Who Owns Dance?

Who owns a dance once it’s been done? “In the 18th and 19th centuries, choreographers were rated so low that it was the composer’s name which usually headed the posters. The ownership of a ballet, if contested, would generally have been considered the right of the theatre. This meant, if you were a choreographer, that your ballet was fair game for the subsequent improving hands of producers acquiring it for other companies or staging it after your death.”