Choreography, or the art of describing dance with demonstrative characters, figures, and signs' (The French title contains a savourous hesitation in spelling, a delight for the modern semiotician: we read "l'art de d'ecrire," almost as if, in English, one were to read: "the art of de-scribing...")
source: Traces of Dance, L.Louppe, p.14, ISBN 2-906571-28-8
source: Traces of Dance, L.Louppe, p.14, ISBN 2-906571-28-8
