List of John Hodgson’s Interviews 1972 - 1991

Akeson, Birgit 22/08/1974

Barker, Clive No date

Bartenieff, Irmgard 27/12/1974

Bauer, Lila 12/09/1974

Bohme, F 15/06/1973

Champernowne, Irene no date

Cunnginham Merce 27/12/1974

Dunn, Margaret no date

Fettes, Christopher 21/08/1974

Gleisner, Martin 28/12/1973, 25/12/1975

Gwana, Ingeborg no date

Holm, Hanya eight interviews

Klingenbeck, Fritz 12/09/1973

Knust, Albrecht 21/03/1975

Laban, Juanna de 20/02/1972

Laban, Maja 15/06/1973

Laban, Renee 17/06/1973

Lamb, Warren 19/08/1974

Lawrence, F.C. 21/06/1973

Leeder, Sigurd no date

Levitan, Joseph 27/12/1975

Loman, Hettie no date

Louis, Murray no date

Martin, John no date

Milloss, Aurel 11/09/1973

Mlada (Horenstein), Ludmilla 22/08/1974

Newlove, Jean no date, no date (1974?)

Perrottet, Julia 17/071973

Perrottet, Suzanne no date

Preston-Dunlop, Valerie 22/08/1974, 15/08/1991

Sachs, Felicia 25/12/1975, no date

Sherborne, Veronica no date

Snell Freidburg, Gertrude 06/01/1973, 31/10/1987

Soukop, Simone and Wile 20/08/1974

Wagner (Laban, Azra) no date

Weidman, Charles 06/01/1974

Wigman, Mary 19/06/1973

Summaries of Tapes

Birgit Akesson (Tape 48)

Biography

(1908 – 2001)

Birgit Åkesson trained as a dancer at Mary Wigman's school in Dresden from 1929–31. After having danced with her a few years, Åkesson began to challenge Wigman’s expressionist `style of dance. After retraining in Paris she created her own more minimal style of dance.

Summary of Interview

She studied with Wigman in the early 1930s for three years. She neither studied with nor saw any of Laban’s work. She talks about the expressionist dances of Wigman and is highly critical of what she thinks Laban represents. She is equally critical of Jooss for his narrative-based dance. JH tries to defend her incredibly negative opinion of Laban.

Irmgard Bartenieff (Tapes 64 & 65)

Biography

(1900 – 1981)

Bartenieff studied with Rudolf Laban in the 1924/5 and left for Germany after Hitler’s rise to power in 1933. She soon became involved in dance notation and helped establish the Dance Notation Bureau in New York. She studied with Warren Lamb and integrated his notion of Shape and Space into her BESS (Body Effort Shape Space). In America she studied physical therapy and became a pioneer of dance therapy. Her own approach to movement is called Bartenieff Fundamentals.

Summary of Interview

She first met Laban in 1924/5. A moving evocation of life under the Nazis after March 1933.

Her first experiments with Labanotation between ’36 and ’38 leading to the creation of the Dance Notation Bureau. Hanya Holm and how she managed to integrate Wigman’s aesthetic within American dance. Warren Lamb and the development of Effort Shape. Judith Kestenberg’s development of Laban’s ideas (via Lamb). The development of Bartenieff Fundamentals. The importance of Laban’s German books. Her family background. Life during World War I.

Clive Barker (Tape 78)

Biography

(1931 – 2005)

Clive Barker was an actor, stage manager and teacher. He came to Laban through his work with Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop. There are a number of references to Laban in his classic Theatre Games (1977).

Summary of Interview

Though fascinating for students of theatre, this interview has nothing to do with Laban. The tape begins in the middle of a conversation about the nature of popular theatre. After a digression into realism he explores the nature of drama training in universities. What is the role of Theatre History in professional production and in the academic curriculum?

Lila Bauer (Tape 63)

Biography

(1912 - 2011)

Lilla Bauer was a ballet dancer and dance teacher. Born in Budapest where she trained and later joined the modern Ballet Jooss. She danced in some of Jooss’ most famous productions, including The Green Table. She was with the company during their stay at Dartington Hall, subsequently returning home to form her own company. She taught Modern Dance at Goldsmith’s College, London until her retirement, also lecturing and examining around the country.

Summary of Interview

A vivid account of working in Dartington with the Ballets Jooss, being taught by Sigurd Leeder and the difficulty for both Lisa Ullmann and Laban in this set-up. A description of the creation of The Green Table and a stay with Laban and Ullmann in Newtown. Her critique of Laban’s lack of dialogue with other great thinkers who could change or challenge his ideas.

LB: A strange person who didn’t speak Hungarian, or very little. She lifted up a sheet and on which were these peculiar shapes, you see and handed it around without explanation. And we thought she was crackers. And later on I found out that she was trying to explain Laban notation.

Frau Bohme (Tape 62)

Biography of Fritz Böhme

(1881 – 1952)

Fritz Böhme was a journalist, who became increasingly interested in the dance experiments and dance education of pioneers like Bess Mensendieck, Mary Wigman and Rudolf Laban. As features editor of the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung he published hundreds of articles on dance topics over the years. He participated in the organization of the three German dancer congresses in 1927, 1928 and 1930 and gave a large number of lectures on dance topics. In addition to the seven books he wrote on dance he planned a book on Laban (extant parts of which are in the Special Collections of the Brotherton Library, Leeds).

