[Sw-l] Sutton DanceWriting: Na ṭarāja

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
August 9, 2021

Thank you, Suzanne and Ae, for this discussion. It is fun to think about why this happened. To explain:

Ae is correct. DanceWriting started first, and at that time, in the early 1970s, ballet was and is still very stylized. Facial expressions and even head movements were not as important as the rest of the body, and so, by placing the Head Circle to the left or right of the rest of the body on the 5-lined staff, we could write classical ballet on a 5-lined staff, under the music notes or counts, without our Head Circle in the way of the rhythm.

I realize this is surprising to those who write sign languages, like we do today, but here are some examples of the writing at that time, in Denmark in the 1970s. There were no personal computers yet, no cell phones, no digitizing fast, and so by hand it was easier to write this way: See diagrams attached. We used wax transfer sheets. The Facial Direction Line was easy to write by hand like a little line crossing the shoulders showing the direction of the nose:










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