This article explores the creative role of contemporary dancers within the choreographic process, and introduces the question of why their creative contribution is often overlooked? It highlights how different modes of creativity can be understood, and what impacts different choreographic processes have on the way dancers understand their creative input. By analysing such processes, the article aims to address issues relating to the role dancers play in creating new dance work; the relationship that might be found between approaches to choreography and ways dancers perceive their creativity. Three professional dance companies based in the UK are used as case studies to explore these ideas, each working on different projects. The dancer's experiences are explored and examined to offer a new framework for analysing their practice that focuses on the realities of their creative role.