5 ms·

Documenting Dance: Keeping Score (2017)

111 points by mont_tag 2y ago

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
bj-rn 2y ago
made me think of https://motionbank.org https://motionbank.org
Rygian 2y ago
Link to baroquedance.com in the article is dead. This is what I could find instead: https://web.archive.org/web/20240907125001/https://www.baroquedance.com/notation https://web.archive.org/web/20240907125001/https://www.baroq...
kaz-inc 2y ago
Beautiful notation. I found the first especially interesting, with the spatial mapping recorded in a kind of "parametric-function on a 2d plane" view, like a camera on a slow exposure looking at the entire dance from bird's eye view. The later ones are reasonable, as they map more closely to the music notation that has become standard, but for classical music of different cultures, notes don't often lie on a single place, but swing from one pitch to another, with blips and arcs in their paths from one place to another. The staff-based notations lose the first-hand flow of the notation in space. I wonder what could be done with color.
- bobvanluijt 2y ago
  Agreed, beautiful indeed
toolslive 2y ago
There's also a notation for gymnastics (used by judges) An introduction: http://www.nawgj-sc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Gym-Shorthand.pdf http://www.nawgj-sc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Gym-Short...
- borlox 2y ago
  That’s a bit more readable and reminds me of Aresti symbols as used in aerobatics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aresti_Catalog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aresti_Catalog
  - Wistar 2y ago
    Ah, you beat me to it. Here is the current IAC catalog of Aresti. https://www.iac.org/aresti-catalogue-structure https://www.iac.org/aresti-catalogue-structure
hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
These choreography notation systems are very interesting from a historical perspective, but their raison d'être went away with the advent of video. Dance (or at least ballet) is still largely passed down by oral tradition; dancers are coached by older generations who danced these pieces when they were younger (obviously not for new works). In fact, unlike in the music world, it's exceedingly rare to find anyone in the dance world who can read or understand any of these notation systems. They tend to be the purview of dance historians or those specifically tasked with coaching copyrighted works from dead choreographers. That is, even before video, they weren't really in widespread use like music notation was.
- daniel_reetz 2y ago
  Choreographers have almost no means to copyright their creative work and the Choreographer's Guild presently seeks to protect said work and get choreographers credited and paid. It may be that notation has a renewed utility by virtue of creating a copyrightable artifact.
  - hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
    > Choreographers have almost no means to copyright their creative work That's simply not true. In the US choreographic works have been explicitly copyrightable since 1976, and things like the Balanchine Trust have existed for over 40 years. Written notation is not necessary - a video is sufficient. What organizations like the Choreographer's Guild do is more change the cultural expectations around dance copyright than the legal possibilities. That is, in the dance/entertainment world, often times a choreographer is hired for peanuts and is simply unaware of their legal rights around copyright. But when it comes to what is legally possible/necessary, there is no difference really between what, say, a photographer who is hired to do a photoshoot can do vs. a choreographer hired to produce a work of dance.
    - UweSchmidt 2y ago
      You appear to be in favour of said Guild trying to change the cultural expectation for more copyrights, now extending to human movement. Needless to say this evokes the image of corporations like Disney ending up with those copyrights and going after people doing the zoomer dance long after the Mickey Mouse copyright will have expired. Are those worries warranted?
twunde 2y ago
Something adjacent is the Underscore dance's glyphs ( https://globalunderscore.com/underscore-glyphs/ https://globalunderscore.com/underscore-glyphs/ ) which describe the patterns/phases of contact improvisation
retrac 2y ago
The only writing system for sign languages that has significant adoption ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SignWriting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SignWriting ) was developed not by a linguist like other systems had been, but by a dance instructor, who was inspired by such notation systems. It borrows many of the ideas about how to notate orientation and movement, and works somewhat like a phonetic alphabet. There is close transcription with every little join and variation precisely notated, and also a more abstract kind of transcription which assumes fluency where the reader can fill in the gaps.
