Margaret Abbie

Margaret Abbie Denton was born in Sydney where she learnt ballet from a young age. In 1945 she moved with her family to Adelaide where she initially took classes with Nora Stewart and went on to train with Dorothy Slane. She danced with the South Australian Ballet Theatre before pursuing full time training with Audrey De Vos in London. There she performed in various theatrical productions and was introduced to the study of Laban notation by Ann Hutchinson and Harry Haythorne. Denton traveled to the USA in 1957 and returned to Australia in 1959. Denton joined Ballet Guild, dancing in the corps as well as teaching notation to students of Laurel Martyn. She also danced in stage and television shows at this time including Pardon Miss Westcott! (1959), and notated Paul Grinwis' ballet The Eternal Lovers. Denton maintained her interest and involvement in dance while pursuing a professional career as a physiotherapist. She was appointed dance representative for the Performing Arts Collection, Adelaide, in 1983. In 1986 she was a key participant in the Australian Choreographic Project, which remounted significant dance works, including Laurel Martyn's En Saga and Dorothy Stevenson's Sea Legend, with students from the University of Adelaide Dance Department. The Project also resulted in notated scores for Rex Reid's The Night is a Sorceress and Cecil Bates' Requiem, and in Denton's production of videotaped interviews with several dancers, choreographers and composers. Continuing her work with dance notation, Denton created the Labanotation score for Beth Dean's Corroboree while Dean was teaching the ballet to students of the Australian Ballet School in 1994. She then revised this notation with Ray Cook between 1997 and 1998.