All the steps and nothing but the steps.No one has done more to develop Labanotation from the rudiments of Laban's inspiration to the fully usable and expressive system it is today," said Ilene Fox, executive director of Dance Notation dance notation Written recording of dance movements. The earliest notation, in the late 15th century, consisted of letter-symbols. Several attempts were made in later centuries to describe dance steps, but no unified system combined both rhythm and steps until the 1920s, Bureau, as she presented Ann Hutchison Guest with the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO NDEO National Dance Education Organization (US) ) lifetime achievement award. "Without Labanotation, we would have very little of our dance heritage," Fox added. Guest, 85, co-founded the Dance Notation Bureau in 1940, an organization she directed until 1961. She also authored Labanotation--the System of Analyzing and Recording Movement (Routledge, 1987), considered by many to be the notation field bible. In her acceptance speech, Guest recalled some milestones from her remarkable sixty-five year career: notating The Green Table at the request of Kurt Jooss Kurt Jooss (12 January 1901, Wasseralfingen, Germany – 22 May 1979, Heilbronn, West Germany) was a German modern dancer and choreographer mixing classical ballet with theatre; he is also widely regarded as the founder of Dance Theatre or Tanztheater. ; teaching notation to students of Hanya Holm Hanya Holm (3 March 1893, Worms, Germany – 3 November 1992, New York City) was the professional name of Johanna Eckert, dancer, choreographer, and teacher. Holm was one of the pioneers of modern dance. ; and performing on Broadway in choreography by Holm, Agnes de Mille Noun 1. Agnes de Mille - United States dancer and choreographer who introduced formal dance to a wide audience (1905-1993) Agnes George de Mille, de Mille , Jerome Robbins and Michael Kidd. While she is known for her scholarship, it came from a great love of dancing--she credits Graham and Cecchetti technique for her personal training. Guest became the first ballet and Labanotation teacher at the High School for Performing Arts in New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , and headed The Juilliard School dance notation faculty from 1951-1961. She also developed the Language of Dance[R], a body of work identifying basic movement elements that is now taught worldwide. This year, Guest and colleague Claudia Jeschke are working with The Royal Ballet to prepare for a revival of L'Apres-midi d'un faune. Guest and Jeschke say they teach the only "authentic" version of the work using Nijinsky's personal notation score. Guest says she strives for more than simply accuracy when reconstructing historic works. "We try to evoke a response from the performers. We encourage them to find the inner meaning, the intent behind the gesture and thereby to bring the movements to life. The choreography in Faune is spare, it is minimal, it is alien to today's dancers. For them, finding meaning is a voyage of discovery," she says. At a time of life when others might consider easing their pace, Guest plans a full schedule for 2004. She's working on two manuscripts including a complete rewrite of Labanotation, and will travel in July to New York for Language of Dance courses at New York University New York University, mainly in New York City; coeducational; chartered 1831, opened 1832 as the Univ. of the City of New York, renamed 1896. It comprises 13 schools and colleges, maintaining 4 main centers (including the Medical Center) in the city, as well as the and the 92nd Street Y; to Southern Illinois University Southern Illinois University, main campus at Carbondale; state supported; coeducational; est. 1869, opened 1874 as a normal school, renamed 1947. It has a center for archaeological investigation and a fisheries research laboratory. There is also a campus at Edwardsville. , Edwardsville, for a Motif Symposium; and to Beijing, China, for the International Council of Kinetography Laban Conference. In August, she'll attend conferences of CORD, and of the Dance Notation Bureau/Chinese Cultural University, both in Taipei, Taiwan. |
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