Great Quotes about Notation, Part 7

So many posts in my head, so little time to post them!

Soon, I hope to write bits about open source dance, notation for facial expressions, and more. Until then, a great quote about notation to tide you over. This time, it's from Laura Dean:

Great Quotes about Notation, Part 6

The Great Quotes series continues, this time with Murray Louis :

Hello 2008!

With apologies for the delay (food coma just now wearing off...), welcome to 2008! But, before we put 2007 completely behind us, some words about 2007 from the New York Times: "In the past year dance has finally carved out a space for itself online as dancers, choreographers and institutions embraced the Internet with video, blogs and new Web sites." (Read the whole article here: The World of Dance Tries Out New Moves on the Web.)

Hooray for us, DNB, for being among the dance institutions expanding and improving its web presence!

(Recently Unearthed) Great Quote about Notation

Here's a quote you haven't seen on the Dance Notation Bureau website. It's an excerpt from the last will and testament of Antony Tudor. It's in legalese and thus is not the most colorful quote in my little Great Quotes series, but what it says -- stipulating DNB involvement in stagings -- now that's a Great Quote with oomph!

". . . I request my Trustee, in order to insure the integrity of my ballets in performance, to require as a condition of any agreement entered into or permission given for performance of any of my ballets that the performance be based on the best available record of the ballet and, specifically, if the ballet has been notated by the DNB or by the Institute of Choreology, that the Bureau or the Institute be consulted and the performance based upon its notation."

Great Quotes about Notation, Part 5

It feels like time to trot out another testimonial. Here's Antony Tudor on the Dance Notation Bureau:

Great Quotes about Notation, Part 4

As some of you may have realized, the quotes in the "Great Quotes about Notation" series I'm running are also on the DNB's website. But they appear there randomly, and it's probably safe to assume that only the biggest DNB devotees among you have seen them all. And so I'm posting them here too. So, part 4, from Anna Sokolow:

Dance, Dance Notation, and Language

The recent obituary of Igor Moiseyev in the New York Times included something he once said about classical ballet: that it's “the grammar of movement.” I'm sure a lot of smart and thoughtful people have a lot to say about whether or not ballet is the grammar of movement...but me, I didn't spend much time thinking about that particular issue. Rather, I started thinking about one of the most fascinating threads on the DNB's Theory Bulletin Board: Labanotation as a Language.

The thread is a little old (2001), but it's in no way dated. In it, well over a dozen people mull over questions such as: Is Labanotation a language? Or is it just a script, with dance being the language? Is Labanotation more like a programming language or a human language? Should it satisfy a university's foreign language requirement? Or is "foreign" indeed a crucial part of such language requirements?

I can't remember the fine points. I'm going to go read it again now.

Great Quotes about Notation, Part 3

Another choreographer, another great quote. Here's Bill T. Jones on the Dance Notation Bureau:

Great Quotes about Notation, Part 2

Here's another glowing line about notation, this time from Paul Taylor:

Great Quotes about Notation, Part 1

Many choreographers find Labanotation and the Dance Notation Bureau to be immensely valuable resources. Here's a great line from George Balanchine on the topic!