Introduction

At its core, Labanotation is about assigning particular movements to specific parts of the body. By notating several movements to be performed at the same time, complex portions of a dance can be expressed; and by notating a sequence of these movements, you can write a full dance score. To make that possible, Labanotation therefore defines a wide range of body part symbols that you can associate with various movement symbols.

This chapter on body parts is not about anatomy; it's about poetry. To some extent the various body part symbols are made to look like they represent groups and sequences of anatomically similar body parts, but that's not the real significance of these symbols. There is definitely a lot of overlap between these symbols and human anatomy; but the real goal of each body part symbol is to identify something that is particularly relevant to dance.

For example, consider the arms. Labanotation divides the arm into the shoulder, elbow, wrist, hand, and fingers, and we call these the joints of the arm. But in fact, only the shoulder, elbow, and wrist can really be considered joints. The hand is most definitely not an anatomical joint, because it consists of many joints and bones that move together in very complex ways. But still, in Labanotation, we call the hand a joint, because to some extent it acts like a joint; and dance is concerned with how the body acts, and only secondarily with how it happens to be constructed.

In other cases, Labanotation identifies completely anatomically arbitrary sub-divisions of body parts. For example, the upper thigh. For dance, the upper thigh is important because we might want to smack it with our hands or do something similar; but anatomically it includes the same muscles and bones as you'd find in the lower thigh. Labanotation distinguishes the upper thigh because it's useful, not because it has any particular anatomical significance.

All the body parts represented in Labanotation, including joints, limbs, surfaces, facial features, and so on, have this same type of usefulness. That's why it's not possible in Labanotation to specify body parts with tremendously fine-grained precision. In dance, a performer might want to smack their upper thigh, but they won't want to get much more specific than that. For one thing, humans don't have the ability to be much more precise when engaged in lots of complex movements; and for another thing, the audience wouldn't be able to appreciate that level of precision. Labanotation is concerned with the parts of the body that do matter, both to the dancers and to the audience. Any level of detail that wouldn't be useful to dancers is deliberately excluded from Labanotation.

In addition to the interesting distinction between anatomy and poetic significance, the Labanotation body part symbols also belie a tremendous array of complexities associated with actually moving these body parts. In Labanotation, any given movement symbol might have a general meaning, even a geometically precise meaning. But as soon as you want to apply that meaning to some arbitrary body part, you'll have to confront the nature of that body part. Different joints have different ranges of motion; some movements of the limbs are blocked because they would have to pass through other limbs or the torso; and so on. All of these variations are incorporated into the meanings of Labanotation's various movement symbols.

The current chapter is not concerned with any of those nuances. The particular ways of moving any given body part are the province of the movement symbols themselves, and how they apply to the body parts in each case. The current chapter is only concerned with identifying each body part.

Arms And Legs

Labanotation uses a highly structured formula for constructing symbols for the various parts of the arms and legs. This structure is so regular, in fact, that it would be pointless to try to organize these symbols in any other order, for example to create groups that shared similar anatomical qualities. In fact the symbols derived from this formula include joints, such as the knees, elbows, shoulders, hips, and all the knuckles of the fingers and toes; but they also include composite structures such as the hands and feet; as well as simpler structures such as the tips of each finger and toe.

So right away we see an example of how the body part symbols are not defined by rigorous anatomical precision, so much as they are defined by what would be relevant for dancers. If you let yourself get caught up in anatomical concerns, such as where a given body part truly begins and ends, and how it is constructed anatomically, you'll find that Labanotation does not always define those things in a clear way. But if you focus on what a person might need to do in the course of performing a sequence of movements, you may find that the level of precision used to define the body part symbols is plenty for those needs. Certainly there is no predicting the demands that may be placed on the art of dance in the future; but Labanotation does try to meet the needs of the future by modeling itself on what has been required in the past.

The standard arm symbols are constructed as emanating from the shoulder. They all start with a single vertical line (which will gain in significance once we start talking about limb symbols), with diagonal lines coming down from it. One additional diagonal line for each next body part along the arm.

