In many respects a Benesh Movement Notation score resembles a music score: The notation is written on a five-line stave that is read from left to right and from the top of the page to the bottom.

Giselle Act 1, Peasant Pas de Deux, Male Variation
Choreography: Coralli / Perrot / Petipa

All information about body and limb positions is shown within the five-line stave:

Positions are recorded in a series of frames, similar to the build up of a cartoon film:

The stave lines coincide with visually distinctive features of the body:

The notated position, locating the hands and feet in a plane that is 'level' with the body. No other information is necessary to give a clear 'picture'.

The position of the hands and feet in the notation above is immediately evident, but to be able to plot their location in the third dimension - forwards or backwards - a total of three basic signs are needed:

From these are derived a further three signs for plotting the positions of bent elbows and knees:

The figure shows the raised limbs extended in front and behind the body. The sign below the stave indicates the direction the dancer is facing.

The addition of 'movement lines', which trace the paths made by the extremities, turns the static figure into a moving image.

The movement lines added to the second recording show that the dancer arrived in the position by moving her left arm in a wide arc from overhead and raising her right arm from the side.

Whilst movement lines describe the paths taken by the limbs, ‘locomotion lines’ link the positions of the feet, showing whether the performer steps, jumps or slides from one position to the next.





Rhythm, phrasing and movement quality are shown above the stave:





Direction faced, location within the working space, and paths of travel are shown below the stave:

The direction sign can be read as an arrow that ‘points' to the direction faced

Where movement is accompanied by music, the notation is divided into musical bars by vertical dividing lines, corresponding directly with the bar lines in the music score.

As in a music score the movement score has a ‘time signature', which shows how many beats there are in each bar and a ‘tempo marking', which gives an indication of the speed of the movement. Where applicable, the language used for the tempo marking is the same as in the music score, providing a cross-reference point.

Repeated phrases are enclosed within matching repeat signs, but unlike a music score, the bars during which a phrase is repeated are shown in the movement score by a corresponding number of ‘empty' bars.

The small horizontal dashes written within the vertical repeat signs indicate the manner in which the phrase is to be repeated, in this case, exactly the same again.

The repeat signs shown above coincide with the bar lines. Those that do not are drawn using dotted vertical lines. A numeral immediately following a closing repeat sign indicates multiple repeats.

The phrase written between the dotted repeat signs is executed three further times.

The exclusion bracket embraces frames of movement that are excluded the last time the phrase is repeated.

Scores recording the actions of a single person or a number of people all executing the same movement are recorded on a single stave.

Scores recording the related actions of a number of people executing different movement are recorded on the required number of linked staves, in a similar manner to a music conductor’s score.

<click here to view> a multi-person score