3 Choreography and notation
Main articles: Choreography, Dance notation
Choreography is the art of marking dances and the generic name given to dances which set movements occurs. People who set choreographies are called choreographers and may develop their own dance techniques as a part of their choreographic work. Choreography and dance techniques can be written down as dance notation which is analogous to music notation.
The term choreogoraphy has a varied historical context, it is derived from the word chorea. chorea (χορεία) a Greek Circle dance accompanied by singing, derivatives of chorea are used to describe circle dances in other counties: Khorovod ( Russia), Hora ( Romania, Moldova, Israel), Horo ( Bulgaria). Paracelsus used the term chorea to describe the rapid, jerking physical movements of medieval pilgrims traveling the healing shrine of St. Vitus giving rise to the term St. Vitus' dance.
Raoul Feuillet and Pierre Beauchamp used an adaption the word chorea to describe dance notation. Feuillet's Chorégraphie ( 1700) set out a method of dance notation and established the term chorégraphie for the writing, or notating of dances. Thus a person who wrote down dances was a choreographer, but the creator of dances was still known as a Dancing Master (Le maître a danser) or in later years a Ballet Master.
Rudolf Laban extended the meaning and use of the word choreographie with his book Choreographie ( 1926) in which he detailed not only a new form of dance notation but also the principles and theory of a complete system of dance that would later become Laban Movement Analysis (LMA). Rudolf and Joan Benesh coined the term choreology to describe the aesthetic and scientific study of all forms of human movement by movement notation ( 1955) whilst Laban used the term choreutics to describe LMA.
The rejection of ballet vocabulary and terms by modern dance resulted in the term choreographer replacing Ballet Master and therefore choreography came to mean the art of making dances.
4 Dance studies
In the early 1920s dance studies (dance practice, critical theory, analysis and history) began to be considered a serious academic discipline. Today these studies are an integral part of many universities' arts and humanities programs. By the late 20th century the recognition of practical knowledge as equal to academic knowledge lead to the emergence of practice-based research and practice as research. A large range of dance courses are available including:
A full range of Academic degrees are available from BA (Hons) to PhD and other postdoctoral fellowships, with many dance scholars taking up their studies as mature students after a professional dance career.