Fig. 1

The shoulder, elbow, and wrist symbols are fairly clear - we mean the joint itself, the thing that bends. For the hand symbol, we mean everything from the wrist itself out to the tips of the fingers, taken as a whole. And for the fingers symbol, we mean everything from the full set of base knuckles, out to the tips of the fingers. So there is a bit of overlap between the hand and fingers symbols.

Before continuing with the overarching structured formula for constructing the parts of the arms, we need to take a momentary detour. As an expedient, there are two symbols that refer to both hands, and either hand, respectively.

Fig. 2

In the above diagram, notice that the wavy line used in the 'either hand' symbol is the ad lib line. For more information about the ad lib line, see the ad lib chapter.

Returning to our structured formula, the remainder of the arm symbols are all derived from the fingers sign - the vertical line with five diagonals coming down from it. From this sign we use a regular and predictable pattern to specify each joint of each finger, and also the very tips of the fingers themselves.

For starters, we construct the symbols for the base knuckles of each finger.

Fig. 3

An interesting detail about the thumb is that it, like the other fingers, has three joints. But its base knuckle is right down beside the wrist, so if you haven't thought about the thumb's anatomy before, it might seem to have only two knuckles. The base knuckle of the thumb is the one that lets you move the thumb all the way over to touch the other edge of your hand. If this is a new idea for you, you should wiggle your thumbs around until you are thoroughly comfortable with the idea of the thumb having three knuckles.

To construct symbols for the subsequent knuckles of each finger, just add a dot along the diagonal line corresponding to the desired finger.

Fig. 4

Symbols for the final knuckle of each finger use a third dot at the end of the line representing that finger.

Fig. 5

And finally, to construct symbols for the very tips of the fingers, add a fourth dot. You can think of this as squishing the other three dots closer towards the vertical line to make room, rather than drawing the fourth dot beyond the end of the diagonal line it's associated with.

Fig. 6

The leg symbols are constructed as emanating from the hip. Like the arms, they all start with a single vertical line; but instead of a diagonal line coming down from it, they have horizontal lines passing through it. One aspect of this approach is that the primary leg symbols don't have a sense of left or right.

Fig. 7

A benefit of having no sense of left or right is that you don't need a new symbol to indicate both hips or either hip. The plain sign for the hip can mean both, or either, depending on the surrounding context. So the caption for the hip symbol would be better stated as follows.

Fig. 8

The reason the leg symbols have no sense of left or right is because Labanotation assumes that the surrounding context will usually be sufficient to make it plain which sense is meant; as well as, in the case of the hips, whether both hips or either hip may be used.

Whenever possible, the above symbols should be used for all leg movements. But when context is not sufficient to tell left from right, you may then resort to using the following set of symbols to indicate the parts of the legs.

Fig. 9

Moving along to the symbols for the toe knuckles, the general pattern is virtually identical to the case for finger knuckles. But in this case, instead of generating these symbols from the preferred leg symbols that lack the sense of left and right, toe knuckle symbols are generated from the only-as-a-last-resort symbols just presented.

Fig. 10

As with the fingers, indicating the second knuckle of each toe is a simple matter of adding a dot to the line representing that toe.

Fig. 11

And again, to construct symbols for the tips of the toes, add a final dot to each symbol.

Notice that the symbols for the tips of the fingers used four dots, while the symbols for the tips of the toes used only three. The reason is that for the fingers, the first three dots each represented one of the three knuckles of the given finger; while toes only have two knuckles, and so only two dots are needed to represent them. The fourth dot for the finger, and the third dot for the toe, simply extend the count to where the next knuckle would have been.

Standard Limbs

The above section dealt almost exclusively with discrete points along the arms and legs - the joints and knuckles, and the tips of the fingers and toes. In the case of the symbols for the fingers as a group, and for the hand, the meaning was a bit more complex than identifying just a single point on the body. But by and large, that's what those symbols describe.

When notating, it is also useful to be able to talk about a particular span of the body, for example from the elbow to the wrist, or from the hip to the knee, or from the base knuckle of a finger to the second knuckle. The symbols for these parts of the body fall under the broad category of 'limbs'.

