[sw-l] SignWriting History

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
April 16, 2005

Dear SW List, and Ms Hagiwara in Japan!
Ms. Hagiwara wrote to me privately, to ask questions about SignWriting
History. So I now will post some of my answers to the SignWriting List.

The questions Ms. Hagiwara asked are:

1. How did you invent DanceWriting?
2. How did SignWriting begin?


1. Val's Answer....

The History web page is:
http://signwriting.org/library/history/index.html

On that web page, there are many articles to read. The first article is:

1. 1966-1974
DanceWriting Begins
Precursor to SignWriting
http://signwriting.org/library/history/hist002.html

There are also Questions and Answers on the web:
http://www.signwriting.org/about/questions/questions.html

But to try to answer...How did I invent DanceWriting? It happened from
age 15 to 23. I was in professional ballet training. But my mind got
stimulated by an old and unused dance notation system I had seen in a
history book, that used stick figures...it was called the Zorn system.
So when I had no choice but to sit and watch rehearsals, because of
illness, I started to write what I saw the dancers do in the rehearsal,
using my own form of stick figures. Slowly I did more and more until I
had a real notation system, based on stick figures, but nothing like
the Zorn system...it became my own, and it was for my own personal use
only, from age 15 until age 23. At that time, my first textbook on
DanceWriting was published and I was invited to teach the Royal Danish
Ballet in my system, and from that moment on, it was a public system
used by others...That was in 1974. At that time we called it Sutton
Movement Shorthand, but it soon was called Sutton DanceWriting. Then
SignWriitng started soon after that, in the same year...1974...

To be continued...

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