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Information About

Dance Notation




Dance notation is the Symbolic representation of dance movement, it is Analogous to Movement Notation but can be limited to representing human movement and specific forms of dance such as Tap Dance . Various methods have been to used to visually represent dance movements including:


The primary use of dance notation is the documentation, analysis and reconstruction of Choreography and Dance Form s or technical Exercises . Many different forms of dance notation have been created but the two main systems used in Western Culture are Labanotation (also known as Kinetography Laban ) and Benesh Movement Notation . Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation and DanceWriting are also in use, but to a lesser extent.

The first computerized notation system, which displayed an animated figure on the screen which performed the dance moves specified by the choreographer, was the ''DOM'' dance notation system, created by Eddie Dombrower on the Apple II Personal Computer in 1982 . (See ''Dance Notation Journal'', Fall, 1986, 4(2) pp. 47-48.)

Several notation systems are used only for specific Dance Form s, for example, Shorthand Dance Notation (dances from Israel ), Morris Dance Notation ( Morris Dance ) and Beauchamp-Feuillet Notation ( Historical Dance s from the Baroque period).

Hutchinson Guest's seminal book ''Choreographics'' ( 1989 ), compares thirteen historical and present-day dance notation systems (with visual examples) and through 'one to one' comparisons illustrates the advantages, and disadvantages of each system. The book is good introduction to the development and implementation dance notation systems.


NOTATION AND COMPUTERS


In the field of Dance Technology there are four areas of dance notation research and development:

  • notation editing software for the creation of printed notation scores

  • Machine-readable versions of existing dance notation

  • handwritten and / or machine readable dance notation for Computer Animation and Human use

  • machine specific movement notation such as Motion Capture data




SEE ALSO






FURTHER READING


  • Cage, J. and Knowles, A. (1973) ''Notations''. Reprint Services Corp. ISBN 0685148645

  • Henner, D (2003) ''Transformationen - Bewegung in Notation und digitaler Verarbeitung'' in Fellsches, J (Ed) Folkwang-Texte Bd. 18. Verlag Die Blaue Eule, Essen. ISBN 389924057X

  • Hutchinson Guest, A. (1989) ''Choreographics: A Comparison of Dance Notation Systems from the Fifteenth Century to the Present''. Routledge ISBN 9057000032

  • Neagle, R.J. and Ng, K.C. (2003) ''Machine-representation and Visualisation of a Dance Notation''. in Proceedings of Electronic Imaging and the Visual Arts - London July 2003.




EXTERNAL LINKS



Dance notation systems




Dance notation software




Dance Technology / dance notation applications