There are two different ways that Labanotation conceives of a limb:

1. As the span of the body between one 'joint' and the next
2. As the span of the body from one 'joint' all the way out to the extremity (the whole arm, the whole leg, the whole finger)

In the second case, it should be fairly clear that there is a 'fixed' end of the limb, and an extremity. The fixed end of the whole arm is the shoulder, while the extremity - the part that moves around - is all the way at the end.

This isn't to say that in the case of the arm, the shoulder itself is fixed in space and can never move; but when we assign movement specifically to the whole arm, or some other whole limb, you should always interpret that as a movement of the extremity relative to the fixed part of the limb. So, for example, if you notate a forward movement of the arm, Labanotation expects the performer to move the extremity of the arm to a forward position, relative to the fixed end of the arm.

In the case of the span between one 'joint' and the next - the situation is the same. Two body parts are identified, one of which will act as the 'fixed' end, while the other will act as the extremity.

The reason for the above explanation is just that when learning the limb symbols, it's important to be aware of which end of the limb is considered the fixed end, and which is considered the extremity.

The Generic Limb Symbol

The symbol for an arbitrary limb of the body, or portion of a limb, consists of two vertical lines. When used alone, it refers to any arm, leg, finger, or any span between the joints. It's so general, in fact, that is really never used on its own.

Fig. 13

Because it's so non-specific, the real value of the limb symbol is the way it can be used to modify the arm and leg symbols. In practice, all you do is add another vertical line, and you've converted a 'joint' symbol into a limb symbol.

The Span Between One Part And The Next

This is the more general case. All the symbols in this section refer to just one 'joint' symbol, and modify that symbol by the addition of a vertical line - essentially grafting the limb symbol onto it.

The meaning of the symbol is then expanded to include the neighboring body part, closer to the torso itself. So the limb of the elbow would be the span of body from the shoulder to the elbow; the limb of the knee would be the span of body from the hip to the knee; and so on.

Fig. 14

Notice that in the above set of symbols, the elbow, wrist, hand, and fingers are all represented, while the shoulder symbol is left out. This is because the limb symbol modifies the shoulder symbol in a different way, and with a different result, as you'll see later.

Another way to conceive of this exception is to consider that the elbow, wrist, and other parts of the arm all have some other part of the arm standing between them and the torso; while there is nothing closer to the torso than the shoulder itself.

Likewise, the following symbols define the limbs of each finger. In this case, the symbols for the base knuckle of each finger have no equivalent limb symbol, because there is no knuckle closer to the hand than the base knuckle itself.

Fig. 15

As above, the final knuckle of each finger also has an associated limb.

Fig. 16

There is also a limb associated with the tip of a finger.

Fig. 17

Those are all the limb symbols for the spans of the arms and fingers. The limbs of the legs and toes are constructed similarly.

Fig. 18

And like the segments between the knuckles of the fingers, the segments of the toes also form limbs.

Fig. 19

And again, as with fingers, there are also limbs associated with the tips of each toe.

Fig. 20

The Whole Arm, Leg, Finger, And Toe

In addition to specific segments of the arms, legs, fingers, and toes, it is also useful to be able to notate movements of an entire arm, leg, finger, or toe.

The symbols to express the full limb of the arm or leg are constructed in a similar way to the other limb symbols; but are not identical. In the following set of diagrams, notice how the generic limb symbol is more tightly integrated into the resulting symbol than in the prior cases.

Fig. 21

To create the symbols for each full finger and full toe, Labanotation again modifies the 'fingers' symbol, adding the generic limb symbol, and using a single dot at the very end of the diagonal line representing each finger.

Fig. 22

It is also possible to express the identical set of finger limbs without the extra vertical line.

Fig. asfsadfs

And the set of whole toe limbs.

Fig. 23

Like the whole finger limbs, the whole toe limbs can also be expressed without the extra vertical line.

Fig. 1234234

Both ways of expressing finger and toe limbs - one with the generic limb symbol, one without - may be used interchangeably in a Labanotation score. But as we'll see later, the addition of the generic limb symbol can also be used to further modify these limb symbols, to be more specific about whether you want to talk about the front, back, or sides of the fingers and toes.

