No abstract

Symbolic systems such as Labanotation for notating dance and choreography provide a critical tool for the preservation of cultural heritage in what once was considered an 'illiterate' art form. While the goals of such notation systems are laudable, the unfortunate reality is that most dancers and choreographers cannot read or write the notation; that is, they are loath to take the considerable effort to learn a rich, but complex methodology. To make Labanotation scores more accessible the LabanDancer system has been developed to translate Labanotation scores recorded in the LabanWriter editor into 3-d human figure animations. A major challenge in the development of this translator has been to find approaches that are general enough to create reasonable animations for a wide variety of different movements. Any translator must also take account of the context of a movement since this can affect the interpretation of the Labanotation scores.

Twentieth century technology has given rise to new and exciting methods for the analysis of human motion. With the aid of the motion picture camera a dancer's kick can be frozen and details invisible in normal viewing can be isolated and analyzed. Electrical detecting devices can uncover secrets about the inner workings of the body, its nerves and muscles. Platforms sensitive to the changing dynamics of a movement can tell us how the body generates force, how it locomotes itself and creates artistic effects and qualities which were previously thought of as “mystical” and “denying natural laws”. Numerous ballet technique manuals offer explanations as to the correct execution of dance movements. Although these descriptions are largely in agreement with one another, they are often in conflict with kinesiological information about the general functioning of the human body. Little research exists in the specific area of kinesiology and dance.It is therefore the goal of the present research to clinically examine one selected dance movement, the grand battement devant, in order to form a kinesiological model of its skeletal and muscular components. This information may help provide a means of assessing the great heritage of traditional ballet theory based largely on personal experience and trial and error, and form a foundation for new theory based on objective analysis. The problem was to discover skeletal and muscular patterns when the grand battement is performed with both legs parallel (patellae facing anteriorly), and with both legs “turned out” (femurs laterally rotated as much as possible at the hip joints).

Notation plays a very important role in today's society. It acts as a communication medium between inventors and those who will implement their ideas. Without notation our knowledge of the past and present would be limited by our memory and prone to errors in oral transmission. Although we take for granted the existence of a suitable notation in almost all fields of human study, this is not true in the field of human movement. For example, in Western theatrical dance, no adequate means to record masterpieces existed until the twentieth century and thus most works from the past have been lost. In response to the literacy problem in dance, a number of systems have been developed in the past five centuries to record human movement, but most of these have failed to be practical under rigorous working conditions. Only a few have attracted substantial professional interest. The difficulty is that a dance notation must capture on paper a precise record, at each moment in time, of the position of each body part in three dimensions of space, as well as provide comprehensive information about movement dynamics and choreographic intention.

This paper describes an interactive computerized editor for Benesh Movement Notation that aids in the preparation of dance scores on a medium resolution colour display. Benesh Movement Notation is a two-dimensional system for recording human movement in three dimensions of space which has been successfully used in the preparation of scores for a wide repertoire of dances. The preparation and revision of Benesh scores is a lengthy and error-prone process which interactive editing techniques can greatly facilitate. We describe the current state and future extensions of a prototype editing system in which all user interaction is based on a menu-driven scheme using a graphics tablet. Extensive visual cues including iconic trackers and semantic information are provided at all times. Both user and system initiated dialogues are supported. This system has served as a testbed for a variety of man-machine interaction studies, allowing us to transfer the wealth of experience with interactive text editing to a related task: the preparation of dance scores. The project has given us a better understanding of the issues involved in implementing an effective user-interface.