Submitted by
Charlotte Wile - October 28, 2014
Written by
Tara Munjee, Jeffrey Longstaff, and Charlotte Wile
[Following is a thread originally posted on the CMAlist.]
Hello all,
I wanted to
share my article from July 24, 2014 featured in Research in Dance Education
with community members. Entitled "Single or multiple? Looking at
location in movement notation," the article explores ways to think about
and address notating movement through multiple locations--a common framework
for contemporary site-specific dance practice.
Below is the
link that will allow a limited number of free views. If you are so
fortunate to be affiliated with an institution that subscribes to RSDE, perhaps
you could access the issue through your library database.
Best regards,
Tara Munjee
From Jeffrey
Longstaff – August 31, 2014
Dear Tara
Thanks for
sharing your article on notation and contemporary dance practice. I read
the pdf article and found it to be quite interesting, especially in regards to
the practical approaches from Lawrence and Anna Halprin. I remember some
student-led movement explorations in college which were very full of motion,
rather than striving to attain any particular fixed form or shape. They
were very liberating in that way.
I wanted to
reply to your article just to mention another "Laban-based" notation
which can be primarily found in Laban's 1926 German work
"Choreographie". Here, in the early 1920s, before Kinetography
Laban or Labanotation had been initially formalized, it can be seen that Laban
(as a practicing artist himself) also originally based his concepts of space as
being in constant motion. His early notation signs were different than
those used in Labanotation today, and as he didn't give these early signs any
particular name, I usually call them "vector signs" since they refer
to lines of motion, without any regard to locations or positions.
Valerie
Preston-Dunlop (in her biography of Laban) recounts that when Laban's
co-workers led the development of Labanotation into the position-based signs
which we use today, that Laban felt a “painful compromise” since the
motion-based system he was developing would not be included in the formal
notation system. Later, in his book Choreutics, he refers back to the
motion-notation as "an old dream" (and offers up a variation on the
original signs - basically consisting of two forces: 1 dimension and 1 diagonal
which interact in a constant interchange to create a continuously deflecting
spatial motion.)
I do not know
anything about Halprin's method, but from reading your article, maybe this is
true - It seems that Halprin uses the constantly changing environment as the
motion, and perhaps this can be contrasted (or perhaps it relates somehow) to
Laban's continuous motions coming from the constant changing of the body's
orientations such that human body movement is always deviating and changing
directions. Laban formalized this in the theory of
"deflections" (or, more properly, "deflecting inclinations"
since motions are considered to be constantly in flux, constantly changing
direction at least somewhat).
Perhaps the
"vector" signs in this earlier Laban-based notation can add another
layer to your discussions, and not only artistic, but also with a sound basis
in motor-control theory (as described by Bernstein as "oscillating like a
cobweb in the wind" - later being developed into the theory of
"coordinative structures" which has remarkable similarity to some of
Bartenieff's methods!
Best wishes!
Jeffrey
Longstaff
Hi Everyone:
I too thank
Tara for her excellent article and found Jeffrey's comments quite interesting.
I wonder if
the concepts and indications used in Labanotation and Motif Notation for
"motion" vs. "destination" might be of interest for this
discussion.
For instance,
see Ann Hutchinson Guest, “Bullet-In-Stead,” Issue No. 4, June 1995:
Motif Notation
of the “B" Scale using both motion (progression) and destination symbols
can be found here:
Also, a
thought provoking comparison of the vector symbols and Labanotation direction
signs is included in Jeffrey's "Translating 'Vector Symbols' From Laban's
(1926 Choreographie."
Regards,
Charlotte Wile
Hello Jeffrey,
In writing
this article, I was interested in initiating conversation on how (and why) one
would incorporate moving through multiple spaces/environments as part of a
notation score. Your discussion of Laban's
"Choreographie" aligns well with this idea.
Laban's
"old dream" notation highlighting dynamic, ever-changing bodily
engagement with space combined with a notation for an ever-shifting spatial
canvas offers possibilities for some very exciting scores!
Thank you for
sharing your ideas and knowledge!
Best regards,
Tara Munjee
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