Dancing body

Should I set movement to other bodies?

I started to make a dance. It's about the changing relationship of two people when the time passed.

I made some movement and taught it to my dancers. They were smart and picked up the steps really fast. They tried very hard to fulfill what I've told them. However, I still felt something wrong. When I watched them to "dance" my movement. I felt they were clay and I put them in a mould, they were not themselves. I couldn't feel the freedom of dancing in them. I wasn't sure if they were not familiar with the movement yet, or I didn't know how to coach.

On one hand, I wanted them to keep the movement quality that I imagined. On the other hand, I wanted them to be themselves and be free to change my movement. What I want seemed very contradictory.

From today's rehearsal, I started to think, what is dancers' role in a dance work? Is dancers just the tool to help choreographer to reveal the idea? How many freedom is allowed for dancer's own interpretation?