Dance Notation Bureau cutbacks and layoffs

[bart]

A few days ago, the LINKS thread cited a report about financial difficulties and serious cut-backs at the Dance Notation Bureau.

The Dance Notation Bureau lays off five of six staffers, citing money troubles.  Report by Erica Kinetz for The New York Times.

In addition to Western theatrical dance, the collection includes scores for social, historical and folk dances from around the world. It is thus an important resource for companies recreating works and for scholars of dance history.

For now, the library remains active and accessible. (Mei-Chen Lu, who oversees it, was the only employee to survive the cuts.) But the institution is on the ropes.

Grant money it had been expecting failed to materialize. The fall membership drive met with lackluster results. And individual donations, which constitute about half of the $300,000 annual operating budget, are also down.

I was wondering whether anyone has a response to this. Although I hate to see a drop of ANY kind in financial support for ballet, I found myself wondering: In this age of video techniques that are easy and cheap to produce, copy and distribute, what are the arguments for continuing to fund traditional dance notation systems? Any thoughts?

[Hans]

Regarding video vs. notation, notation is important because videos aren't always accurate in terms of musicality, whether a leg is front or side, &c, and it's sometimes impossible to film all the dancers on stage at one time. Notation says with certainty exactly what each position and movement are and when they occur with the music.

[sandik]

I've taught and reconstructed from notation, and if you have some specific questions I'm happy to try and answer them, but I think the gist of the distinction is this: a film or a videotape is a recording of a particular performance. A notated score is a record of the choreography, as the choreographer intended it. Film and video are wonderful tools, but they don't do the same thing that a written score does, just as a recording of a Beethoven symphony is not the same as a copy of the sheet music.

[bart]

Thanks, Hans and Sandik, for your explanations.

I confess that notation -- especially after a brief but futile attempt to understand Laban many years ago -- was something that, when I thought of it at all, seemed to me rather arcane and specialized. Maybe even un-practical. I'm glad to be corrected.