See also: Notation

The notation of the movement is a process of consignment of the written movement.

At all times, the ballet and internal caliper gauges tried to describe the steps and the figures of dance, and to put them on paper. But the movement, expression of the human body, are not let tame as easily as the music: in addition to the specific characteristics to the latter (height, force, duration, etc), the movement comprises a three-dimensional aspect particularly difficult to return in two dimensions. How to describe the fluidity of the movement? How to return its duration, its dynamics, its trajectory on the ground and in space? How to describe the alternatives of a movement, the singularities of a dancer, subtleties of a style?

Beginnings

As of the the Middle Ages, and almost at the same time as the musical Notation appears, the dancer tries to collect the movement and starts by using abbreviations to indicate the steps to be carried out. Thus, about the middle of the 15th century, Antonio Cornazano and Guglielmo Ebreo write each one a treaty of the dances of their time, the low - dances. The principal steps of the low-dance are the reverence (represented by R ), the simple ( S ), the double ( D ), the swing ( B ) and the taken again ( R ). Towards 1497 - 1500, a Master to be danced of the court of Burgundy writes (or copies?) a handwritten memorandum known under the name of of low - dances of Marguerite of Austria and preserved at the royal Library of Brussels. 58 dances are noted there in gold letters on black paper: under the carried is noted the steps to be carried out. But like the range counts only four lines (against five today) and that one notes only the melody line and not the succession of the sounds, with the difficulty in deciphering the steps is added that of musical interpretation. This system of letters will however be used during one century and half.

The 16th century

The Canon of Langres Jehan Tabourot, better known under the pseudonym of Thoinot Arbeau, publishes in 1589 (privilege dated November 22nd, 1588) the first true “handbook” of dance, the Orchésographie , in which it exposes the manner of carrying out not only the low ones - dances, but also all new dances of the 16th century. Compared to the musical partition, laid out vertically, it clarifies the steps to be carried out, so that these dances are, today, the first which have could reconstitute about accurately.

The 17th century

It is necessary to then await 1651 to see appearing an English collection, signed by John Playford, describing the country dances by means of signs symbolic systems.

The “system Layer”

In 1686, Andre Lorin, member of the royal Academy of Dance, had dedicated to Louis XIV his Livre of contredance presented to Roy (National library of France, ms. france 1697). It described the manner there of dancing the country dances that it had learned at the time of its stay in England with the marshal of Humières.

The 19th century

During first half of the century, the Feuillet system remains and knows various attempts at adaptation to the requirements of the new repertory, in particular with the romantic Ballet. Franz Anton Roller is one of the last users of the Feuillet system, in her work Systematisches Lehrbuch DER bildenden Tanzkunst (Weimar 1843).

In parallel, certain theorists and choreographers seek new manners of describing the dances of their time. Thelor, in his Letters one Dance hall (London 1831), described the Gavotte de Vestris by means of abstract symbols laid out on both sides of the musical range. Arthur Saint-Leon makes in the same way with figurines stylized in its Sténochorégraphie appeared in 1852. Friedrich Albert Zorn improves the system of Saint-Leon in his Grammatik der Tanzkunst (Leipzig 1887) and in particular described the Cachucha that Fanny Elssler had danced in 1836 in the lame Devil . As for Bernhard Klemm, it “diverts” musical signs to appear of the attitudes and steps of dance in its Katechismus der Tanzkunst (Leipzig 1855), which will be a certain success during more than forty years.

The 20th century

Until the 20th century, the marking systems apply only to the dance, and more particularly to the Ballet and the dances of balls. The first to have worked out a “universal” system of writing of the movement is Rudolf Laban in 1926 ( Choreographie ), which it will develop two years later in Schrifttanz .

Appear founder of the modern dance and research in dance, Rudolf Laban was born with Bratislava in 1879 Hungarian parents; he died in England, where he had fixed himself, in 1958. Pedagog, it will count among his pupils Mary Wigman and Kurt Jooss.

Its philosophical and theoretical reflection on the human movement will lead it to conceive throughout its life several “systems” like the choreutic - study of the body in space -, the eukinetic (or effort-shape ) - study of the dynamics of the movement - and the cinetography (or kinetography or Labanotation), system of transcription of the movement whose principles will be exposed in Schrifttanz , work published with Vienna in 1928.

After having studied very thoroughly the laws of the human kinetics as well as the former tests of writing of the dance, Rudolf Laban built its system around the four essential components constitutive of a movement: space, time, the weight and the force. This notation called Notation Laban is mainly used currently for the modern Danse, in particular with the the United States.

A second type of notation appeared after the Second world war, in England, thanks to Rudolf Benesh which codified it about 1955. This notation Benesh is currently used in large houses of opera and ballet like by contemporary choreographers as by Angelin Preljocaj.

The notations of Laban and that of Benesh currently are used in the world

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