The New York Baroque Dance Co.

I first became aware of Ann Hutchinson Guest as a student of Labanotation under Lucy Venable while attending The Ohio State University. Her Labanotation handbook clearly explained the system and with the help of Lucy Venable, I understood the value of reading and writing in dance notation and the value of movement analysis which goes hand-in-hand with writing. Later, I read Ann’s book, Dance Notation, the process of recording movement on paper. What an incredible discovery to know that over 100 systems exist!

My first in-person meeting with Ann was in the fall of 1980. I was in residence in London for 10 months on the Bicentennial US/UK Bicentennial Exchange Fellowship. Through Lucy Venable I was able to get an introduction to Ann and, sure enough, she invited me to her home in London. We had over an hour long conversation about dance and then Ann invited me to look at her collection of nearly 200 dances in 18th century dance notation developed by Beauchamp, Feuillet and additional dancing masters at the court of Louis XIV. (Of course, this took several visits.) In the 1980’s it was not easy to get into the rare collections of the major libraries of Europe. Ann’s collection represented years dedicated to her research and accumulation of xerox copies and microfiche of notated dances from different countries. I was still at the beginning of my career. To have access to this material was a godsend. She allowed me to take copies of these notations to begin to build my own library. Within a year I had read through all the dances and began to form an idea of Baroque choreographic style. I also used the notations as a springboard for my own choreography. Ann did not realize it at the time, but her generosity catapulted me into the search for answers defining dance theory and practice of the 18th century. I was already established as a performer of historical dance, but her passion inspired me to pursue my own path of practical research as related to performance production. She, too, was a dancer with a strong performance background who embraced the intellectual challenges of dance notation and movement analysis and this was the passion we shared which kept us in touch over 4 decades.

A piece of wisdom I learned from Ann, and am still using in my own company, came from a dance conference where we were both delivering papers. I attended her presentation where she discussed her latest reconstruction. Looking at the video of the dancers, I was impressed by their ability to grasp the style in such a short study session. I asked her how she achieved this and she summed it up in one word: improvisation. She explained that if a dancer can improvise in the style it means they have embodied the basic principles of the dance style and can therefore bring this fluidity of understanding to the performance of the specific dance. So simple, so brilliant and so Ann.

Ann, I will miss you. I am so grateful for our friendship and please know I think of you every time I ask a new dancer in our company to simply “improvise!”

The New York Times published a very good overview of her life and contributions. Here is the link: Ann Hutchinson Guest