From Cave Paintings to the Internet A Chronological and Thematic Database on the History of Information and Media Dance / Choreography Timeline

Les Basses danses de Marguerite d'Autriche, a fifteenth-century manuscript source for the basse danse, a Burgundian court dance, consists of twenty-five parchment leaves on black paper with gold rules and calligraphic initials in silver. Seventeen folios contain specific music and choreographies in the earliest known dance notation.  The original manuscript is preserved in the Bibliothèque royale Albert Ier, Bruxelles, (Ms. 9085).  You can page through a virtual copy of the manuscript at the Library of Congress website at this link, accessed 04-05-2009).

Writing under the anagrammatic pen name of Thoinot Arbeau, French cleric Jehan Tabourot publishes Orchésographie. Et traicte en forme de dialogve, par leqvel tovtes personnes pevvent facilement apprendre & practiquer l'honneste exercice des dances. Par Thoinot Arbeau demeurant à Lengres. 

Tabourot's manual, written in the form of a dialogue between a dancing master and his student, provides critical information on social ballroom behavior and on the interaction of musicians and dancers for this period. The book includes an early dance notation system that correlates the music to the dance steps.

"Orchésographie discusses a full spectrum of late Renaissance dance including the galliard, pavane, branle, volta, morisque, gavotte, allemande, and courante" (Library of Congress, Dance Instruction Manuals, where you can page through a virtual facsimile of the 1589 printing at this link, accessed 04-05-2009).

French dance notator, publisher and choreographer Raoul Auger (or Anger) Feuillet publishes Chorégraphie, ou l'art de d'écrire la danse.  

Feuillet's work included the first publication of the system of dance notation used in Baroque dance, known as Beauchamp-Feuillet notation. This notation was commissioned by Louis XIV, who had founded the Académie Royale de Danse in 1661, and devised in the 1680s by Pierre Beauchamp. The system was widely used throughout the 18th century.

"This manual details a dance notation system that indicates the placement of the feet and six basic leg movements: plié, releveé, sauté, cabriole, tombé, and glissé. Changes of body direction and numerous ornamentations of the legs and arms are also part of the system. The system is based on tract drawings that trace the pattern of the dance. Additionaly, bar lines in the dance score correspond to bar lines in the music score. Signs written on the right or left hand side of the tract indicate the steps" (Library of Congress, Dance Instruction Manuals where you can page through a virtual facsimile of the 1713 printing at this link, accessed 04-05-2009).

Vladimir Ivanovich Stepanov, dancer at the Imperial Ballet in Saint Petersburg. publishes l'Alphabet des Mouvements du Corps Humain.

This system of dance notation

"encodes dance movements with musical notes and not with pictographs or newly invented abstract symbols. Stepanov breaks complex movements down to elementary moves which single parts of the body can make. These basic moves are then enciphered as musical signs" (Wikipedia article on Vladimir Ivanovich Stepanov, accessed 04-05-2009).

The Stepanov method of dance or choreographic notation archive is preserved in the Sergeyev Collection at the Harvard University Library Theatre Collection.

American computer game and video game designer Eddie Dombrower creates the DOM system, the first dance notation software, on an Apple II computer.

DOM allowed choreographers to use a simple system of codes to enter their work. The resulting dance movements were then performed by a figure on screen.

American motivational speaker, inspirational comedian, and dancer Judson Laipply posts the video clip Evolution of Dance on YouTube.

On May 9, 2009 the video had been viewed 119,378,381 times.  It was the Most Viewed (All Time) Video, the Most Favorited (All Time) Video, and the eighth Most Discussed (All Time) Video on YouTube.