This score for Trio A was created by notators trained in Labanotation, a form of dance notation first developed by the Austro-Hungarian dance theorist Rudolf von Laban in the 1920s. Labanotation remains the most widely used standardized form of dance notation that exists, although it has not been adopted to the extent that staff notation has in the discipline of music. In the main, dance practitioners rely on rehearsal, muscle memory, and body-to-body transmission alongside moving-image documentation and personal note-taking systems. Yvonne Rainer has written: “If the thought of having Trio A Laban notated had ever crossed my mind, it was only with the conviction that such a venture would be quite impossible. The subtleties and dynamics of this dance, performed without the structuring support of a musical score, seemed outside the domain of any graphic notation system. But when the opportunity arose in conjunction with teaching Trio A at the Greenwich Dance Agency in the summer of 2003, I did not object; in fact, I was curious. The notators were Joukje Kolff and Melanie Clarke. Their intense devotion to and completion of the task have given rise to some ruminations about conservation and immortality” (Rainer, “Trio A: Genealogy, Documentation, Notation,” Dance Research Journal 41, no. 2 [Winter 2009]: 16).
Used with Permission. © Yvonne Rainer.
