Publications

Advanced Labanotation Book

Dr. Ann Hutchinson Guest’s Advanced Labanotation Book 10 is progressing very well. Raymundo Ruiz and Andy Adamson are working with Dr. Guest on this publication. The finished chapters are sent to a group of experts for their review; they are: János Fügedi, Lynne Weber, Sandra Aberkalns, Leslie Rotman, Mei-Chen Lu and for some issues Sheila Marion and Odette Blum.  Initially the book was called Body Variations, to follow Book 9, Spatial Variations. 

Study Guide

Intermediate Labanotation Study Guide in Chinese will be published soon. Sharina who is a dance faculty member at the Beijing Dance Academy translated the English textbook into Chinese and Mei-Chen Lu proofread the content.  The book will be released through Beijing Normal University Publishing Group.

Studia Choreologica

Studia Choreologica publishes articles on a wide range of dance cultures and perspectives: both choreological and ethnochoreological since 1999. The journal is planned to be published bilingually starting with vol. XXI – full texts in Polish and English. Texts in either language, sent by the end of December 2020, after passing positive reviews, will be published in volume XXII in autumn 2021. 
See call at http://www.pfch.choreologia.org.pl/studia.html#call

Workshops & Courses

Conservatoire de Paris

Five students graduated in October 2020 from the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris (CNSMDP), after four years of specialized studies in Kinetography Laban. The new certified professionals in notation are: 
Bruno Briquet. Diploma’s projects: notation of the pedagogy of Frédéric Dussenne; teaching Laban's systems for the actor's interpretation.
Magali Brument. Diploma’s projects: notation of Forme simple (excerpts), chor. Loïc Touzé; transmission of Oscar, chor. Luc Petton and Love, chor. Loïc Touzé.
Véronique Brunel. Diploma’s projects: notation of Fill-in, chor. Marilén Iglesias-Breuker; teaching Kinetography at the Université de Lille. 
Mélanie Dutois. Diploma’s projects: notation of Set and reset reset, chor. Trisha Brown; transmission of Quasi Waltz, chor. Doris Humphrey and En Dolor, chor. Ethel  Winter.
Christophe Duveau-Villeger. Diploma’s projects: notation of Janet on the Roof, chor. Pierre Ponvianne; teaching Kinetography in Corte, Linz and Marseille.

Dance Notation Bureau

Dance Notation Bureau administrated a real-time virtual teaching course due to the Global Pandemic.  The DNB hosted a free five-day Motif Notation workshop from July 6 to July 10, 2020. Twenty-five people from the United States, Mexico, United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Thailand, Australia, Brazil, and the Philippines came together via Zoom and explored Motif Notation concepts with Mei-Chen Lu. Everyone had different backgrounds.  Some were from the Laban Movement Analysis community; some did not know Motif Notation or Labanotation.

Language of Dance (LOD)

Language of Dance will be offering an online Bridge course early 2021 to address advanced theory, support deeper integration and use of LOD, and prepare those who want to learn how to teach LOD with the opportunity to begin that process. Details will be announced at http://www.lodc.org.

Language of Dance USA’s cohort of 12 dance educators/artists who began and completed their studies are Natalie Diggins (Perth, West Australia), Shana Habel (Los Angeles, CA), Amber McCall (San Jose, CA), Brooklynn-Reeves Mallett (Simi Valley, CA), Stephanie Milling (Columbia, SC), Cassie Roberts-Rossi (Jersey City, NJ), Maria Royals (Towson, MD), Madeline Sharp (Los Angeles, CA), Corazón Tierra (New York, NY), Amy Vaillancourt (Zurich, Switzerland), Kodee Van Nort (Boston, MA), and Sarah Billings Wheeler (Queens, NY). Dr. Teresa Heiland, Beth Megill, and Michael Richter taught the three courses in pairs. They used the LOD Approach to Literacy Pedagogy they have been developing and refining to create rich learning units and lessons for each concept and cluster of concepts.

Laban Webinar

During Covid-19 confinement, Raphaël Cottin gave two webinars introducing Laban studies and Kinetography. It was organized June 8 and 9, 2020, by the Belgrade Dance Institute (Serbia), with the support of Theatroskop, a regional program for performing arts, initiated in 2011 by the Institut Français and the French Ministry of Culture. There were 250 people online, from 60 different nationalities.
Those webinars are accessible for free on Youtube.
Part 1: https://youtu.be/r6Im1u1ORIU / Part 2: https://youtu.be/xCt2colSPdY.

