CHAPTER 7

Dance Notation Comes Into Its Own
The notation of dance had always fascinated me. In the past, I often wrote down dance exercises and combinations that I liked, given in classes by my teachers. I don’t know why. Perhaps just so I would have them for future reference. For a while I had even studied the Laban method of notation, called Labanotation. Now, in England, Rudolph and Joan Benesh had invented a new system which was supposed to be much easier to read and write. In addition, The Royal Ballet already employed a person trained in their system and other European companies were waiting to hire more as soon as they were ready. The Beneshes created an Institute Of Choreology to fill this need.

Having a notator on a dance company’s staff had been proven invaluable, not only to save rehearsal time, but to document works for future revivals. Companies world wide could now stage the works of choreographers like Sir Frederic Ashton, simply by having the notator, called a “choreologist”, travel to teach the ballet by means of his, or even another choreologist’s written score. This new profession was also a fascinating opportunity for dancers to take on after retiring from dancing.

I desperately wanted to stay in England but my work permit as a “foreign artist’ was about to expire. Joining the newly opened Institute was not only a way to stay but also a chance to enter an exciting new profession. As soon as I returned to London from the Isle Of Wight, I made a hasty visit to the Institute in Baron’s Court and met Rudolph and Joan Benesh.

They gave me a basic reader of the notation to take home and study. It started by showing how elementary positions of the body were notated, then movements, exercises and class combinations set to various rhythms Already having a rudimentary knowledge of Labanotation I was familiar with the concept of recording movement on paper by means of a symbology, so within an hour I was able to grasp the theory and read through the entire Grade One book. What was a real breakthrough was that Benesh’s invention didn’t use symbols at all. It was entirely visual, using marks placed on a matrix and read left to right, not down to up as Laban did.

The following morning Joan Benesh held up this first reader before my eyes. She was delighted to see I could easily sight read and execute the written positions and movements. I took to it quite naturally.

It is really a system that records all human movement, not only dance steps, from the flutter of an eyelash to an intricate hand gesture. Full length ballets are written down in every detail and carefully synchronized to music. From one, two or many people to a full stage of people. This finished ‘score’ can then be read back and taught to another company. It is really quite ingenious but at the same time, very simple. One wonders why it was never thought before. The photographs of figures shown below are written on the staff in every detail, including where body is faced, details of hands and wrists, torso, turning, along with timing and dynamics. With the recent invention of computer software for writing the notaton, the choreologist’s job is even easier.

Photo: An example of how the movements shown above are written with the Benesh computer software.

Photo: How the two dancers above are written in Benesh notation.

The Beneshes seemed so impressed with my quick understanding and ability to read the elementary notation so easily, I was invited to join the Institute right away.

I certainly was enthusiastic and anxious to start the full year of training, but the problem was the tuition. As reasonable as it was, how was I going to come up with that?

Back in Swiss Cottage, on the floor above me was a Canadian, Lorne Macfarlane. We had been friends since I first arrived in England. He was also a friend of Charles Menzies, my Mentor. Both were anxious to hear how I made out at the Institute. When I told them I was accepted but in no way able to do it because of my lack of tuition funds, Lorne quickly and generously offered to lend it to me. I agreed, with a sincere promise to pay it back in time.

To get to Baron’s Court from Swiss Cottage took nearly an hour on the underground. If I left at eight in the morning I arrived at the Institute in time for the first class, which was usually a ballet or modern one. This was followed by classes in either music, art, anatomy, kinesiology, and of course the notation theory and practice which took all afternoon. It was a full day, five days a week. During each week there would be extra classes in historical dance, character dance or Indian dance. There were periodic exams too. The Beneshes were determined we should leave them well equipped.

There were five others doing the course, all young ladies. I was the only male. My London night-life added to the distractions.

This was during the mid-sixties. London was known then as ‘swinging London’. Fashions for the young had quickly changed, some bordering on the outrageous.

Colorful flair-bottom trousers, platform shoes, fringe jackets, long hair and the Beatles were everywhere. I let my own hair grow quite long and I liked the platform shoes. They made me appear taller.

Apart from the Beneshes and my fellow students, the assistant teachers were often arrogant and appeared to me to be disdainful of all Americans. They were possibly rejects from the Royal Ballet where they didn’t fit. Notation was a field they could enter and still be part of the ballet. One of the students, a lady and the only one who had been a dancer, was sent to the Institute from the Stuttgart Ballet to return after finishing the course as company choreologist. Another was from Denmark. I was the only American.

The Royal Ballet school was just across the underground tracks on the other side of Baron’s Court station. Looking out the windows we could see classes going on. The thee floor building of the Institute had a tiny basement studio for the technique classes. The top floor was where we had the theory, anatomy, music classes, and the library of already finished scores.

During the year we each had to serve internship by teaching notation classes at Richmond Park, the Royal Ballet school for juniors. I may have been the first to teach an American jazz dance class along with its notation to the future members of the Royal Ballet.

One night at Covent Garden I saw the premiere of Sir Frederic Ashton’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, which he called simply, “The Dream”, with Mendelssohn's music. Anthony Dowell was making his debut as Oberon. Sitting in the cheap seats and seeing the intricate patterns of the corps de ballet on the stage below, I began to wonder how on earth could such a work be notated. I had no idea that in only a few years time I would be teaching this entire 50 minute work to the Joffrey Ballet company in New York, from the notated score that the Royal Ballet choreologist had done.

Towards the end of the year I was starting to wonder what I was going to do after graduation. The others had already been assigned to companies or schools which were eagerly awaiting them. Being non-British, I had no place to go.

