The notational method for Baroque dances, created by Pierre Beauchamps in 1674 and published by Raoul-Auger Feuillet in 1700, was received exceptionally well and understood to be the best method to record Baroque dances during that time. However, it was not until the 1980’s that it was appreciated again, and enjoyed a renaissance. This paper focuses on the Baroque dances choreographed by Guillaume Louis Pécour. There are 539 Baroque existing dance notations and Pécour is recognized as the most productive choreographer in the Baroque era, making 49 dances for balls and 71 dances for theaters. One of his masterpieces, Entrée Espagnol pour un homme et une femme, is analyzed to show the characteristics of his choreography. Pécour’s most notable characteristics in his choreography of Entrée Espagnol pour un homme et une femme, from the Opera-Ballet L'Europe Gallant, was the intermixing of the difficult movements with the easy ones, and the soft movements with the strong ones. For the music, Pécour used a variety of methods and would use three beats in the first part, or in the second part. He utilized these atypical music and dance methods to choreograph technically difficult movements harmoniously. We emphasize the importance of the notation by reproducing the dance choreographed exactly as it was done 318 years ago and analyzing the characteristics of Pécour. Without the notation, we could never figure out how beautiful the Baroque dances were. We expect this paper to encourage further study of Baroque dances in Korea.

This study probes how the notions of choreography has formed and changed in relation to dance notation. Two manuscripts, not by accident identically titled, are examined— Chorégraphie by Raoul-Auger Feuillet and Choreographie by Rudolf von Lavan—with regard to their respective understandings of the principles of dance and their socio-political contexts. This study brings Feuillet and Laban into a historical perspective beyond the previous literatures that solely focused on either of them. In Feuillet, choreography was defined as the composition of dance by means of notation. The space for dance was identified as flat and rectangular one, which led to the principles of ballet with the emphasis on geometrical shapes, establishing the two-dimensional plasticity as the aesthetic norm of the time. The act of composing dance by notating movement accompanied the emergence of the choreographer-subject which objectifies bodies of dancers, and thus the invention and development of dance notation was supported by the absolute monarchy out of its interest in the absolutistic body available to be controlled and disciplined. Laban developed the concept of choreography as the notation of forms and qualities of movement in space harmony. Laban theorized scales and rings in crystal space as new principles of movement, founding three-dimensional plasticity with its unceasing mobility as the aesthetic norm of modern dance. Complying with modernist ideal of progress and efficiency, Laban also applied his principles to choreograph movements of industrial bodies. Addressing manuscripts of Feuillet and Laban, and their contribution to the historical formation of the notions of choreography, this study unfolds the concepts of choreography in multilateral contexts, complementing and surpassing the prevalent, literal understanding of its meaning as dance-writing, which will provide the cornerstone for elucidating the historicity of choreography leading up to the present.