Editor: Doug Bradshaw

Published: Winter 2007

Number: 52

Download: Newsletter Winter 2007 (1Mb)

Editorial

The winter issue once again features the Federation AGM as a major topic. But that’s not the AGM that prompts this editorial. My own side has just had its own AGM and one point raised there created some interesting discussion

“Notation” is the name of the game. There was a proposal that a documented set of notation should be on hand to guard against the dance master(s) getting run down by a bus. Both of the dance masters argued the case that notation is a guide not a definition. If the notation is taken as definitive then the dance is pinned in time and ceases to evolve as a living tradition. Written notation describing a three dimensional activity such as dance can be notoriously open to interpretation. Reading that a dance needs a “hockleback” can be a challenge if you have never seen the movement performed.

So video should make it easier then? Maybe, but do you want to create a sterile copy of last years team’s performance forever more? And was the filmed performance the best? So we came to the conclusion that notation was useful but only a guide. The best repository for dance notation is the mind and body of the dancer. Pass the tradition down the years but let it grow with each generation so that it lives and never becomes a museum artefact.