Two essays on Stepanov dance notation.

The Russian dancer and teacher Vladimir Stepanov

(1866 – 1896) developed a system of human movement

notation based on the principles of music notation,

details of which he published in French as Alphabet des

Movements du Corps Humain, in Paris in 1892. It was

accepted as a system of notation in both the Mariinsky

and Bolshoi ballet schools and much repertory was

notated in it.

The dancer, choreographer and teacher Alexander

Gorsky was a friend of Stepanov and an advocate of his

system. In 1899 he published two long essays explaining

the system in considerably more detail and with specifi c

relevance to the notation of classical ballet, for use as

textbooks by the students in the Mariinsky and Bolshoi

schools. It is these two essays, translated and edited

by the Russian ballet historian Professor Roland John

Wiley which are reproduced here.