Blogs

ICK | Accademia
(Dance) Notation Series- Research Encounters
Reading/writing dance

Feb 4th
This event will be streamed LIVE in dance-tech.tv

watch the stream and chat with us here!

Three different speakers will present their projects and perspectives in relation to the reading and writing of dance. Kerstin Evert dance teacher and researcher will present the research project IDOCDE an online databse for dance education, choreographer Emilie Gallier will talk about her new work Synchronicity a reading dance performance and Carla Fernandes cognitive linguistic researcher will introduce the development and status of the Transmedia Knowledge Base for contemporary Dance project.

Kerstin Evert; coordinator of the IDODEC project, a network of twelve European dance educators around the development of an online database that will develop and document best practices of contemporary dance education, to improve networking among contemporary dance educators and to increase visibility of this vibrant art form. IN order to do so an online platform is being designed where tagging, defining groups and developing writen documents on dance education are main goals. Evert will introduce the project and expose some of the challanges in relation to writing dance.

Carla Fernandes is assistant Professor at IPLeiria and Senior Researcher at the New University of Lisbon. Her current research focus is in the intersection of cognitive linguistics and the performing arts, particularly concerning the creation of multimodal corpora, digital archives and new documentation models. She coordinates the state-funded international research project TKB: “A Transmedia Knowledge Base for contemporary dance”, a research project in the interstices between cognitive linguistics and contemporary dance studies. TKB is an extensive and transdisciplinay project aiming at the design and construction of an open-ended multimodal knowledge base to document, annotate and support the creation of contemporary dance piece. Fernandes will present the project focusing on the process of annotations and descriptions of movements.

Emilie Gallier; is choreographer, researcher, director of the PØST Cie. Gallier will present her project Synchronicity a performance, book publication of a poem, and the choreography on paper (score), together with an essay written by Daniel Rovers (writer). This publication is a platform for the choreographer to probe the writing of movements of thoughts, and to turn to the spectator as reader, observer, and performer.

you can register for for  encounter on the 4th, by sending an email with your name, email address and telephone number to francieneppens@ickamsterdam.nl

watch the stream and chat with us here!

11h00-15h00 Central Europe Time

Portland, Ore (August 2, 2011) -- The National Endowment for the Humanitieshas awarded a $25,000 Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant to support Reed College's development of a dance notation application for iPad. The project,Enhancing Dance Literacy, is directed by Dr. Hannah Kosstrin, a visiting assistant professor of dance at Reed. The goal is to provide students and faculty with sophisticated dance notation and editing tools that can be used easily in the classroom, studio, and elsewhere. 

"This iPad app will significantly change the way dance and movement teachers read, write, and share notation in their teaching, research, and public projects," says Professor Kosstrin.  "The beneficiaries of this project will be researchers, scholars, teachers, choreographers, dancers, and students in fields such as dance, theater, performance studies, and others who use movement as an integral part of their scholarly inquiry. At Reed, students will have the opportunity to use this technology in their coursework and research projects."

The software development is the result of a partnership between Reed College and The Ohio State University, where Professor Kosstrin recently completed her doctorate. The iPad app utilizes one of the most widely used systems for documenting dance, known as Labanotation, and builds on LabanWriter, a software package previously developed for desktop computers at OSU.

Labanotation is a movement notation system developed in the 1920s that is based on a staff with symbols that denote where the body goes in space, time, and duration. Labanotation, along with its corollary Motif Writing, is a literacy tool for dance and movement, both for reading the notation of existing and historical dances, and for notating new dances for documentation or generative purposes.

The NEH-supported app will provide a powerful tool for stylistic analysis of choreography through dance notation, a foundational form of dance literacy. This type of analysis is integral to the study of dance within the humanities; it provides a unique perspective on cultural norms, political trends, gender relations, issues of identity, and other historical elements as embodied in choreographic styles. The study of dance styles and aesthetic progressions strengthens students' analytical, critical thinking, and writing skills. As a musical score is vital to music students’ understanding of musical compositions, dance notation similarly allows students entry into dance analysis from the inside out. 

Martin Ringle, Reed's chief technology officer and coprincipal investigator for the project, observes that "the development of this mobile app for dance notation points the way to a wealth of new software applications for the liberal arts curriculum. The ease of iPad app development allows even small institutions, like Reed, to play an important role in the development of new instructional technology tools."

This fall, early versions of Reed's iPad dance notation app will be shared with colleagues at several colleges and universities who will test it and provide feedback on its usability. In late spring 2012, the app will be released broad