Twentieth-century developments

Another student who learned Stepanov notation at the Imperial School was the legendary Russian dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, whose interest in it led to his own modification of the system, one that improved significantly on Stepanov’s ideas, especially in the indication of directions and levels. During a period of inactivity when he was separated from the Ballets Russes, Nijinsky worked on his notation ideas and recorded every movement of his first ballet, L’Après-midi d’un faune (1912; Afternoon of a Faun). When in 1988 the code to his system was broken, this ballet could be revived in its authentic version—that notated by Nijinsky himself.

The 20th century was marked by the advent of abstract symbol systems, notably those of Margaret Morris and Rudolf Laban. Morris, a British dancer, teacher, and choreographer, was also a movement therapist, which led to her anatomical approach to recording movement. She outlined her system in The Notation of Movement (1928); in addition to direction symbols, she provided separate signs for each movement of each part of the body. This was not an advantage in comparison with “alphabet” systems, in which the same basic type of movement is written with the same symbol for each part of the body.

Schrifttanz (1928; “Written Dance”), by the Hungarian-born dance theorist Rudolf Laban, provided the basis for the notation system that bears his name: labanotation (also called Kinetography Laban). Laban had an eclectic interest in movement but found himself architecturally fascinated by its spatial aspects. Thus, his system initially depicted movement from a spatial perspective; an anatomical description was added later by others. It is an “alphabet” system in that each movement is “spelled out” according to the sequence of its basic components. A vertical three-line staff represents the body, the centre line dividing right and left. The shape and shading of the movement symbols indicate direction and level; their length indicates timing (duration); and their placement in the appropriate column on the staff indicates the part of the body that is moving. A particular strength of labanotation is its ability to show precise gradations in the timing of movements. The system became widely used because it is applicable to all forms of movement. For decades labanotation was refined by research practitioners working in a variety of different movement disciplines, not only ballet and contemporary choreographies but dance of different styles and cultures as well as gymnastics and other sports, remedial exercises, and even zoological studies.

A number of other notation systems were invented in the 20th century. Pierre Conté, a French musician, wrote Écriture de la danse théatrale et de la danse en général (1931; “Writing of Theatrical Dance and Dance in General”); his system combined musical notes with simple signs placed on an expanded music staff. In Choroscript (written in 1945 and unpublished), the American musician, dance teacher, and choreographer Alwin Nikolais indicated movement with modified musical notation symbols. Nikolais’s movement analysis was based on labanotation, and he used a Laban-style vertical staff but in two parts, with torso and head indications placed separately on the right. Kineseography (1955), created by the dancer and choreographer Eugene Loring with D.J. Canna, incorporated an unusual movement analysis. This system used a vertical staff and simple signs to record four categories of movement: Emotion, Direction, Degree, and Special. It was used to record Loring’s signature ballet, Billy the Kid (1938).

The system developed by the Israeli dance theorist Noa Eshkol and the architect Abraham Wachmann was first published in English as Movement Notation in 1958. It took an anatomical and mathematical view of movement and initially had the aim of exploring the abstract shapes and designs of movement rather than recording existing dance patterns, which had been the primary goal of all previous systems. Numbers and a small selection of symbols are used to represent each possible physical motion. The full horizontal staff provides a space for each body segment. Eshkol’s original aim was to create a method of recording her own choreography; however, the Movement Notation Society in Israel (the centre for this system) subsequently published books on folk dance, ballet, and other art forms and also illustrated the uses of the system in recording the movements of animals.

Despite the introduction of abstract symbol systems, notation methods making use of stick figures continued to appear during the 20th century. The most successful of these was a visual representation system devised in the 1950s by the English artist Rudolf Benesh and his wife, Joan Benesh, a dancer with the Sadler’s Wells Ballet (now the Royal Ballet). A matrix on a five-line horizontal staff represents the dancer from head to foot, seen from the back. Positions and movement lines are plotted on this matrix. Timing indications are placed above the staff. More complex movements that cannot be indicated visually on the staff are written with additional signs and numbers above the staff. Initially developed as a ballet shorthand, it has proved very useful in recording the repertoires of ballet companies. The Benesh Institute was established in London in 1962. Following the example set in the 1960s by the Royal Ballet, many companies have hired trained Benesh notators. Computer programs for writing Benesh scores have been developed, and a centre for training notators and producing publications was established in the 1990s at the Centre National de la Danse in Paris.

In the United States a labanotation score was first accepted for copyright protection in 1952. This event was a major breakthrough that afforded dance a protection it had not experienced until then. Subsequently, many notated scores were submitted for copyright registration.

Notation systems were developed in other countries, such as Russia and Romania, where they were used to record traditional folk dances. One of the more significant of these was Romanotation, first published by the ethnochoreologist Vera Proca-Ciortea in 1956. A decade later the dance teacher and choreographer Theodor Vasilescu developed a different system to describe Romanian folk dances, with a view toward teaching them.

Efforts to document Korean dance movements include the method developed in North Korea about 1970 by the Korean choreographer U Chang Sop. His book, published in English as Chamo System of Dance Notation (1988), uses pictorially based symbols and additional abstract signs.

In India during the 1970s, the classical-dance performer Gopal Venu devised a notation system with the aim of providing a shorthand for the many mudras (hand positions) needed in kathakali dance-drama. These are combined with pictographs of body positions.

Manuscripts from the Han dynasty in China record dance through pictures with a few symbols, none of which has been clearly deciphered. The first true notation system in China was Coordination Method Dance Notation (Eng. trans. 1987), created by Wu Ji Mei and her husband, Gao Chun Lin, in the early 1980s. Based on a logical movement analysis and placed under the (Western) music staff to show timing, it uses letters of the alphabet, numbers, and a few abstract signs and thus is typeable on a computer keyboard. It has been applied to dance forms, movement in sports, and physical education.