Synopsis
This historic book is the first book ever written on the Sutton Movement Writing system, written by Valerie Sutton in 1972-1973, after returning from Denmark where Sutton used her stick-figure notation system to write the beautiful dances of the Royal Danish Ballet's system of ballet training, called the Bournonville Schools. Sutton used her personal writing system from age 15 to 19, recording her own choreography and writing dances she learned while in professional ballet training in Southern California, but at age 19, in 1970, Sutton traveled to Denmark to train with teachers of the Royal Danish Ballet to learn the world-famous Bournonille training. To Sutton's surprise, at the time in 1970, there were very few notations or recordings of these historic dance steps, and so she naturally began to write the dances she was learning. After two years of studying daily with the world-renowned Bournonville teacher Edel Pedersen, Sutton had recorded the complete Bournonville Barres and 5 Bournonville Schools in her notation system. Through this experience, the system evolved and improved, culminating in the writing of this first book on her system, Sutton Movement Shorthand, Book One, The Classical Ballet Key, which she wrote when returning to her home in Newport Beach, California in 1972-1973. The director of the Royal Danish Ballet, Fleming Flindt, invited Valerie Sutton back to Copenhagen in 1974, to teach Sutton DanceWriting to the Royal Danish Ballet. This book was used in that historic course, and through the experience of teaching the Royal Danish Ballet, Sutton improved the DanceWriting system which can now be learned with other textbooks, such as DanceWriting For Classical Ballet or DanceWriting for Modern and Jazz Dance. Also read the Bournonville Schools, Three Bournonville Barres and Bournonville Schools, The Monday School.
About the Author
Valerie Sutton is the inventor of Sutton Movement Writing, also called the International Movement Writing Alphabet (the IMWA), divided into five sections: 1. DanceWriting, for writing dance choreography 2. SignWriting, for writing signed languages 3. MimeWriting, for writing classic mime and gesture 4. SportsWriting, for writing any sport, such as gymnastics, ice skating, skateboarding and karate 5. GestureWriting, for writing movement analysis for research in anthropology, physical therapy, body language, animal movements, and other forms of movement analysis.
Sutton Movement Writing started with Sutton DanceWriting in 1966, when Sutton was 15 years old, training as a professional ballet dancer in Southern California. Sutton invented a stick figure notation for her own personal use. Four years later she traveled to Copenhagen, Denmark to train with teachers from the Royal Danish Ballet. Over the next two years, Sutton applied her system to recording the historic ballet steps of the Royal Danish Ballet, which were in danger of being forgotten from lack of recording. The first DanceWriting textbook, Sutton Movement Shorthand, The Classical Ballet Key, Key One, was published in December, 1973. In the fall of 1974, by special invitation, she taught Sutton DanceWriting to members of the Royal Danish Ballet. At that time, newspaper articles about DanceWriting in Danish newspapers came to the attention of sign language researchers at the University of Copenhagen. Dr. Lars van der Leith and others at the Audiologopaedisk Forskningsgruppe of the University of Copenhagen requested Sutton to develop a way to write the movements of sign languages for their research. Sutton expanded the writing system to meet their needs, and Sutton SignWriting was born. SignWriting was first developed to write Danish Sign Language, but it quickly expanded to write any sign language in the world, and is now used in 50 countries. Software specially developed for SignWriting spread the writing system from 1986-present. Two computer programs for typing SignWriting are used widely...SignWriter DOS by Richard Gleaves and SignPuddle Software by Stephen E. Slevinski. Several SignWriting software programs are free for download on the web. The SignWriting script is also used on a daily basis written by hand, as a daily writing system, by sign language users. SignWriting became an established world script by the International Bureau of Standardization (ISO) in 2006. Sutton founded the Center for Sutton Movement Writing, a 501c3 non-profit educational California-based organization in 1974 and continues to direct the Center in 2009, 35 years later, working with the Deaf Action Committee for SignWriting (the DAC), founded by Lucinda OGrady Batch in 1988. Deaf people work with Ms. Sutton to provide feedback from Deaf Communities to improve and expand the use of a written form for their native sign languages. Sutton DanceWriting was a requirement for graduation as a Dance Major at the Boston Conservatory of Music Dance Department from 1976 to 1986. Sutton Movement Writing is also used for writing sports, such as gymnastics, ice skating and skateboarding, and in scientific studies of gesture analysis, such as writing the movements of the body while carving Norwegian Viking boats, to give historic perspective on how the repetitive motion created such excellent vessels.
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