Choreography

[Guest KCD1986]

Hi everyone ! I have to do this project for school and I choose to do dance. I am going to write a paper on the choreography process. I'm going to look up what the "text book" definition is, then I am going to interview different teachers, and finally I am going to describe how I do it. I was wondering if anyone could tell me how their choreography process works and if they would allow me to quote them, students, teachers, whoever...I want a variety of people...

 

Thanks for any of your help

[Mel Johnson]

I'm going to leave this here, rather than close it or move it to the Hold forum, because we don't generally encourage doing homework on this site or generally on any place on the web. Your methodology so far seems good, but I would not overlook the library part of the work. I think that you need to consult books and periodicals about what choreographers have said that they do.

[Mel Johnson]

Sorry, but we just had a quick conference among the moderators, and we concluded that this is too much like homework on the board for comfort. If we allowed this to continue, we'd have endless inquiries that would probably be better handled from written sources. I have to close this thread.

[Clara 76]

OK...

A question on another thread sparked me to think (I know, dangerous isn't it?? ) so here goes.

What methods of recording choreography does everyone use and how many of you are women? I lost all my video tapes in a flood and had no back-up of any kind. It just kills me because I had attempted to study Labonotation when I was younger but it hurt my brain too much so I relied entirely on video.

Any other stories out there??

Clara

[Mel Johnson]

I'm not a woman, but I don't know what difference that makes in keeping archives. Unfortunately, there is at present no electronic means of recording movement, as videotape or disc, which meets archival durability standards. For the purposes of corporate or public archives, the "document" is preserved in its original form (in the case of dance, in the kinesthetic memory of the dancers who danced it), and in as many alternative forms as can be made. Written text, commentary, recording in audio or video, as appropriate, even though a tape will last only about 25 years kept in optimal condition, and disc is good for about 40 years. Photographs and motion picture film are the most durable, and can be considered archival. A record of the "text" in notation, whether Laban or Benesh, is advisable. I favor Benesh for ballet notation, as it seems more fitted for it, and more intuitive for ballet dancers to learn. All these records should be kept in both near the site where the work is needed for reference, and in duplicate in a remote site for additional security. Now, personal archives, it's a lot like buying carpet. It depends on your taste, and what you can afford.

[dido]

Do I remember someone on this board teaching Benesh notation from quite a while ago? I have flipped through the books in my university library but was horrendously intimidated.

 

Where does one go to learn dance notation? I'm so curious about this.

[Clara 76]

I bow at the vast knowledge in your head, Master Mel!!

The only reason I asked about women is because I think that there is an imbalance in the ratio of male to female choreographers, and I am wondering how many women are out there trying or wanting to become choreographers? Perhaps I combined 2 threads into one???? I frequently compare myself to a puppy: I get too excited to pay attention to what I am doing so I miss and dribble!!

Clara

 

Thanks to both you and Dido....

[Mel Johnson]

Grace was putting up an introduction to Benesh awhile ago. It's still there. Do a search on "Benesh". And Clara, sometimes the people who put the information together (the "creators") are not the best people to keep a record of it, although it certainly doesn't hurt to know how to compile and keep an archive! That's why there are specialists in recording information about choreography.

[Clara 76]

So true... Major Mel, so true...!!

Clara

[LadyR]

After reading these posts with my daughter, she has become very interested in learning more about Benesh notation. We visited the Benesh Institute website and discovered they have a distance learning course and a self study course available. What I thought interesting is the software program developed by the Benesh Institute that computerizes the entire process with drag and drop features, etc.

 

My daughter is begging me to allow her to take this course. She is only 10 years old. I’m thinking we should wait a few years and then if she is still interested we could add the course to her homeschool studies.

[Clara 76]

Lady R,

I think that's great!! Go for it. How difficult does the course appear?

Clara

[LadyR]

Well, it really doesn't look easy to me, but it's hard to tell from the little bit they show on the website. If you'd like to check out the website that I was looking at it is www.benesh.org. Maybe it would be easier for a dancer to pick up. (I'm just the mom.)

Edited February 20, 2004 by LadyR

[Clara 76]

Thanks so much Lady R!!!! I just checked it out-definitely better than Labonotation for ballet! While it is complex, it is also logical-something that may be best attempted when one is young provided one has enough of a ballet vocabulary to grasp it in it's entirety. Please let me know what your daughter thinks of it.

Thanks again!

Clara

[Guest prism]

My daughter is begging me to allow her to take this course. She is only 10 years old. I’m thinking we should wait a few years and then if she is still interested we could add the course to her homeschool studies.

I think we have a choreographer in the making as well - boy though. He's also a computer geek and I thought the Benesh software was interesting but didn't see where it is available yet?

 

Meanwhile, I poked around the net for Laban also and found this neat site!

http://www.dance.ohio-state.edu/labanlab/index.html

 

Although Benesh is more for Ballet, this Laban site would be a good introduction of a standard method of annotation for a younger child to see if they are really interested or whether it would be too difficult yet. Lots of good stuff here including dance video clips of annotations. Laban Writer seems to be the most popular software for Laban. It's free but for Macintosh.

 

Incidently, we homeschool also. I immediately put both sites on our favorites for future reference as he is not quite 8yo. However, I wonder if this is something that is probably understood easier by younger kids than adults because of it being a pictorial representation. I went to the Benesh site when my son wasn't around. When I saw the graphic on their main page of the annotation, I saved it to my computer and then opened it for him without any other reference to dance on my machine to connect it in any way. I asked him what he thought it represented and he looked at me like I was dumb or something and matter of factly said "a dance". It's scarey what they know sometimes!! I know he's never seen it at the dance studio because I've caught glimpses of the teacher's choreography notes and it's all text - probably so any teacher or assistant can fill in. I haven't shown him LabanLab yet but it will be interesting to see what he thinks. He may be very intuitive with it like he is with other computing but at this age, he will probably prefer to annotate with his own annotation language which is often does now.

[Mel Johnson]

What you have there may not be a choreographer, but a budding choreologist; that is, a specialist in recording dances using notation of whatever sort.