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SESSIONS Using the LabanDancer to Visualize Notation Scores: Beta-Testing by Ilene Fox, USA, and Rhonda Ryman, Canada Presentation This presentation demonstrates a beta-version of a computer program that translates a specific set of Labanotation concepts into computer animation, making the information in a dance score available beyond the notation world. Developed by the team of Ilene Fox, Rhonda Ryman, Tom Calvert and Lars Wilke, LabanDancer translates LabanWriter notation files into animation. Originally begun as a plug-in to DanceForms (formerly Life Forms), LabanDancer developed into a stand-alone program that runs on a PC or a Mac computer. This interactive, "intelligent" software gives individual users control over many elements, such as the tempo of the movement and whether a step contacts the floor heel first or toe first. It allows viewers to zoom in or out while watching an animation from any angle. This new tool will help keep dance repertoire alive by enhancing an already valuable tool for dance documentation, making the information in Labanotation scores more widely accessible. Depending on available computers, participants will be able to explore LabanDancer's capabilities.  Ilene Fox is the Executive Director of the Dance Notation Bureau. She is a Certified Professional Notator, teacher of Labanotation and a Certified Movement Analyst. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Dance Education from the University of Illinois. Among the choreographers whose works she has notated are George Balanchine, Robert Joffrey, Anna Sokolow, Murray Louis, Pilobolus, Hanya Holm and Ted Shawn. Additionally, she notated the Classical Chinese Dance Syllabus for the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts and Hawkins Technique for the book The Erick Hawkins Modern Dance Technique by Renata Celichowska. Ms. Fox has taught Labanotation in Israel, China, Japan, Thailand and England as well as various places in the United States. Rhonda Ryman Rhonda Ryman is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, where she has taught courses including Dance Notation and Reconstruction and Principles of Dance Technique for thirty years. She is an Adjunct Professor in the Graduate Program in Dance, York University, Toronto, Ontario, and a Fellow of the International Council of Kinetography Laban and of The Benesh Institute, London, England. She has authored a number of publications related to classical ballet. Her electronic publication Ballet Moves II uses DanceForms computer animation software (http://www.danceforms.com), to represent classical ballet movements and repertoire. She is working with Ilene Fox of the Dance Notation Bureau, NY, and Dr. Tom Calvert of Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, on the LabanDancer, an application that translates Labanotation scores into animations.
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