LabanWriter is a Labanotation editor for the Macintosh developed by the Ohio State University's Department of Dance. It can be downloaded for free, and will run on any Macintosh computer running system 7.5 or greater. To get a copy of the program, the manual and the necessary fonts which must be added to your system folder, go to the LabanWriter homepage.

description

LabanWriter is a software program that permits dance to be copied, edited and stored on a computer. It utilizes the symbols for Labanotation, a movement language devised by Rudolph Laban in the 1920's to record dance on paper. The program includes more than 700 symbols that indicate parts of the body, direction, levels, and types of movement and the durations of each action. When dance movements have been entered, they may be stored or printed out in a laser-quality score in black and white or color.

purpose

LabanWriter facilitates fast, consistent notation that may be easily edited and preserved. The program permits the notator to enter the first rehearsal notes immediately and, with each rehearsal, to update the dance score. Therefore when the choreography is complete, the score is also complete and ready to be added to a growing dance literature.
LabanWriter is like a word processing program for Labanotation. Reading material and exams can be prepared easily for notation classes, and students use it to write their notation homework which then can be emailed to the teacher for corrections. When returned, changes can be made quickly and a final copy printed out.

history

Research began on LabanWriter in the Dance Notation Bureau Extension at the Ohio State University in 1984 following up on work previously begun at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1987 a first version was distributed for trial, and in the summer of 1990 version 2.0 was licensed for global distribution by the university. The licensing agreement reserves to Ohio State the right of ownership and has enabled the Department of Dance to distribute the program publicly. Version 4.0, completely rewritten in C++, was released in 2000. George Karl, Scott Sutherland and David Ralley have been the programmers. Lucy Venable has supervised and helped with the development since the beginning.

Questions about the program or problems should be sent to: labanwriter@osu.edu