A Modern Instantiation of Schillinger's Dance Notation: Choreographing with Mouse, iPad, KBow, and Kinect

Citation

Schedel, M.; Fox-Gieg, N.; Yager, K.G. "A Modern Instantiation of Schillinger's Dance Notation: Choreographing with Mouse, iPad, KBow, and Kinect" Contemporary Music Review 2011, 30 179–186.
doi: 10.1080/07494467.2011.636204

Summary

We show how Schillinger's 1934 meditations on dance notation can be applied in a modern context. The equations of the human body's linkage system can interfaced with modern gestural UI devices.

Abstract

In a nearly lost 1934 manuscript, Joseph Schillinger mathematically described a dance notation that mapped human form into Cartesian space. Although this notation was merely a curiosity when it was first proposed, we can now see that it presaged a time when transcoding information and applying procedural rules to create works of art would become commonplace. In this article the authors describe how Schillinger's notation can be applied with modern tools, by converting his ruleset into linkage equations that are easily implemented in a computer. These linkages can then be controlled by mouse, touch-screen interfaces, motion sensors, or motion-capture equipment. The authors thus demonstrate how Schillinger's dance notation, with aid of modern tools, can realize its ultimate goal: of deeply linking previously disparate creative acts.