Typewriter element for dancers created by IBM in 1973

[DanceMentor]

This is kind of interesting as they created one of those little balls that has all the letters on it for dancers. There were different symbols to indicate positions for different parts of the body. In this way of choreographer could type their choreography. I guess it never really took off but it's an interesting part of history.

A different type of dance move - IBM Blog

IBM announced a Selectric typewriter element for dancers in the 1970s. It didn’t exactly dance off shelves.

www.ibm.com

 

[ccc]

Thanks for the Selectric memory. I was fascinated by them the first time I saw one work. It was on a remote terminal at my high school connected to the mainframe at URI. I also looked into Labanotation when I was trying to figure out how to record dance patterns. Not sure how someone would have typed the patterns on a typewriter. I would think something more like Visio or CAD would work. In any case, Labanotation was more complicated than I wanted to deal with. I would still like to find a simple notation for recording dance patterns.

 

[DL]

I remember doing a search for some kind of written specification of dance movements and finding Laban notation long ago, with the same idea in mind of having a written specification for dance patterns. It seemed pretty complicated to me, too, but I might imagine that animation studios (paying for whole teams of software engineers and other technical staff) could get mileage out of it (probably even for non-dance movements of animated characters). Does anybody know whether it has a significant application?

 

[ralf]

I would still like to find a simple notation for recording dance patterns.

Not possible if you want to be able to recreate anything even vaguely resembling the dance from just the notation. Remember, you have head, torso, and four limbs, each of which can be at a different angle, and the limbs can each have a different amount of bend in the middle and different amount of rotation (affecting where that center bend puts the end). Then there are the wrist and ankle joints, and for some styles it's also important to capture the positioning of the fingers.
And that's just for a static pose, without trying to capture the speed of motion (although the latter can be captured implicitly if you record enough static poses).

I count 19-20 "degrees of freedom" even without fingers:
head turn
head tilt
torso twist
(torso angle if not implied by the other items)
4x shoulder/hip joint angle
4x shoulder/hip joint rotation
4x elbow/knee angle
4x wrist/ankle angle

 

[ccc]

I hear what your saying. That's why Labanotation can take years to master. But what I'm looking for is just enough to capture steps and arm/hand movements to outline a pattern. I need enough to remind me of what I just learned in class so I can practice until the next class. Videos don't work for me. I've seen simple notations such as in the Engineer's guide to Hustle book that showed foot positions and relative arm positions that were helpful. I've also read here that individuals have their own methods for notating steps but nothing that actually shows what they are writing down.

 

[Terpsichorean Clod]

I hear what your saying. That's why Labanotation can take years to master. But what I'm looking for is just enough to capture steps and arm/hand movements to outline a pattern. I need enough to remind me of what I just learned in class so I can practice until the next class. Videos don't work for me. I've seen simple notations such as in the Engineer's guide to Hustle book that showed foot positions and relative arm positions that were helpful. I've also read here that individuals have their own methods for notating steps but nothing that actually shows what they are writing down.

I'm not sure if you're looking for something like this. I think it works fairly well as standard is relatively simple.

 

[ccc]

Looks interesting. I'll have to play with it. Thanks.

 

[Terpsichorean Clod]

A curious find I came across today:

 

[Steve Pastor]

Having spent some amount of time with Labanotation and the various swing dances that were included in Stearns' Jazz Dance, and having grown up in the typewriter age, I wish that article had included an actual example or two of what a typed page looked like (or would look like.) Even if that small insert in the picture of the leaping dancer was actually made with the Laban typeball, just think of how complicated it would be to get all of the symbols to align properly. An alternative would be to just type the smbols from left to right, which would have been difficult for a Laban reader to interpret.
One notation system I'm probably most familiar with would be the one that Laure' Haile created, and copyrighted, in the late 40s and 50s. She used her symbols, starting with what had been used for ice skating, to document many common balroom dances, and Western Swing. Don't remember seeing anything for arms or torso.