- TRiG_Ireland 2y ago
  I also immediately thought of Sutton SignWriting. (She also created a movement writing suite, including notation for insect movement.)
- zie 2y ago
  As a sign language user, I wouldn't say it has anything near significant adoption, but I would agree in terms of writing systems for signed language, it's one of the most well known ones. That said, I've never, ever seen it used in practice by people that use signed languages. Other than an oddity on the internet here or there.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
yair99dd 2y ago
[1989] Merce Cunningham used a software called LifeForms[1] (later DanceForms) developed in colab with SFU researchers. producing over a dozen pieces including Ocean and BIPED[2]. its still online and used to have (~10years ago) the license key as plain text on the download page. i see its now ~200$... so he did the reverse, start with digital notation and move to flesh. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baBYHWI3wLY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baBYHWI3wLY [2] https://www.sfu.ca/sfunews/stories/2019/11/sfu-software-key-to-choreographer-merce-cunningham-work.html https://www.sfu.ca/sfunews/stories/2019/11/sfu-software-key-...
- yair99dd 2y ago
  also, this article misses a few notations and anecdotes. laban was commissioned in the 20s to use his method to optimize factory worker motion to increase early assembly-line productivity. bat-sheva, a fairly known dance group in the 90/00 uses Eshkol Wachman movement notation and employ a dedicated team of dance notation writers to write and teach it to new dancers. maybe im behind the times, but i still find this magic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSHuhhO5VIU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSHuhhO5VIU
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
TRiG_Ireland 2y ago
I'm surprised that there's no mention of Sutton DanceWriting. I don't know how important it may or may not be in the world of dance notation (though I do know that Valerie Sutton worked with the Royal Danish Ballet, so it was used to some extent), but it's very important as the foundation of Sutton SignWriting, the only method of writing sign languages to have gained anything approaching widespread acceptance.
ryukoposting 2y ago
I'm a little surprised there's no mention of marching band dot charts, though I guess that isn't "dance" per se. It's an interesting case because a lot of people are exposed to it in high school, and it can't really be supplanted by video the way that these dance notation methods can.
encody 2y ago
I'm a competitor in ballroom dancing which, though it is admittedly quite distinct from ballet, makes use of no such notation. Steps are usually explained like so: https://www.dancecentral.info/ballroom/international-style/slow-foxtrot/feather-step https://www.dancecentral.info/ballroom/international-style/s... There are a lot of learned acronyms (LOD: line-of-dance, HT: heel-toe, OP: outside partner) but not much in the way of custom notation. I did discover a custom figure linking notation on this website (https://ballroomindex.weebly.com/choreography.html https://ballroomindex.weebly.com/choreography.html), but I've not seen it used elsewhere.
8888888888 2y ago
Reminds of Scottish Country Dance crib sheets! [-1] Scottish Country Dance is a social dance often in groups in 6 or 8 people, where putting yourself in the right place at the right time is very important. Commonly people will use 'cribs' to remind themselves of the upcoming dances, some are written in shorthand code, but my favourites are the crib diagrams which I think demonstrate wonderful patterns. For a couple of examples, here's the popular ceilidh dance 'The Dashing White Sergeant'[0] and the more complex 'Radcliffe Square' [1]. Or to compare against the danced versions: The Dashing White Sergeant [2] and 'Radcliffe Square [3] [-1] https://www.scottish-country-dancing-dictionary.com/krdiagram/keith-rose-symbols.html https://www.scottish-country-dancing-dictionary.com/krdiagra... [0] https://my.strathspey.org/dd/dance/1562/#cribs https://my.strathspey.org/dd/dance/1562/#cribs [1] https://my.strathspey.org/dd/dance/5451/#cribs https://my.strathspey.org/dd/dance/5451/#cribs [2] https://my.strathspey.org/dd/dancevideo/7947/ https://my.strathspey.org/dd/dancevideo/7947/ [3] https://my.strathspey.org/dd/dancevideo/10438/ https://my.strathspey.org/dd/dancevideo/10438/

