Dance Videography Grammar: A Shape Grammar for the Description, Analysis and Generation of Dance Performance Videos

Before video recording became the most prevalent method of reproducing dance, written systems like Labanotation, Benesh Movement Notation and Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation used symbols to record dance. These systems tackle the greater theme of movement literacy as posited by Brenda Farnell, and articulate medium-specific concepts for new paradigms of human movement.

The proliferation of mobile phone cameras has allowed anyone regardless of skill level to make videos. Thus, videography has emerged as an experimental field with no centralised pedagogy or institutions, where the tacit technical knowledge is obtained through experience and the paradigms are difficult to communicate and teach.

As a sub-genre of videography, dance videography encompasses the creation of 'dance films' or 'dance performance videos' through the recording of dance and corporeal movement using a video camera. It draws heavy influence from commercial music video techniques (Pajala-Assefa) as well as traditional film principles to highlight the choreography.

This thesis aims to develop a notation that describes how a dance video can be filmed. By breaking down and analysing a corpus of [Performance37] dance videos, this work aims to develop a grammar that can extend applications of existing videographic styles and develop new ones. To demonstrate the efficacy and generative capabilities of the proposed workflow, a dance video was produced and evaluated following the derived rules.