The notation was commissioned by Louis XIV (who had founded the Academy Royale de Danse in 1661) and devised in the 1680s by Pierre Beauchamp. The notation system was first described in detail in 1700 by Raoul-Augur Feuillet in Chorégraphie. Feuillet also then began a programme of publishing complete notated dances. It was used to record dances for the stage and domestic use throughout the eighteenth century, being modified by Pierre Rameau in 1725, and surviving into at least the 1780s in various modified forms.
First Position
Second Position
Third Position
Fourth Position
Fifth Position
