Hard Problem: Have You Ever Seen A Good Dance Martial Arts Text Book?

researchgate |  There is a need to develop tools to automatically read and translate dance scores. Dance has been one of the last artforms to develop objective records. Scores for dance, analogous to scores for music, have existed for more than half a century, but the notation systems are known only to a relatively few trained notators (also, there are a number of competing notation systems). In North America the Labanotation system is most widely used and LabanWriter, a computer based editor for this notation has been developed. Updating a report at WCGSÕ01, this paper describes progress with the project to develop a translator between LabanWriter and Life Forms™, a human animation system for the choreography and animation of human movement. The prototype translator will be demonstrated.

diegomaranan |  I am a transdisciplinary artist and researcher who investigates how technology can help us reimagine our relationship with the environment, with other people, and with ourselves. My work is eclectic, ranging from exploring how digital technologies are changing the way we move as well as perceive human movement, to co-creating socially-engaged art installations that build symbiotic relationships between plants, computers and people. As a Marie Skłodowska-Curie PhD fellow in the CogNovo training program for Cognitive Innovation at Plymouth University, I adapted methods and insights from user experience and technology design, perceptual psychology and neuroscience, dance and somatic practices, and pragmatist philosophy to design a low-cost wearable technology that uses vibrotactile stimulation to create unusual, pleasurable, structured sensory experiences that demonstrably increase body awareness. 

benesh |  What is the Benesh Notation Editor?
The Benesh Notation Editor is a PC Windows software program for writing Benesh Movement Notation Scores. It acts as a ‘word processor’ for the notation enabling the production of publication quality multi-stave printed scores that can be edited, copied and stored digitally like other computer documents.

The Benesh Notation Editor was developed to meet the needs of professional notators but is also useful for notation teachers and students, all of whom will find that they can produce publication quality scores more easily and quickly than writing them by hand. Scores written using the Benesh Notation Editor are easy to edit, copy, store, print and transmit by email.

What are the benefits of using the Benesh Notation Editor?
Using the Benesh Notation Editor, writing scores by hand will soon become as obsolete as using a typewriter for text documents. Unlike hand-written scores, BNE scores need never become annotated beyond readability. Alterations can be entered easily and quickly into the BNE score without affecting the original document.

The information in a BNE score can be adjusted and the layout rearranged simply and easily. This means that, unlike hand-written scores, it is not necessary to pre-plan the layout of each page before any information can be entered. Individual ‘parts’ can be extracted from a full multi-person score creating separate, more manageable, role specific scores for use in the rehearsal room or as study resources.