Epilogue
When dancers die there is nothing left for those of us who have never seen them dance but the memoirs and pictures of those who have. They are never very satisfactory. … But so intense is our pleasure in dancing that no matter how fragmentary a memory, or scrappy a sketch, we treasure it for a sacred relic. At least the memory, the drawing had some actual connection with the performance. Some pure, direct and accurate comment must remain in it no matter how weak or slight.1
- Lincoln Kirstein, Dance Index, 1946
This statement by Kirstein, co-founder and general director from 1946 to 1989 of the New York City Ballet, touches on a difficult conundrum: how best to preserve in a static form a dancer’s work, an art form that moves through space and time. Dance notation, as first devised by Raoul-Augur Feuillet in the 1700s, can communicate a series of steps to an informed reader, but those steps remain a mystery to all untrained in its interpretation. Furthermore, dance notation cannot convey the exuberance of a performance or the personality of the dancer.