111 points by mont_tag 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

bj-rn 2y ago

made me think of https://motionbank.org https://motionbank.org

Rygian 2y ago

Link to baroquedance.com in the article is dead. This is what I could find instead: https://web.archive.org/web/20240907125001/https://www.baroquedance.com/notation https://web.archive.org/web/20240907125001/https://www.baroq...

kaz-inc 2y ago

Beautiful notation. I found the first especially interesting, with the spatial mapping recorded in a kind of "parametric-function on a 2d plane" view, like a camera on a slow exposure looking at the entire dance from bird's eye view. The later ones are reasonable, as they map more closely to the music notation that has become standard, but for classical music of different cultures, notes don't often lie on a single place, but swing from one pitch to another, with blips and arcs in their paths from one place to another. The staff-based notations lose the first-hand flow of the notation in space. I wonder what could be done with color.

bobvanluijt 2y ago
Agreed, beautiful indeed

toolslive 2y ago

There's also a notation for gymnastics (used by judges) An introduction: http://www.nawgj-sc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Gym-Shorthand.pdf http://www.nawgj-sc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Gym-Short...

borlox 2y ago
That’s a bit more readable and reminds me of Aresti symbols as used in aerobatics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aresti_Catalog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aresti_Catalog
- Wistar 2y ago
  Ah, you beat me to it. Here is the current IAC catalog of Aresti. https://www.iac.org/aresti-catalogue-structure https://www.iac.org/aresti-catalogue-structure

hn_throwaway_99 2y ago

These choreography notation systems are very interesting from a historical perspective, but their raison d'être went away with the advent of video. Dance (or at least ballet) is still largely passed down by oral tradition; dancers are coached by older generations who danced these pieces when they were younger (obviously not for new works). In fact, unlike in the music world, it's exceedingly rare to find anyone in the dance world who can read or understand any of these notation systems. They tend to be the purview of dance historians or those specifically tasked with coaching copyrighted works from dead choreographers. That is, even before video, they weren't really in widespread use like music notation was.

daniel_reetz 2y ago
Choreographers have almost no means to copyright their creative work and the Choreographer's Guild presently seeks to protect said work and get choreographers credited and paid. It may be that notation has a renewed utility by virtue of creating a copyrightable artifact.
- hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
  > Choreographers have almost no means to copyright their creative work That's simply not true. In the US choreographic works have been explicitly copyrightable since 1976, and things like the Balanchine Trust have existed for over 40 years. Written notation is not necessary - a video is sufficient. What organizations like the Choreographer's Guild do is more change the cultural expectations around dance copyright than the legal possibilities. That is, in the dance/entertainment world, often times a choreographer is hired for peanuts and is simply unaware of their legal rights around copyright. But when it comes to what is legally possible/necessary, there is no difference really between what, say, a photographer who is hired to do a photoshoot can do vs. a choreographer hired to produce a work of dance.
  - UweSchmidt 2y ago
    You appear to be in favour of said Guild trying to change the cultural expectation for more copyrights, now extending to human movement. Needless to say this evokes the image of corporations like Disney ending up with those copyrights and going after people doing the zoomer dance long after the Mickey Mouse copyright will have expired. Are those worries warranted?

twunde 2y ago

Something adjacent is the Underscore dance's glyphs ( https://globalunderscore.com/underscore-glyphs/ https://globalunderscore.com/underscore-glyphs/ ) which describe the patterns/phases of contact improvisation

retrac 2y ago

The only writing system for sign languages that has significant adoption ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SignWriting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SignWriting ) was developed not by a linguist like other systems had been, but by a dance instructor, who was inspired by such notation systems. It borrows many of the ideas about how to notate orientation and movement, and works somewhat like a phonetic alphabet. There is close transcription with every little join and variation precisely notated, and also a more abstract kind of transcription which assumes fluency where the reader can fill in the gaps.

