Choreo-graphic design: reappraising dance notation

This article considers the graphic design history of dance notation. For over 300 years, attempts to develop a unified, consistent notational system for dance have proven an intractable graphic design challenge, with numerous designs entering the field only to fall rapidly out of favour. Whilst a modest critical literature has emerged on dance notation, the subject is rarely considered from a visual design perspective. The authors seek to address this gap, examining the relationship between the visual attributes of dance notation systems and their usage. They argue that the breadth of dance notation systems developed speaks to the difficulty of the graphic design task, and that this instability has, in fact, allowed inscriptive practices within dance to change and evolve as needed, free from the constraints of strict expectations. As a result, the history of dance has seen notational designs shift and morph, persistently reimagined in inventive and varied ways to significant effect. Moving away from existing theoretical approaches to dance notation, the authors offer a new analysis in which dance notation is situated as an inscriptive practice that across its varied history has afforded users the opportunity to document, own, disseminate and create their own ‘models’ of dance.