1928
- Rudolf Laban first publishes Labanotation system
1940
- Labanotation brought to the U.S. and DNB founded by Ann Hutchinson Guest,
Helen Priest Rogers, Eve Gentry and Janey Price.
Founders
of the Dance Notation Bureau (left to right): Helen Priest Rogers,
Eve Gentry, Ann Hutchinson Guest (Not pictured - Janey Price)
1942 - A complete
notation score of Eugene Loring's Billy The Kid is produced, the first
ballet recorded in the United States. Mr. Loring requests the score to
help establish his ownership of the choreography.
1948
- Doris Humphrey's Shakers is notated. Today this work is staged from
the score all over the world.
1948
- Ballet Society, predecessor to the New York City Ballet, commissions
the DNB to record four of Balanchine's ballets: Symphony in C,
Orpheus, Symphonie Concertante, and Seranade.
1950
- The dances by Hanya Holm for the Broadway musical Kiss Me Kate are notated
for copyright purposes becoming the first score to be accepted for copyright
registration by the Library of Congress in 1952.
1954
- The first edition of Ann Hutchinson's textbook Labanotation is published.
1958
- Balanchine's Symphony in C "First Movement" staged from the
score for the School of Performing Arts. The first of many stagings from
scores in both ballet and modern dance.
1978
- DNB publishes Doris Humphrey: The Collected Works, Vol. I. The
publication represents the first time that a collection of notated dances
by a major choreographer is available for purchase.
1981
- The DNB begins a project to notate 6 of Antony Tudor's works.
1984 - 18 of
George Balanchine's ballets are notated over a three year period with
funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
1987 - The
first version of LabanWriter, computerized software for Labanotation,
is completed and distributed by the Dance Notation Bureau Extension for
Education and Research at The Ohio State University.
1992 - With
funding from The Ford Foundation, the Fund for Dance Notation is inaugurated.
Choreographers can apply to get their work notated at no cost to them.
1992 - DNB
publishes Doris Humphrey: The Collected Works, Vol. II.
1999 - The
DNB receives a Save America's Treasures grant to document up to
10 significant dances by the country's greatest choreographers.
2000 - The DNB wins a grant from the
National Endowment for the Humanities to develop software that can mesh
computer animation with LabanWriter to produce what will be called LabanDancer,
which can automatically realize notation of the Elementary Labanotation
syllabus for a single figure seen from any angle on screen .
2006 - The
DNB receives grants to document works by Martha Graham.
2010 - The
DNB Library launched the online Notated Theatrical Dances Catalog.
2014 - The
DNB notated four works by Trisha Brown.
2015 - The
DNB begins to offer Labanotation. Motif Notation, and Teacher Certification Course in China.
2016 - 15 of Martha Graham's ballets are notated over a ten year period.