Back in New York they had just completed building the gigantic Lincoln Center complex, with the new Metropolitan Opera as its main focus. The old Met, where as a teenager I had taken classes and was a supernumerary in the operas, had been torn down.

Photo: The Old Metropolitan Opera House, Broadway and 39th Street. Final show was the Bolshoi Ballet on May 16, 1966.           Photo: The New Metropoltian Opera House at Lincoln Center which opened on September 16, 1966

Dame Alicia Markova was the ballet director there . She had danced with the Diaghilev Ballet as a child and was known the world over as the first British Prima Ballerina. When she retired, she took over the ballet at the Met.

I decided to write her a letter, offering my services as choreologist after I graduated. She answered that she would be in London in July and would see me then. The fact that I was in her native England may have had something to do with her quick response.

So, on a hot June day she arrived at the Institute in a taxi. In the tiny basement studio Joan Benesh, the pianist and myself were waiting. I danced a solo from “Napoli” before Dame Alicia.

She asked if I was Canadian. Being American and not Canadian meant I would not need working papers. That was a plus as well as a hint she was interested in hiring me.

I graduated with honors and began daily classes at the London Dance Center near Covent Garden, to get myself in really top shape in case I should be called to New York.

Every evening I would walk around nearby Primrose Hill, dreaming of returning to America as Lincoln Center’s official choreologist. Oh, the glamour of it!

A Metropolitan Opera Contract – At Last!
At the end of July the Met contract arrived in the mail but surprisingly, choreology was not mentioned. It was a contract for me as a dancer!

I was certainly not about to give up a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with the Metropolitan Opera in Lincoln Center because of that. I signed the contract and with difficulty, caught a plane for New York. Airlines were on strike and the only flight I managed to get was Lufthansa with a stopover at Cologne, Germany. The thing was, basically I still really wanted to continue dancing.

The Met dancers had already finished their vacation and had begun rehearsals when I arrived. I had to learn the ballets in “Faust” and “La Gioconda” for starters.

Antony And Cleopatra

Franco Zeffirelli created a production so overstocked with scenery that it broke the stage's brand new turntable during a dress rehearsal, creating a logistical mess for the other operas that season.

I was on it when it happened, posed center stage on what I think was the bow of a ship. The stage was covered with gold lame. When the turn-table started to rotate, I watched in horror as the gold lame - which probably cost many thousands - began to crumple and tear.

Leontyne Prince was the Cleopatra. Her entrance was from the inside of a pyramid. On opening night the pyramid got stuck and she was trapped inside! She would never get in it again.

In the ballet I had to first run on-stage, set down a pot of some kind in center stage, (what this was for I never found out} then run to stage left, pick up two sticks and hop on a movable rail-road track device that took me back on stage, then join the other dancers to beat sticks on the deck in intricate rhythms which seemed to be the main focus of the choreography.

Photo: Dressing table shots of me in costumes for “Antony And Cleopatra” The weighty costumes were heavy and clumsy, but highly theatrical.

This opera was to be the big show-case for the new Met. It cost somewhere in the millions. It was an extraordinary flop and was only given five performances, then never heard of again at the Met.

Other Opera Ballets As a beggar In “La Gioconda”, I was the first to be seen as the curtain rose. The choreographer, Zachary Solov for some reason chose me to do the part that could easily have been done by a super. The ballet mistress told me that he really wanted to be the Met’s ballet director instead of Dame Alicia, and felt that anything she did, such as hiring me all the way from England, was wrong. Photo: As the beggar in “La Gioconda” However, in the second act I got to dance as a day boy in the “Dance Of The Hours” ballet, in white tights and gold slippers. How precious! Kathrine Dunham’s choreography for “Aida” was said to be from the wrong end of the Nile. It vanished after a few years with an entire new production.

Photo Left: As an Ethiopian dancer in "Aida"
Photo Right: As one of Ping, Pang and Pong’s servants in “Turandot”

Other operas I danced in were “Turandot”, “Faust”, “La Traviata” and as soloist in “Un Ballo en Maschera” (The Masked Ball). Being my first solo on the Met stage, I wanted to make a good impression. Standing in the wings, ready to make my entrance I suddenly realized I had not put on the white gloves that went with the costume. Without them it would be perfectly noticeable and ruin the fine impression I wanted to make. I decided to take a risk and dash up to the 3rd floor to get them from my dressing table. When I returned to the main stage, breathless, the chorus was just getting into place for the scene. Chorus singers never move with any kind of grace or haste. I nearly pushed some down as I scrambled to get to the center stage platform, just as the curtain was being raised on the full house of 3,995. My partner had been terrified that I wasn’t going to show up.

Half way through the season I began to feel something was not right with my health.

Eventually I had to see a doctor who immediately put me in hospital. It was a severe case of hepatitis and I nearly died. Hepatitis was infecting a lot of people during the sixties. It was a mystery how I contacted it but a few others at the Met also came down with it, including Zachary Solov!

I remained in hospital for four months. Dame Alicia or the ballet mistress, Audrey Keane, called me nearly every day.

I was released just in time to go on the Met’s National Spring tour. The Met had its own trains. Principals, singing chorus, ballet, orchestra members and management all traveled together.

A second train for scenery, costumes and stage personnel.

We performed in six major cities, a week each, then overnight sleepers to the next city.

Happily, the next season Dame Alicia asked me to be the Met’s official choreologist, which was what I wanted to be in the first place!

Photo: Dame Alicia looks on as I check my score during a rehearsal of  ‘Adrienna LeCouvreur” in a subterranean dance studio at the Met. Dancers Patricia Heyes and Ivan Allen in background

 
              Copyright © 2006-2008 Richard Holden