Dance, Video, Notation and Computers

A number of problems in the recording of dance are discussed. Video recordings and dance notation provide some solutions, but create new problems as well. The solution of these problems using computers is discussed, as well as several other uses of computers in dance and various ways of getting dance information into a computer. The specific computing problems encountered in the “Computers and Dance” program at the University of Sydney are briefly described. The bringing together of dance and computing is shown likely to have substantial benefits for both disciplines. In computing, it will expand the horizons of computer graphics, solid modelling, expert systems and dynamic analysis. The most interesting impact of dance on computing is likely to be in expanding the dimensionality of thought of programmers from the one-dimensional mind-set of an alphanumeric string to the four dimensions required for visualising Petri nets.