The Harvard Theatre Collection Notations
(Stepanov notation and the Sergeev collection)

Vladimir Stepanov (a dancer with the Imperial Ballet at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg in the 1890s ) developed a new notation system for ballet dance, which encodes each dance movement like a musical sign. He taught his method for students of the Imperial Ballet School in St. Petersburg.
Stepanov’s student, Alexander Gorsky, improved the System. In 1896 he printed the “Table of Signs” in Stepanov Notation. His other student Nicholai Sergeev was a regisseur in the Imperial Theatres from 1903 to 1918. He brought the collection out of Russia after the revolution of 1917.
Today, the notations are known as the Sergeev Collection and housed in the Harvard Theatre Collection at Houghton Library.