Schrifttanz

Laban was experimenting with different forms of dance script in Monté Verità from 1912, and in 1926 he published an early form of his dance notation in his Choreographie.

By 1928, he had developed a simpler, more accurate notation, based on the musical stave. He published it in his short-lived journal Schrifttanz (literally "writing dance").

In Laban's new form of notation, the centre line of the stave corresponds to the spine and each line moving out represents the more peripheral parts of the body. There are three elevations: low (black), medium (with a dot) and high (blank). Triangles facing to the right correspond to movements in that direction. He called this "kinetographie" (movement images) and it later became known as Labanotation.

Throughout the archive, there are references to the development of his notation. Most importantly, there is a collection of letters in German between Laban and Albrecht Knust with whom he discussed the evolution of the method.

This form of notation should not be confused with his Effort Notation, which was a much later development of the 1940s in England.

Dick McCaw

Image credit Leeds University Library