Action Stroke Dance Notation is a form of dance notation invented by Iver Cooper. Designed for speed of writing the notation is primarily formed of action strokes that represent one of three basic actions:
- a support gesture which takes weight (hop, step, etc. )
- a touch gesture (makes contacts without taking weight)
- an air gesture (makes no contact)
the score has five sections:
- General section - describing the general movement of the dancer
- leg section (or staff) - indicating movement of the legs and feet
- arm section (or staff) - indicating movement of the arms and hands
- trunk section - indicating movement of head, neck, chest and pelvis
- notes section - detailed explanations of the movement
based on the work of Rudolf Laban and Labanotation the score read from bottom to top. The horizontal dimension of the score represents the symmetry of the body, and the vertical dimension the time dimension. Making use of abstract symbols Action Stroke Dance Notation is visually similar to Motif notation, a subset of Labannotation that is also designed for speed of writing.
Famous quotes containing the words action, stroke and/or dance:
“Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Manners are the happy way of doing things; each once a stroke of genius or of love—now repeated and hardened into usage. They form at last a rich varnish, with which the routine of life is washed, and its details adorned. If they are superficial, so are the dewdrops which give such depth to the morning meadows.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Not fat but the greatest possible suppleness and strength is what a good dancer wants from his nourishment—and I could not even guess what the spirit of a philosopher might wish to be more than a good dancer. For dance is his ideal, and also his art, and finally also his only piety, his “service to God.””
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)