Dance Notation and Documentation
Systems and practices for recording dance movement, from symbolic notation to film and digital documentation.
Definition
The systems and practices used to record, preserve, and transmit dance movement.
Scope
This topic covers the means by which dance is recorded and preserved: symbolic notation systems such as Labanotation and Benesh Movement Notation, historical notation traditions, and audiovisual and digital documentation. It examines what each medium can and cannot capture and the role of notation in transmission, reconstruction, and analysis.
Core questions
- How can three-dimensional movement be represented in symbolic notation?
- What are the strengths and limits of notation, film, and digital documentation?
- How does documentation support the reconstruction and analysis of dance?
Key concepts
- Labanotation
- Benesh Movement Notation
- score
- documentation
- reconstruction
Key theories
- Movement notation as structural analysis
- The principle, embodied in Labanotation, that recording movement requires a systematic analysis of its components, so that notation is simultaneously a tool of documentation and of analysis.
History
Attempts to notate dance date to at least the fifteenth century, but comprehensive systems emerged in the twentieth century, notably Laban's kinetography (Labanotation) and Benesh Movement Notation, alongside the growing use of film and digital media for documentation.
Debates
- What notation can capture
- Scholars debate whether any notation can adequately record the qualitative, expressive dimensions of dance, or whether it inevitably privileges structure over nuance.
Key figures
- Rudolf Laban
- Ann Hutchinson Guest
- Rudolf Benesh
Related topics
Seminal works
- hutchinson1977
- hutchinson1989
Frequently asked questions
- What is Labanotation?
- Labanotation, also called kinetography Laban, is a symbolic system devised from Rudolf Laban's movement analysis for recording the direction, level, duration, and body part of movement on a vertical staff.