Collective Choreographies

Collective Choreographies showcases thirty-six labanotational ink drawings that depict line dances. Using a taxonomy of tiny and precise lines, the notation system isolates individual movements. Each notational type corresponds to a single movement type, as specified by “stepsheets,” which are the written instructions popularly circulated through open-source websites for teaching and learning line dances. Each drawing shows 121 “dancers” in a grid of 11 x 11 moving simultaneously. These hand-drawn depictions highlight the inherent tension between coordinated, identical movements and unique, idiosyncratic instances. The representation of repetitive, rhythmic sameness reveals itself to be, in fact, a representation of multiplicity and difference, in the drawing as it is on the dance floor. As a meditation on coordinated movement, the drawings seek to depict the muscle memory and propulsion of group movement, while line dancing, that directs our physical bodies more than any coherent thought.