Warsaw Laboratory of Kinetography

Cooperation of Warsaw Laboratory of Kinetography with Anna Opłocka’ educational project "Kinetographic Meetings" carried out as part of Anna’ scholarship from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. Members of WLoK assisted in lessons and gave lectures ordered by Anna. One person that met Kinetography thanks to “Meetings” joined WLoK.

Staging

Laban Horror Show

“In a totally burlesque solo, Tours choreographer Cottin desacralizes an important figure of modern dance, little known to the general public.” This one-hour solo will be presented December 9, 2020, at Centre chorégraphique national de Tours - direction Thomas Lebrun, and January 6, 2021, in Orléans, France.
http://www.ccntours.com/saison/raphael-cottin-la-poetique-des-signes-tours_3

Other News & Upcoming Events

Ann Hutchinson Guest Event

Language of Dance UK will be hosting a virtual premier of a documentary about Dr. Ann Hutchinson Guest. This stunning film will give an insight into Ann's ground-breaking research in dance notation, setting up the Dance Notation Bureau in New York City, and later founding the Language of Dance Centre in London. Following the film showing, there will be a live Q&A with Ann Hutchinson Guest herself. The event will take place on Wednesday 4th November at 5pm (GMT). On the week that Ann will also be celebrating her 102nd birthday, join to watch the film and ask Ann anything! Tickets can be purchased from the LODC UK website: http://www.lodc.org

Hungarian Golden Cross of Merit

János Fügedi, college professor at the Hungarian Dance Academy, senior researcher at the Research Centre for the Humanities Institute for Musicology, current Chair of ICKL Board of Trustees, was awarded the Hungarian Golden Cross of Merit this year. The Golden Cross is one of the highest awards given by the state. János was awarded for his research and education activity in the field of dance notation.

Dance Archeology at NDEO

Dr. Ann Hutchinson Guest’s fifth session on Dance Archaeology for the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO) conference will be held October 23-26.  
Dr. Guest will be focusing on Kurt Jooss' The Green Table. The presentation will be online, with Tina Curran assisting with Powerpoint presentation, Hannah Russ performing the Partisan's solo, learned from the Labanotation score, and Suzanne Knosp assisting at the piano. For details please visit http://www.ndeo.org

Warsaw Laboratory of Kinetography

Warsaw Laboratory of Kinetography (Warszawska Pracownia Kinetograficzna)developed their activity within the local, national and international choreological discourse. They took part in the 10th Conference of the Polish Choreological Forum in Kalisz and in the Nationwide Conference Dance in Warsaw. The art of dance and choreography in the 20th and 21st centuries" Dance Art Center in Warsaw. Four members of WLoK are members of ICKL.

Exhibition:Movement Journals /Moving Journals

In June 2020, Foteini Papadopoulou, choreographer and movement researcher, worked with a group of BA students of the dance department at the Folkwang University of the Arts on a  project in practices of creating, transforming, and remembering movement, “Movement Journals/Moving Journals –  #30daychallenge”. A selection of these manifold scores by the students and a kinetogram by Papadopoulou can be seen in the exhibition “Only drawing can do this: Works from Beethoven to Pinterest” at the Horst Janssen Museum until 17 January 2021. Also part of the exhibition that is questioning the potentials of (hand) drawing in our digitalized times is a translation of Feuillet’s “La Bourgogne” into Kinetography Laban by Gisela Reber from 1961. 
Details: https://www.horst-janssen-museum.de/en/exhibitions/only-drawing-can-do-this/

PhD

Sungu Okan completed her PhD on Musicology, at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University Istanbul State Conservatory in July 2020. Her thesis was a comparative analysis of Balanchine choreography of Stravinsky’s Agon over Labanotation score and music score. Her reference was Virginia Doris’ 1987 Laban score. 

In Memoriam

Virginia Doris, 93, known professionally as Virginia Bosler and by the childhood nickname "Winkie," passed away on August 30, 2020. Between 1981 to 1991 for the Dance Notation Bureau, Doris notated scores of works by choreographers such as Erick Hawkins, Elisa Monte, George Balanchine, including for the latest the scores of Agon, Apollo, Square Dance and Serenade.