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Teen Beach Movie (2013) was created under the direction of Jeffrey Hornaday, a renowned choreographer and director who choreographed such films as A Chorus Line (1985), Flashdance (1983), and Dick Tracy (1990). Hornaday has also directed world tours for performing artists including Madonna and Paul McCartney. As such, one might assume he was the main choreographer on Teen Beach Movie.

In fact, while Hornaday did offer input and used his knowledge of choreography as a compliment to his directing, the lead choreographer on the film is Christopher Scott. The imaginative choreographer is most widely known for his choreographic contributions to the Legion of Extraordinary Dancers web series, his role as “Hair” in the Step Up series, and as a repeating choreographer on the television series So You Think You Can Dance (2005).

The choreographic intention was to capture the magic and whimsy of 1960s beach movies and be as over-the-top as possible in translation. The result was fast, fun, energetic modernized movements, often featuring many dancers performing complicated routines in tight settings. Despite Hornaday’s choreography background, he left most of the actual work up to Scott. In an interview with Post Magazine, Hornaday said,

“We had a brilliant choreographer named Christopher Scott. When I met him, it was one of those collaborations where things just clicked. He was really a thinking choreographer and got inside the script and we were able to collaborate conceptually. With my background, I had a hand in it, but it was really Christopher’s department. He had two really good assistants.”