Custom Limbs Through Body Part Pairing

Sometimes you want to notate a movement that would be best expressed as applying to a limb; but the limb you have in mind doesn't correspond to any of the symbols defined above. You don't want a limb that is just the span between two neighboring 'joints', and you don't want a limb that is the whole arm, leg, finger, or toe; instead you want a limb that has a fixed end at some unusual point in the body, and an extremity at some equally unusual point in the body.

For example, the span of the body from the right knee to the right shoulder. Or from the right shoulder to the right wrist. Or from the left knee to the right elbow.

In those cases, Labanotation provides a simple, regular formula for constructing the limb in question.

Fig. asfs

As with the limbs described in previous section, the limb symbols created through body part pairing also have a fixed end and an extremity. The fixed end is always the symbol on the bottom of the pairing; the free end is always the symbol on top.

You can use any of the non-limb symbols already described in this chapter, to construct body part pairings. And you'll see more examples of body part pairing later in this chapter, to include some body parts we haven't covered yet, as well as exceptional cases that don't follow the general rule.

The Head And Neck; Chest, Shoulders, Waist, And Pelvis

For simplicity's sake, this section groups the remaining discrete body parts together. Speaking generally, in terms of the way the symbols are constructed, they are all special cases in one way or another.

These symbols are clearly unlike any of the arm, leg, finger, and toe symbols. With the exception of the head, they each seem to refer more to a general region or area of the body, than to a particular point or limb. For the case of the head, its limb is the neck.

Fig. 25

But all of these symbols, with the sole exception of the shoulders symbol, may be used in body part pairing to create custom limbs, just as was described in the previous section.

Body Part Pairing With Head, Chest, Waist, And Pelvis

The head may be used in body part pairing to create a custom limb, just the same as any part of the arms or legs.

Fig. asdfsd

When using the chest, waist, or pelvis in body part pairing, don't include the squares that encase those symbols. The rectangular construct of the custom limb takes the place of that enclosing square. Aside from that, those symbols behave just like any other symbol used in body part pairing.

Fig. 234234

In the above, notice the symbol for the whole torso. As you'll see throughout the rest of this text, this symbol is particularly useful, since many dance forms involve moving the torso in one way or another.

In the torso symbol, notice that the pelvis symbol is below the chest symbol, indicating that the pelvis is the fixed end of the limb, while the chest is the free end. This is often the most natural way to conceive of torso movements; but it may also be useful to consider the chest to be the fixed end.

Fig. 234234

The usefulness of these symbols has also spawned a point of confusion. Because the two torso symbols look so much alike, a special symbol has been devised to make it easier to see which one is being used at any particular spot in a score.

Fig. asfsd

This is the only case of three body parts participating in body part pairing to create a limb. You should never use more than two body parts in any pairing; but in this case, the combination of chest, waist, and pelvis serve to distinguish the version of the torso that uses the chest as its fixed end, from the version of the torso that uses the pelvis as its fixed end.

The Geometry Of The Body Parts

Geometry Of Joints

Geometry Of Limbs

Up/Down, Front/Back, Left/Right For Body Parts

As you'll see throughout this text, the directions up, down, left, right, front, and back, as well as their in-between directions, play a big role in Labanotation. Most significantly, these directions vary depending on the perspective you want to take. Sometimes you want 'left' to be relative to the stage itself, sometimes relative to how a performer is standing, and so on.

Sometimes the most relevant directions are the ones relative to the body part you want to move. When that's the case, you can use a clear formula to know where 'front', 'up', and the other directions are, relative to whichever body part is under consideration.

Really, you only need to know the up/down directions, and the front/back directions. Once you know those, it's obvious where left and right are.

Up/Down

For the arms and legs, 'up' is the direction toward the extremities (the fingers and toes), while 'down' is the direction toward the torso. It doesn't matter where the limb in question is, or even if it's bent or straight. 'Up' follows the path along that limb toward the extremities, and 'down' follows the path along the limb toward the torso.

