Now that I've looked a little more into ethics, I want to take the time to apply these thoughts and develop them in how they relate to my inquiry. Adesola has provided me with some thoughts and questions for me to delve into on this topic.
My personal beliefs in the use of Benesh have been focused on practicality. I believe that Benesh is a system that can most accurately depict specific positions of the body in order to most effectively document and reproduce choreography. By doing this I am viewing choreography in a very objective manner. As a dancer myself I acknowledge that a large part of dance is one's personal connection with the material and one's individual portrayal of movement.
People may very well be of the opinion that in a way, I may be missing the point of dance with my aims of accurate documentation. Is my artform something that can be simply written down on paper? One could argue that the magic of dance is in a dancer's depiction of a work and that through their personalisation, the dance comes to life. My stance is that accurate knowledge of choreography serves as the foundation for what I deem to be a competent dancer. Personalisation and/or characterisation acts as the decoration on top to augment what the choreographer has created. I would argue that Benesh actually assists in keeping the 'spirit' of a dance. An example would be that looking at a corps de ballet performing, if they were to reproduce the steps too differently from each other, that could even hinder the life of a performance by looking too 'messy'.
As I'm considering these views and thoughts, the main keyword that pops into my head is 'responsibility'. As a notator, one has the responsibility to maintain a choreographer's artistic vision. Benesh allows one to record steps but not necessarily the 'feel' or tone of the piece in question. During my investigation it is important for me to acknowledge that dance notation isn't the be all and end all of entirely capturing an artistic work.
One more consideration to make is the responsibility behind re-staging an old work that may have been created before any notation was available, especially Benesh. The responsibility lies within the modern day choreographer to provide authentic choreography that would honour the memory of said piece and keep its spirit intact. This then applies to the notator to equally ensure unhindered memory of the steps and style of a dance. One example that springs to mind is Nijinsky's 'Rite of Spring'. Out of Nijinsky's four choreographies, only his first 'L'Apres-midi d'un Faune' was ever accurately preserved, and even then it was through notation of Nijinsky's own design. In order to reproduce the Rite of Spring, or 'Sacre du Printemps', the choreographer had to draw inspiration from photos, eye-witness accounts and newspaper reviews to piece together as accurate an imagining as possible.
One element of Benesh is that as 'movement' notation, when it is applied to dance, certain assumptions are made depending on the style it's being applied to. For example, if some notation depicts the dancer with the arms high above the head and it is being applied to classical ballet. One would interpret this as a 'fifth position port de bras'. Nijinsky's choreography has a very distinctive style and has certain variations on traditional ballet positions. When documenting Nijinsky's revised works it is important to remember these details to ensure as much of the original intention is preserved. This applies to any choreography from years ago and the aim of this is to not mis-represent a choreographers style, to keep the memory of their works alive for years to come!
Thanks Ben
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