Choreography: The essence of choreology

Gwen Herat

BALLET: When centuries ago as ballet developed to the fine art it is today, there were no methods for the choreographer to evolve a means of recording his ballets. They have searched continuously for a simple and reliable method of recording dance notations over since Guglielmo Ebreo of Pasaro wrote down some ‘base dances’ in 1463.

He used letters and curious symbols. However, these notations have been used by men who wrote them, as the others could not understand their meanings. With various publications and manuals thereafter, some breakthrough had been noted in the 15th and 16th centuries.

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. Nicholas Sergueef was able to mount many Russian classics for the Sadler’s Wells Ballet (now Royal Ballet) using Stepehoff’s methods.

The Leban system invented in 1953 was responsible for many Broadway mounts and was popularised by Anne Hutchinson at the Dance Notations Bureau. This institution recorded many of Balanchine’s and Doris Humprey’s shows some of which were revived for Welsh Dance Theatre in 1975.

Spectacular

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. This became the spectacular ‘lift’ for the ballets mounted around the world by great choreographers such as Ashton, De Valois Crank, MacMillan etc.

The identity of Benesh ‘score’ combined to make their ballets outstanding. Many other companies used the Benesh system to record their ballets and thus the choreology preached choreography to blend the fantastic results. Some of the companies were the Royal Ballet, Turkish State Ballet, Ballet Rambert, Munich Ballet, The Stuttgart Ballet, Australian Ballet, etc.

Choreology which is Benesh movement notations are taught at the Institute of Choreology in London, established in 1965. It is defined as a scientific and aesthetic study of movements made by Benesh Movement Notation. 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.

One can call this the theory of dance. All these subjects are taught in an integrated way with technique classes accompanied by parallel theory classes. Students learn to write down and analyses what they have been performing. In the history of theatrical dancing, music and art classes, they are given composition classes at which they learn to compose on paper.

By the time they are ready to graduate, they have commanded the many different kinds of work that will help them being exquisite dancers as well as choreographers of the future. Unlike many, they have learnt theory and like keyboard practices and theory, they have mastered the art both ways with nothing left to fumble.

Such gifted students will become the new generation of choreographers. Yet another important aspect about choreology is the distinct contribution towards research and the great importance to the educational ballet.

Hundreds of student-choreologists as well as student-dancers from the Royal Ballet School are sent to this Institute daily as part of their training in notation. The Royal Ballet dancers visit the Institute’s library to study scores of roles they are learning.

Musical scores

As accorded to literature, drama and musical scores, complete copyright protection is given to dance notations especially with the establishment of the Institute in London as well as the Dance Notation Bureau in New York.

This is all due to the vibrant outcome of the study of choreology and we can dwell in the fact that we have progressed extremely well in the theory of ballet just the way we have done in theory for the famous Royal College of Music and the Trinity College of Music where we learn classical scores that we dance to the ballet.

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