Organization: Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Lines: 46
In response to article <C1FED3.24B@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>
by thomasl@silver.ucs.indiana.edu
Edward Carstens (ecarsten@next1.cs.umr.edu) in <1993Jan26.194911.3301@umr.edu> writes:
>> does anyone know who is working on graphic representations of
>> notations, either siteswap, choreographic notation, etc?
> Choreographic notation for dance has already been done -- it's called
> Labanotation (invented by Laban a long time ago) but it is being phased out
> with the video technology of today. A similar notation could have been
> developed for juggling too but I've never seen it.
In fact there have been many dance notations developed over the centuries. The
earliest was published by Thoinot Arbeau in his Orchesographie in 1588.
Raoul Feuillet published another system in 1700 and Pierre Rameau popularized
another one in 1752 (explained in detail in Diderot's Encyclopedie). For a
time Arthur Saint-Leon's Stenochoregraphie (published in 1852) was popular as was an amplification of it published by Albert Zorn in 1887.
Vladimir Stepanoff, a teacher at the Imperial Maryinsky Theatre at St.
Petersburg (the ancestor of the present day Kirov) created a system called
"Alphabet des Mouvements du Corps Humain" which he used to record the ballets
of Maurice Petipas. This approach (which adapts musical notation to incorporate
dance steps) has been continued in the Motographie of Antonio Chiesa (1934) and systems by Sol Babitz (1939), Jap Kool (1927) and Pierre Conte (1931). Vaslav
Nijinsky also invented such a system although it was never published.
In the 20th century a different approach, that of using abstract
symbols which can notate much finer movements of the human body than can
previous approaches, have produced three major dance notations: Margaret Morris', Notation of Movement (1928), Rudoph von Laban's, Kinetographie Laban (1928) (the term Labanotation was coined in the 1950's by the Dance Notation
Bureau in New York) and Rudoph & Joan Benesh's, Benesh Dance Notation (1955).
It is fair to say that almost all of these systems have fallen into
disuse with the exception of the Laban and the Benesh systems which continue
to be used and taught today (I myself have learned to notate with the Laban
system). Although Ed is right to suggest that modern video technology has
supplanted the use of notation (few people today record the full details of
a major ballet for several performers in Laban or Benesh) yet it is still
used to notate passages, short dances, or works by solo performers. It's simple
and easy to read & write and it's much easier to dash something off with
paper & pencil then set up cameras, lights, VCR's etc. if you want to notate
a few key things.
Laban (and probably Benesh as well, I'm less familiar with it) can
notate the catching and throwing movements and timings of the arms and other
body movements of a juggling pattern very easily (they are much simpler than
the movements in almost any dance). I should thing that a simple site-swap
like extension of it could be used to keep track of the movement of the props
as well. Might be an interesting project for someone to do ...
