Applications for Recording and Generating Human Body Motion with Labanotation

Labanotation, invented for describing human body movement, is a dance notation system widely used in Western dance communities. The notation is very useful for composing a dance as well as performing it. This paper covers applications for recording and generating human body motion with Labanotation. The paper is divided into two parts: The first part describes a Labanotation editing tool named LabanEditor. LabanEditor includes the functionalities of both preparing Labanotation scores and displaying character animation so that beginners who are not familiar with Labanotation can study its description using a trial-and-error approach. The applicability of LabanEditor is shown by applying it to Noh-plays, a Japanese stylized traditional dance. The second part is an approach for generating Labanotation scores from motion capture data. The system consists of selecting key-frames of motion capture data, encoding posture for the key-frames, and generating Labanotation data. The experiments showed that for dancers, dance instructors and choreographers, both systems are potential tools for notating dance movements with Labanotation scores.