Off the Page: Reconstructing/Re-imagining a Dance Score

Abstract

The idea for Schrifftanz Zwei, a collaboration between two choreographers, an archivist, a composer, and an animator, began at the Digital Humanities conference where four DHers decided to collaborate to re-imagine a dance score housed in the Irmgard Bartenieff Papers at the University of Maryland. Created in 1927 by Irmgard Bartenieff, founder of the Laban/Bartenieff Institute for Movement Studies, the score was discovered during processing of her papers, along with 3 other scores of original works. Fairly fluent in Schrifttanz, Laban’s initial label for his notation system, Bartenieff began composing dances while studying with him in 1926-1929, yet she wasn’t yet an expert in his notation system. Instead, she used her own hybrid system consisting of symbols, word descriptions, and colour to describe the dance movement and space. Fascinated by the imagery in words and image, the four collaborators are creating a filmed work with both analog and digital components: Schrifttanz Zwei. The proposed poster will show the score, translations, and images of the reconstruction.