Compose two styles
Rather than blending two styles into a middle, this assigns them roles: one carries the structure, the other appears as an accent. Where the two fight, it says so before you start.
How to divide the work
- Composition
- Follow Dance Notation: Time climbs from the bottom, one column for each body part
- Type
- Set in Dance Notation's manner (Direction in symbol shape, level in shading, sizes held constant), and let Graphic Notation's lettering (Few kinds of sign, with the range where one shape holds one meaning) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Dance Notation's material (Symbol length equals duration, so run a beat scale down the edge); bring in exactly one thing from Graphic Notation (Line weight mapped to loudness, kept dark enough to print clean).
- Colour
- Build on #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615 and admit one accent from #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615.
Where they fight
- Both belong to Notation Systems, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.
- Roughly 250 years apart. Keep one of them recognisably period rather than letting both drift into the middle.
Caution
- Dance Notation Bending symbol length to capture how a move feels makes duration unreadable, and the revival comes out as a different dance.
- Graphic Notation Freedom claimed without a key or any agreed convention scatters interpretation across players, and the score gets treated as a doodle.
Image prompt
An original image that takes its structure from Dance Notation (Style, 1700– / 1928 Laban) and its accent from Graphic Notation (Style, 1950s–). Structural cues: Time climbing a vertical staff; Columns of direction symbols; Body parts as columns; Trajectory abstracted. Accent cues, used sparingly: The staff abandoned; Instruction by shape and line; Pages open to interpretation; The score as artwork. Composition: Time climbs from the bottom, one column for each body part. Type and lettering: Direction in symbol shape, level in shading, sizes held constant. Let one material quality come from the second style: Line weight mapped to loudness, kept dark enough to print clean. Mood: Technology, Calm, Rebellion, Play. Color: build on #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615 with a single accent drawn from #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615. Constraints: do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work. Produce an original composition in the general period languages described above.
Related entries
- Dance Notation 1700– / 1928 Laban / Style / Notation Systems
A lineage of attempts to fix bodily movement on paper, from Feuillet's Baroque dance scores to Labanotation. Laban's vertical staff folds weight, direction and time into a single column, an alphabet of movement.
- Graphic Notation 1950s– / Style / Notation Systems
The scores Cage and Cardew drew when they abandoned the staff: shapes, lines, map-like pages. Opening performance to interpretation rather than instruction, the score itself became visual art.
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