TRiG_Ireland 2y ago
I also immediately thought of Sutton SignWriting. (She also created a movement writing suite, including notation for insect movement.)
zie 2y ago
As a sign language user, I wouldn't say it has anything near significant adoption, but I would agree in terms of writing systems for signed language, it's one of the most well known ones. That said, I've never, ever seen it used in practice by people that use signed languages. Other than an oddity on the internet here or there.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

yair99dd 2y ago

[1989] Merce Cunningham used a software called LifeForms[1] (later DanceForms) developed in colab with SFU researchers. producing over a dozen pieces including Ocean and BIPED[2]. its still online and used to have (~10years ago) the license key as plain text on the download page. i see its now ~200$... so he did the reverse, start with digital notation and move to flesh. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baBYHWI3wLY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baBYHWI3wLY [2] https://www.sfu.ca/sfunews/stories/2019/11/sfu-software-key-to-choreographer-merce-cunningham-work.html https://www.sfu.ca/sfunews/stories/2019/11/sfu-software-key-...

yair99dd 2y ago
also, this article misses a few notations and anecdotes. laban was commissioned in the 20s to use his method to optimize factory worker motion to increase early assembly-line productivity. bat-sheva, a fairly known dance group in the 90/00 uses Eshkol Wachman movement notation and employ a dedicated team of dance notation writers to write and teach it to new dancers. maybe im behind the times, but i still find this magic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSHuhhO5VIU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSHuhhO5VIU

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

TRiG_Ireland 2y ago

I'm surprised that there's no mention of Sutton DanceWriting. I don't know how important it may or may not be in the world of dance notation (though I do know that Valerie Sutton worked with the Royal Danish Ballet, so it was used to some extent), but it's very important as the foundation of Sutton SignWriting, the only method of writing sign languages to have gained anything approaching widespread acceptance.

ryukoposting 2y ago

I'm a little surprised there's no mention of marching band dot charts, though I guess that isn't "dance" per se. It's an interesting case because a lot of people are exposed to it in high school, and it can't really be supplanted by video the way that these dance notation methods can.

encody 2y ago

I'm a competitor in ballroom dancing which, though it is admittedly quite distinct from ballet, makes use of no such notation. Steps are usually explained like so: https://www.dancecentral.info/ballroom/international-style/slow-foxtrot/feather-step https://www.dancecentral.info/ballroom/international-style/s... There are a lot of learned acronyms (LOD: line-of-dance, HT: heel-toe, OP: outside partner) but not much in the way of custom notation. I did discover a custom figure linking notation on this website (https://ballroomindex.weebly.com/choreography.html https://ballroomindex.weebly.com/choreography.html), but I've not seen it used elsewhere.

8888888888 2y ago

Reminds of Scottish Country Dance crib sheets! [-1] Scottish Country Dance is a social dance often in groups in 6 or 8 people, where putting yourself in the right place at the right time is very important. Commonly people will use 'cribs' to remind themselves of the upcoming dances, some are written in shorthand code, but my favourites are the crib diagrams which I think demonstrate wonderful patterns. For a couple of examples, here's the popular ceilidh dance 'The Dashing White Sergeant'[0] and the more complex 'Radcliffe Square' [1]. Or to compare against the danced versions: The Dashing White Sergeant [2] and 'Radcliffe Square [3] [-1] https://www.scottish-country-dancing-dictionary.com/krdiagram/keith-rose-symbols.html https://www.scottish-country-dancing-dictionary.com/krdiagra... [0] https://my.strathspey.org/dd/dance/1562/#cribs https://my.strathspey.org/dd/dance/1562/#cribs [1] https://my.strathspey.org/dd/dance/5451/#cribs https://my.strathspey.org/dd/dance/5451/#cribs [2] https://my.strathspey.org/dd/dancevideo/7947/ https://my.strathspey.org/dd/dancevideo/7947/ [3] https://my.strathspey.org/dd/dancevideo/10438/ https://my.strathspey.org/dd/dancevideo/10438/