Joan Benesh (née Rothwell; 24 March 1920 – 27 September 2014) was a British

ballet Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...

dancer who, with her husband Rudolf, created the

Benesh Movement Notation Benesh Movement Notation (BMN), also known as Benesh notation or choreology, is the literacy of body language, it is a dance and movement notation system used to document dance and other types of human movement. Invented by Joan and Rudolf Bene ...

, which is the leading British system of

dance notation Dance notation is the symbolic representation of human dance movement and form, using methods such as graphic symbols and figures, path mapping, numerical systems, and letter and word notations. Several dance notation systems have been invent ...

Early life, education, and marriage

She was born Joan Dorothy Rothwell in the

Wavertree Wavertree is a district and suburb of Liverpool, in the county of Merseyside, England. It is a Ward (country subdivision), ward of Liverpool City Council, and its population at the United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 census was 14,772. Located to ...

district of Liverpool in 1920. She studied dance for three years in Liverpool at the Studio School of Dance and Drama and then studied with Lydia Sokolova. She won the ballet prize of the All England Dance Competition in 1937 and the Parker Trophy for Dance in 1938. She then worked as a dancer and choreographer in commercial theatre where, in 1947, she met the accountant, artist and musician, Rudolf Benesh, who noticed that she was having trouble: "During a break while I was painting Joan's portrait, I mused at her struggle to get down on paper her choreographic ideas for a ballet". He began a notation to help her record her dances and they developed the system together. The couple married on 12 March 1949 and she then joined the Sadler's Wells Ballet Company.

Benesh Movement Notation

The notation uses a five bar

stave Stave may refer to: Music * Stave (music), used in musical notation * Stanza * The Staves, an English folk rock trio People * Bruce M. Stave (1937–2017), American historian * Joel Stave (born 1992), American football quarterback Place ...

to record the position of the limbs and body. Above the stave, additional signs record the facial expression and the position of the eyes and fingers. These details arose from Joan's special interest in ''

Bharatanatyam ''Bharatanatyam'' is a Indian classical dance form that came from Tamil Nadu, India. It is a classical dance form recognized by the Sangeet Natak Akademi, and expresses South Indian religious themes and spiritual ideas of Hinduism and Jainism.< ...

'' – the classical dance of South India. Their notation system was presented to the

Royal Ballet The Royal Ballet is a British internationally renowned classical ballet company, based at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, England. The largest of the five major ballet companies in Great Britain, the Royal Ballet was founded ...

, fully published in 1956 and exhibited at

Expo 58 Expo 58, also known as the 1958 Brussels World's Fair (; ), was a world's fair held on the Heysel/Heizel Plateau in Brussels, Belgium, from 17 April to 19 October 1958. It was the first major world's fair registered under the Bureau Internati ...

in Brussels. In 1960, the Royal Ballet recruited a notator who had been trained in the Benesh system. The Benesh Institute of Choreology was then created in 1962 with Joan as principal, Rudolf as director and

Frederick Ashton Sir Frederick William Mallandaine Ashton (17 September 190418 August 1988) was a British ballet dancer and choreographer. He also worked as a director and choreographer in opera, film and revue. Determined to be a dancer despite the oppositio ...

as president. The Institute established a library of dance scores in London and a residential training college in Sussex.

Later life

Rudolf died of cancer in 1975 and Joan then retired as principal. She published a history, ''Reading Dance: The Birth of Choreology'', in 1977 and was recognised with the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award of the

Royal Academy of Dance The Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) is a UK-based examination board specialising in dance education and training, with an emphasis on classical ballet. The RAD was founded in London, England in 1920 as the Association of Teachers of Operatic Danci ...

in 1986. She retired to Wimbledon where her hobbies included gardening, sewing and philosophy. She subsequently moved to

Skelmersdale Skelmersdale is a town in the West Lancashire district of England. It sits on the River Tawd, west of Wigan, north-east of Liverpool and south-west of Preston, Lancashire, Preston. In 2006, it had a population of 38,813. The town is known l ...

to be near her only son Anthony. She died in a nursing home there of

pneumonia Pneumonia is an Inflammation, inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as Pulmonary alveolus, alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of Cough#Classification, productive or dry cough, ches ...

in 2014, aged 94.

References

External links

Benesh International
– the Benesh Institute is now part of the

{{DEFAULTSORT:Benesh, Joan 1920 births 2014 deaths English ballerinas English women choreographers People from Wavertree Entertainers from Liverpool