How do they document ballet choreography?

[Marine_One]

How do they write down the movements for ballet dancers to perform?

How do the Enchanted Mice know when to twirly-twirly and not bump into the Queen of the Chickens or the Prince of Tractors?

[paperbackwriter]

There are various systems that have been developed over the years. There are even archives specifically for choreography (http://www.dancenotation.org/DNB/). One that I remember from college was Laban Notation aka Labanotation (http://www.rz.uni-frankfurt.de/~griesbec/LABANE.HTML).

[RealityChuck]

Cecil Speaks (http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_389a.html)

[pasunejen]

There was also a Slate article (http://slate.msn.com/id/2096578) about this a while back.

[TJdude825]

How do the Enchanted Mice know when to twirly-twirly and not bump into the Queen of the Chickens or the Prince of Tractors?
Actually, they know because their choreographer/dance director tells them what the choreography is. AFAIK, nobody ever gives the dancers a photocopy of the written Laban notation, and says, "Here, learn these steps!" The dance director would read it, and then teach it to them.