Bob Leibman (a mathematician by profession) formulated a system based on his research of southern and western Balkan dances. Using Bob Leibman’s system to notate step “weight changes” we end up with a simple concept that generally remains invariant between different variants within a family of dances – for example Serbian Kolo 0111, Romanian Hora 1101, the ubiquitous Balkan dance 011 etc.
This blog note explains the way I (as a partially competent musician) have rationalised the concept of ‘meter’ from the perspective of dancing (at which I am more competent). The problem to somehow mediate between a dance concept and the established de facto western classical musical understanding of ‘meter’. From …read more
We have to think about why we are using notation and does it contribute to analysis. The wonder of the various mathematical notations is that they enable abstract logical deduction. Something that is not possible with say Roman numerals, written language or graphical dance notations. In the later there are …read more
At academic meetings the themes of ‘improvisation’ and the ‘individual’ are common, but what does this actually mean in the context of a chain dance? Here I summarise the three logical constructions that could be termed ‘improvisation’. First construction … non-Western music, in which one cannot really distinguish between improvisation …read more
Western classical works in music and dance are generally quite tightly fixed and rigid compositions, which can be notated, and are played or danced near identically every time. However, this is not typical of social dancing and many forms of music. … establish the rules according to which a dance …read more
Nick, as a scientist by training, profession and upbringing, has always taken an interest in dance structural analysis methodologies, where structure is the organisation and arrangement of the parts in a system of dancing. In participative dance genres the focus often is on the repetitive patterning and the relationships between …read more
This analysis is based on a comparison of my particular experience of two dance cultures-western classical dance training and participation in Romanian traditional dance. I discuss aspects of movement of the centre-of-mass based on a consideration of vertical and lateral movement in the context of very fast stepped dances that …read more
This paper considers perspectives from dancers within a particular genre of recreational dance known as “Balkan folk dance” in the UK. Through asking participants about their understanding of dancing I consider, firstly their preference to Bulgarian dances over Romanian dances, secondly their lack of relationship to Bulgarian dance groups in …read more
What we ‘see’ in a dance depends on who we are, but is this reflected in how we analyse the visual recording? When such video data is of a social activity, then the ‘context’ and ‘people’ are frequently part of anthropology papers, but dance is also about the moving. We …read more
This paper considers the ideas of ‘improvisation’ and ‘variability’ in the context of group dances where uniformity and community dominate, in contrast to more common discussion of improvisation considering the ‘individual’ and ‘creativity’. As a case study, this paper considers the chain dances of the Banat region which are notable …read more