5.1. Is there a way of writing down dance, the way we write down music?
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This article is from the Ballet and Modern Dance FAQ, by Tom Parsons twp@panix.com with numerous contributions by others.
5.1. Is there a way of writing down dance, the way we write down music?
Yes, and the tradition is very nearly as old as ballet itself.
The earliest notation, in the late 15th century, consisted of writing the
initials of the names of the steps under the musical notes in the score.
The first widely used system of dance notation using special symbols was
apparently that attributed to Raoul Feuillet and Pierre Beauchamp and set
forth in Feuillet's "Chor'egraphie" in 1700. This system was used mostly
to indicate the steps and the movement of the dancers about the floor,
which were regarded as most important, with only a few indications of arm
movements. It was used for about 100 years, gradually being extended until
it became too unwieldy. Since that time, more than 80 systems of notation
have been devised, the bulk of them in the 20th century. Dancers in this
century who specialize in recreating Baroque dance have revived the
Beauchamp/Feuillet notation; Wendy Hilton's "Dance of the Court and
Theater" provides a comprehensive text and is the standard reference.
In the 19th century, Charles Victor Arthur Michel Saint-L'eon
developed a system which he published in his book, "Stenochor'egraphie"
(1852). (Notice the difference between the title of this book and that of
Feuillet's: this reflects the fact that "choreography," which originally
meant recording dance, had come to mean the making of dances.) This system
was fairly widely used in the latter half of the 19th century but
eventually fell into disuse. About this system, Sandi Kurtz writes,
It was a version of this system that Sergeyev used to reconstruct the
classical works for the early Sadler's Wells Ballet, which gave the
west a view of that tradition and helped forge the style of what is now
the Royal Ballet.
Dance notation is never simple, since there is so much that needs
to be specified for every dancer: positions of the feet, arms, hands, head,
and torso; whether the dancer is standing still or moving and, if moving,
in what direction (horizontally, vertically, or both) and how fast...and so
on.
In this century, Vaslav Nijinsky devised a notation system about
which little is known, although Ann Hutchinson Guest and Claudia Jeschke
were able to use it to reconstruct Nijinski's "Afternoon of a Faun".
The two most popular systems to-day are Laban (introduced by
Rudolph von Laban in 1928 in his book, "Schrifttanz") and Benesh (the work
of Rudolph and Joan Benesh, 1958). (The picture is complicated by the fact
that there are two dialects of Laban: the dialect in use in the U.S. and
Great Britain is called Labanotation; the dialect used in the rest of
Europe is called Kinetography-Laban.) You can recognize Laban notation
from the fact that it takes the form of long vertical lines to which blocks
and other markers are attached. Because Laban describes the movements of
the body in such minute detail, it has been applied to time and motion
studies in industry.
Benesh notation uses 5-line musical staves. The lines, from top to
bottom, are used to indicate the head, shoulders, waist, knees, and floor.
Benesh notation has been part of the RAD curriculum since 1956.
For a comprehensive history of dance notation, see Ann Hutchinson
Guest's book, "Dance Notation", cited in the reading list. For specific
information about the Laban system, see her book, "Labanotation", also in
the reading list. For more information on dance notation, see
http://www.math.ucla.edu/~eijkhout/rad/faq_notate.html
For information on computer-aided dance notation, see question 5.2.2.
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