The reason the contortions of the limb don't matter is because this information will be used to identify particular parts of the limb itself, rather than any sort of spatial position. For example, when performing a folding action on a joint, the active part of that gesture will be performed by the part of the body 'above' that joint, while the passive part will be performed by the part of the body 'below' that joint. None of that will rely on the specific position of the joint or the surrounding limbs; the information just serves as a reference.

For the torso and its parts, 'up' is always towards the head, while 'down' is always towards the legs.

Front/Back

When flexing a joint or limb in the most natural way, the movement closes over the 'front' of that joint or limb. For example, the palm of the hand is the 'front' of the hand, because that is the part that closes when you flex the hand normally.

Worth noting is the fact that the 'front' of the legs is actually the part behind the body, because that's the part that closes when you flex the legs normally.

Micro-Areas of The Arms And Legs

Sometimes what you really want is the small area surrounding a given 'joint', because you want to touch that area with a hand or other body part or object, and you're not very particular about which surface of that area you want to touch. Or you might want the area just above or below the 'joint', or right between two joints, in the middle of a 'limb'.

The following diagrams of the arms and legs presents a set of 'area' symbols that let you specify these micro-areas of the body. But the construction of these symbols is a big convoluted, involving several different ideas, each appearing in only some but not all of the various area symbols.

• A dot added above or below a 'joint' symbol, to indicate that the area is either slightly above or slightly below that joint
• A dot added in the middle of a 'limb' symbol, to indicate that the area is right in the middle of that limb
• A square drawn around the joint symbol, or a joint symbol modified by a dot, to indicate that this is in fact an area and not a joint.

Fig. asdfasd

The hips and legs use an identical technique, but in this case some areas have two symbols - one using the left or right 'joint' symbol, and one using the generic left/right symbol.

Fig. 123423

Each of these area symbols define a cross-section of the arm or leg. You could imagine the dashed lines as cuts, and the part of the body between the cuts is the part represented by the symbol next to it. But these are not precise cuts, just general areas that are best understood intuitively. The exact border between one micro-area and the next is not clearly specified in Labanotation.

The above sets of symbols may seem somewhat arbitrary - why not enclose the modified limb signs in squares as well? Why intermix limb signs with 'joint' signs at all?

The answer is one of expediency. If we didn't use the limb symbols, it might be difficult to suggest a better way to indicate the midpoint between two 'joints'. While for specifying the areas immediately above or below a given joint, the simplest way appears to be to use a modified joint symbol.

Any why surround the joint symbols with squares? Well, in the case of joint symbols that have no added dot, the square makes it clear that we're talking about a more general body area, rather than the single hinge of a joint. And in the case of joint symbols that do have a dot added, the best answer is probably that those squares will come in handy when we want to express a particular surface of the area in question.

None of these are great answers. The symbol set is not very regular. But at least it's fairly straightforward to remember, or at least easy to look up in a diagram like the ones given above.

Body Surfaces

Introduction To Surface Symbols

A body surface is an area of skin. The symbols for surface symbols are used solely to indicate the location where one body part touches another, or the direction that a given body surface should face.

Body part symbols are constructed by modifying the symbols for the body parts whose surface you want to identify. All the limbs, joints, and other body part symbols may be modified in one way or another, to produce surface symbols.

There are several ways to modify a body part symbol in order to produce a surface symbol. In some cases, the appropriate modification depends on the type of body part symbol being modified. For example, there is a single class of modifications that applies to all standard limb symbols.

In other cases, the type of body part symbol is unimportant, and instead it is the particular body part itself that determines the appropriate modification to produce a surface symbol.

It's important to understand the nuances of body surface construction. In some cases, the surface being expressed would be entirely ambiguous, if not for an understanding of the specific body part or parts involved.

All limbs have a natural inner side and a natural outer side. As a limb bends in its most natural way, the side that typically has the softer skin forms the inner surface. The opposite side, that typically has rougher skin, forms the outer surface. In the arms, the outer surface is the side that has the point of the elbow; in the legs the outer surface is the side that has the kneecap.

