Benesh notation uses dashes, lines, and dots placed on a five line staff grid representing different levels of the body: floor, knees, waist, top of the shoulder, and top of the head.
The main advantage to Benesh notation is that it views the dancing figure from behind, making it easier for the reader to interpret the movement onto his or her own body.
Just like Benesh notation, the five lines of the staff indicated the same areas of the body; therefore, when the performer was to jump in the air, the stick figure was drawn elevated off of the floor line of the staff to show movement into the air.
Rudolf was born in London of a Czech father and an Anglo-Italian mother.
In 1962 The Benesh Institute of Choreology was founded with Sir Frederick Ashton as President, Arnold Haskell as Vice-President and Nicholas Dromgoole as Chairman of the Board of Governors.
Nicholas Dromgoole: Chairman of the Benesh Institute 1968 - 1986.
In performance the connection with the Fred Step can be hard to discern, not only because of the turning characteristics but also because of their timing; but in notation form the link is more immediately available, as the basic movement can be looked at in isolation.
To those who read Benesh notation to any extent, this should be evident in the following extracts from the solo and group versions.
Also to the many Benesh choreologists whose movement scores were my primary source of reference and without whose skills, care and quiet dedication to the task of recording our dance heritage it would not have been possible.
The most popular of the three systems, the Benesh system was copyrighted for England in 1955 and is the conventional five-line music stave, one stave being devoted to one dancer or group of dancers.
Many other companies used the Benesh system to record their ballets and thus the choreology preached choreography to blend the fantastic results.
Choreology which is Benesh movement notations are taught at the Institute of Choreology in London, established in 1965.
ipedia.com: Dance Article(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
Thus a person who wrote down dances was a choreographer, but the creator of dances was still known as a Dancing Master (Le maître a danser) or in later years a Ballet Master.
Rudolf Laban extended the meaning and use of the word choreographie with his book Choreographie (1926) in which he detailed not only a new form of dance notation but also the principles and theory of a complete system of dance that would later become Laban Movement Analysis (LMA).
RudolfBenesh and Joan Benesh coined the term choreology to describe the aesthetic and scientific study of all forms of human movement by movement notation (1955) whilst Laban used the term choreutics to describe LMA.
Choreology, or dance script, was defined by its inventor RudolfBenesh as 'the aesthetic and scientific study of all forms of human movement by movement notation.
The language Rudolph Benesh developed is a purely kinetic language which directly relates to positions, steps, moves and entire dance productions.
Rudolph Benesh was the first to coin the term 'choreology' when he publicly launched his system in 1955.
Notation(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
The Benesh Movement Notation material includes first drafts and copies of master scores.
The notation documents masterworks including Dark Elegies and Ghost Dances and brief sketches of works that were never realised for example Ken Russell’s Decibels.
Master scores are lodged at the Benesh Institute, Royal Academy of Dance, where they are registered for copyright.
"The Benesh Institute (formerly The Institute of Choreology) is an international organisation which acts as the custodian for Benesh Movement Notation - a system created by RudolfBenesh, an accountant who was also a gifted artist and musician.
His wife, Joan, was a dancer with the Sadler's Wells Ballet in the late 1940s; her attempts to write and then decipher dance steps inspired him to invent a reliable way of notating them.
RudolfBenesh launched his system publicly in 1955 defining choreology as 'the scientific and aesthetic study of all forms of human movement by movement notation'." (About the institute)
This resulted in further research done by Charles Beauchamp and Raoul Feullet who in 1701 wrote some ‘curly-line’ type of notations that resembled by Russian Vladimir Stephenoff, Hungarian Rudolf von Laban and the English couple Rudolf and Joan Benesh.
This institution recorded many of Balanchine’s and Doris Humprey’s shows some of which were revived for Welsh Dance Theatre in 1975.
This Institute covers a wide range of classical dance that include modern dance, classical ballet, Indian classical dance, historic dance, folk dance, character dance and ‘as de deux’ work as well as group work.
The "rude middle finger" represents the male genitalia, the middle finger representing the erect penis, the remaining curled digits representing the testicles.
RudolfBenesh, the husband of a young member of The Royal Ballet in England, Joan Benesh, started a system of notation in 1955.
It is a fascinating system, whereby the human body is lined up against the musical staff.
In the U.S., for instance, the artist's copyright is valuable if the choreographer sends a copy on video or film of his composition to the Library of Congress in Washington, exactly the same procedure as with literary works.
Today many companies have employed their choreologists or notators who write down the repertory - most of these choreologists are educated in the Benesh system.
With these "scores" the choreographic composition can be both proved - touched upon - and preserved.
Laban, Sutton, Benesh and more notational methods are explained by these sites with information on computerized scoring and copyright.
The Dance Notation Bureau - Tutorials take you through learning Labanotation, introduced by Rudolf von Laban in the 1920s.
The Benesh Institute - A full history of the notation and the Institute plus a description of the Benesh Notation Editor, the PC software for writing and editing multi-stave notation scores are available at this site.
In Europe, Rudolf von Laban, Émile Jaques-Dalcroze and François Delsarte developed theories of human movement and methods of instruction that led to the development of European modern and expressionist dance.
Notation: A written method for documenting and recording movement; also referred to as choreology.
Examples include Labanotation (developed by the students of Rudolf von Laban) and Benesh notation (developed by RudolfBenesh).
Relevant books(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
@BOOK{ReadDance, Author = "RudolfBenesh and Joan Benesh", Title = "{Reading Dance: The Birth of Choreology}", Publisher = McGraw-Hill, Edition = "First", Year = "1993", }
Still Life}", Publisher = "The Benesh Institute of Choreology, Ltd", Edition = "Second", Year = "1980", }
Simulating Humans: Computer Graphics, Animation and Control (1997)
