# Action stroke dance notation

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**Action Stroke Dance Notation** (ASDN) is a [dance notation](/source/Dance_notation) system that was invented by Iver Cooper. Designed for fast writing, the notations primarily consist of "action strokes" that represent one of three basic actions:

- a support [gesture](/source/Gesture) that takes [weight](/source/Weight)[clarification needed] (e.g., hop or step)
- a touch gesture (makes contacts without taking weight[clarification needed])
- an air gesture (makes no contact)

A dance score has five sections:

- general – describing the general movement of the dancer
- leg (or staff) – indicating movement of the legs and feet
- arm (or staff) – indicating movement of the arms and hands
- trunk – indicating movement of head, neck, chest and pelvis
- notes – detailed explanations of the movement

Scores are read from bottom to top. The horizontal dimension represents body symmetry and the vertical dimension represents time. ASDN employs abstract [symbols](/source/Symbols) and is visually similar to [Motif description](/source/Motif_description), a subset of [Labanotation](/source/Labanotation) that is also designed for speed of writing.

## See also

- [Choreography](/source/Choreography)

## External links

- [Action Stroke Dance Notation website](http://danceprofessor.myartsonline.com/ASDN/)

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Action stroke dance notation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_stroke_dance_notation) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_stroke_dance_notation?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.