43rd National Táncház Festival & Fair • 5–7 April 2024
Issue:
Starting page: 34
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Why dance notation? Dance notation is taught by Fügedi János during all four years of dance training at the Hungarian Academy of Dance in Budapest. Dance notation is a system of signs and symbols with which movement can be written down on paper and read. Here a 4th year student sums up the advantages and uses of studying this science. Learning dance notation heightens a dancer’s ability to analyse movement and awareness of body position, direction of movement in space, portion of the body in motion. It provides a vocabulary for describing movement direction and levels, types of movement, steps, jumps, weight changes, turns, gestures, turning parts of the body, positions, body parts, and so on. Dance notation is useful for documenting choreography and movement which can then be later re-taught or used for research. The method of dance notation taught and used in Hungary and most recognized the world over was developed by Lábán Rudolf (1879–1958) and was introduced by him in Berlin in 1928. Hungarians Szentpál Mária and Lányi Ágoston have further developed the Lábán dance notation system. Article by Láda Júlia. Includes bibliography.