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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:
USAGE The primary use of dance notation is the documentation, analysis and reconstruction of Choreography and Dance Form s or technical Exercise s. 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. Another purpose of dance notation is the documentation and analysis of dance in Dance Ethnology . Here the notation is not used to plan a new choreography but to document an existing dance. Dance notation systems developed for the description of European dance are often not applicable and not appropriate for the description of dances from other cultures, e.g. the Polycentric Dance s of many African cultures, where the movement of the body through space is less important and a great deal of the movements takes place inside the body. Attempts have been made by ethnomusicologists and dance ethnologists to develop specific notation systems for such purposes. HISTORY 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 ( Baroque Dance ). Anne 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. In 1975 Anne Hutchinson-Guest reconstructed the choreographer Arthur Saint-Léon 's ''Pas de Six'' from his 1844 ballet '' La Vivandière '' along with its original music by the composer Cesare Pugni , for the Joffrey Ballet . The piece was reconstructed from Saint-Léon's own method of dance notation known as ''La Sténochorégraphie''. In 1978 Pierre Lacotte staged the ''Pas de Six'' for the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet , who still retain it in their repertory. The ''Pas de Six'' has since been staged by many ballet companies all over the world, and is known as either the ''La Vivandière Pas de Six'' or the ''Markitenka Pas de Six'' (as it is known in Russia). One of the most famous collections of dance notation is the Sergeyev Collection , which was recorded in the method of notation devised by Vladimir Ivanovich Stepanov . The collection documents the famous Imperial Ballet 's (today the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet) repertory from the turn of the 20th century - the majority of which were staged by the great choreographer Marius Petipa . The collection includes Petipa's original choreographic designs for such ballets as '' The Sleeping Beauty '', '' Giselle '', '' Le Corsaire '', '' Swan Lake '' (staged with Lev Ivanov ). Other works included are the original version of '' The Nutcracker '', and the Imperial Ballet's definitive '' Coppelia ''. It was with these notations that many of these works were first staged outside of Russia, forming the nucleus of the Classical Ballet repertory. NOTATION AND COMPUTERS In the field of Dance Technology there are four areas of dance notation research and development:
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EXTERNAL LINKS ;Dance notation systems
;Dance notation software
;Dance Technology / dance notation applications
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