With the exception of the head, all limbs also have a natural thumb side (or big toe side) and little finger side (or little toe side). If the inner and outer surfaces of a limb correspond to the front and back, then the thumb (or big toe) and little finger (or little toe) sides form the sides to the left or right.

It's also possible to express a kind of in-between surface by combining a reference to the inner surface and little finger side; the inner surface and the thumb side; the outer surface and the little finger side; and the outer surface and the thumb side.

The indication of surfaces for the generic limb provides the model for indicating surfaces on other limbs.

Fig. 23413

Notice that while ordinarily the generic limb symbol gives the performer the freedom to choose which limb to use for a specified movement; once the thumb/toe or little finger/little toe indications are used, this precludes the neck from being one of the limbs the performer might select.

The limbs of the arm may be modified in a straightforward way, in order to express a desired surface. There are no special cases to consider; all arm and leg limb symbols behave the same in this case.

Fig. asdfad

All the other limbs of the arm follow the same pattern. For example, the surfaces relevant to the limb of the right elbow would be constructed as follows.

Fig. asdfa

The rest of the arm limb surfaces follow the identical pattern.

Notice that in the case of the signs for whole fingers, the method of constructing surfaces is the only difference between the two forms of the symbols.

Fig. asfd

Leg surfaces may be expressed in an equally straightforward manner, based on the leg limb symbols.

Fig. asfds

All the other limbs of the leg follow the same pattern. For example, the surfaces relevant to the limb of the right knee would be constructed as follows.

Fig. asf

Notice that in the case of micro-area symbols that modify limb symbols with a dot to identify the mid-region of that limb, this method of specifying surfaces can be used as well.

Fig. asdfsa

The Neck Surfaces

Fig. asdfsd

Notice that since the head has no 'thumb side' or 'little finger side', it is impossible to express the side surface of the neck.

Arm And Leg Joint And Near-Joint Surfaces

the square formation, with tick/dot construction. only used for arm and leg joints, and the near-joint symbols. But no limbs or near-limb symbols.

Head And Torso-Parts Surfaces

the square formation, with pin construction. no arm or legs allowed

Custom Limb Surfaces Involving Head And/Or Torso-Parts, And Optionally Arm And Leg Joints

the rectangular formation using only the head, the parts of the torso, and possibly also the arm and leg joints. This uses the pin formation, taking its directions from the torso itself, rather than from the arms and legs.

Custom Limb Surfaces Involving Arms And Legs Alone

the rectangular formation using only the arms and legs. This uses the tick/dot construction

Parts of The Head

Facial features, including the inner parts of the mouth, may all be relevant to a given movement composition, so Labanotation has signs for a lot of them. They are not joints nor limbs, nor do they fit cleanly into any other category of body part symbols. They are the parts of the head, and that may be enough of a category to satisfy our needs.

The use of black, white, and tack pins, and also the 'X' and 'N' symbols, to define the parts of the head, only superficially resemble the usage of those pins and other symbols elsewhere in Labanotation. There is no general meaning to be derived from their usage here; no reason why the symbol for eye was not decided to be the symbol for the eyelid or the eyebrow, or the right surface of the forehead, and so on. Head symbols should not be seen as reflecting an underlying system to their construction, which would allow you to create your own additional head symbols that could be understood by other notators without additional explanation. The only value of the pins and other symbols used in defining head body parts, is as an aid to memorization.

The most prominent parts of the head have the simplest symbols associated with them.

Fig. 26

Less prominent features have more intricate symbols associated with them.

Fig. 27

And so on.

Fig. 28

Additional Hand Areas And Surfaces

Labanotation provides a broad array of symbols for the various parts of the hand. These symbols are essentially in the category of 

fig. 43

Fig. 234234

Fig. asdfsdf

Fig. asdfsdf

Fig asfsd

Fig. asfdsd

Fig. asfafd

Fig. asdfsdf

fig. 21432

Specialized Body Part Symbols

Introduction

Foot Touching

Finger Joints For The Hand Staff

Finger Joint Numbering

The Body As A Whole

fig. gg

Props