Summary of Interview

A very brief transcript of an interview with Fritz Böhme’s widow. Böhme was a dance critic who knew Laban from Ascona times and who was planning a biography of Laban (parts of which are translated in JH’s archive). Discussion of Laban’s contact with the Dervishes and his Masonic activities.

Irene Champernowne (Tape 63)

Biography

Her family originally owned Dartington Hall, and then sold it to the Elmhirsts. She created a therapeutic community run along Jungian lines where Bill Carpenter was an inmate, and where Laban did a series of movement observations (which are lodged in the Special Collections of The Brotherton Library, Leeds).

Summary of Interview

Early Days at Dartington. She met Laban in 1943 at a conference of occupational therapists in the Russell St YMCA, London. Courses with Laban and Veronica Sherborne at Dartington Hall. She calls Laban a ‘doctor’. At another conference, Laban talks about the geometry of space relations. IC hopes to tempt to Laban to work in the field of therapy. Talk of Jung and Freud, IC argues that Laban ‘feared psychology’, ‘he was always a little chary of psychology’. Laban’s personality: ‘he was afraid of too close contact with people’. He ‘got very close to the archetype of the trickster’. He was, according to Jung’s four archetypes, intuitive and ‘intuitives are always in danger of the ego using intuition’. ‘We are all inclined to be arrogant if we aren’t careful because we don’t check our intuitions enough against the matter of fact, everyday.’

Merce Cunningham (Tape 64)

Biography

(1919 – 2009)

Cunningham was an American dancer, choreographer and teacher who was at the forefront of American modern dance for more than 50 years. He collaborated most notably with composer John Cage. Cunningham and his Dance Company had an incalculable impact on dance and experimental art and performance in general.

Summary of Interview

Discussion of Labanotation (and why he doesn’t use it) and his dream of an electronic form of dance notation. Description of his approach to choreography not being about music but space and time. He knows nothing about Laban but did meet Wigman (a very funny description of the meeting).

Margaret Dunn (Tape 66)

No Biography

Summary of Interview

Account of Laban’s influence in England in the late 1930’s. Amusing description of Laban teaching at Bretton Hall in the early 1950s and at a summer course in Moreton Hall, Newtown, Powys.

Christopher Fettes (Tape 48)

[Tape begins with poor signal, first 30 second being inaudible. As ever, the microphone is closer to JH, so CF’s voice is harder to hear]

Biography

Fettes is a drama teacher who, with Yat Malmgren, created the Drama Centre, London. He is author of A Peopled Labyrinth: The Histrionic Sense: An Analysis of the Actor's Craft (2015). The work of Drama Centre and the theme of the book is based on a movement psychology developed by Rudolf Laban and Bill Carpenter.

Summary of Interview

Fettes created Drama Centre with Yat Malmgren. Malmgren taught for a year at The Art of Movement Studio in Addlestone where he met Bill Carpenter who was working with Laban on what they called Movement Psychology. This interview is an account of the curriculum at Drama Centre and how it relates to Laban and Malmgren’s Movement Psychology. The work centres on the creating of characters through structured improvisation drawing on the motion factors and their combination into inner attitudes and drives. Malmgren’s career as an award-winning dancer. Voice training.

Martin Gleisner (Tapes 60, 74)

Biography

(1897–1983)

Martin Gleisner began as an actor, working with director Max Reinhardt, but after meeting Laban in 1923 he turned towards dance. He specialised in community dance and collaborated with Laban on a number of public dance events. He published Tanz fur Alle (Dance for All) in 1928. He left Germany in 1933, and eventually settled in the US, no longer practising dance.

Summary of Tape 60

Laban’s contacts in Nuremberg and Mannheim. First meeting with Laban in 1923. He heard about him through readings reviews and then the text of Die Welt des Tänzers. The dancers around Laban in the 1920s. Working with the Laban Kammertanzbuhne in Hamburg. Gleisner’s shift into Lay Dance (bewegungschor). Meets the publisher Eugen Diederichs (who published Laban’s Die Choreographie in 1926 and the journal Die Tat). Laban’s recitals with Gertrud Loeszer. 1927 he becomes chairman of the association of Laban schools which in 1929 joins with the Deutsche Chor Singer und Ballet Verband, of which he is chairman and which now includes Free Dance. Laban is interested in anatomy. Movement is central to Laban’s world outlook. The fight with Wigman. The first Dancer’s Congress in 1928 which he co-organised. How Laban could be fickle in his loyalties. 1933, Laban stays, MG leaves. MG’s quarrel with Laban’s My Life in Dance (Jooss called it a ‘Nazi book’).

Summary of Tape 74

Laban’s ability to work with the Nazi’s: ‘If the Nazis had allowed him to work, he would have stayed there. He was forced to go away.’ The Mannheim Festspiel (1929). Vilma Mönckeburg (expert in the spoken word choir, and collaborator with Laban on Faust (1922). Gleisner’s work with the Social Democrats and movement choirs. The difference between his choirs and Nazi processions. His meeting with Sergei Eisenstein. His work Volkserschule (primary and junior schools). Gaukelei. Laban’s philosophy is informed by Nietzsche. The cultural scene during the hyperinflation in Germany 1922 – 1923. Laban’s recitals with Gert Loeszer (1924). Die Nacht in the 1927 Dancers’ Congress in Magdeburg.

Hanya Holm Interviews [Tapes 92 – 102]

Biography

Hanya Holm was an influential modern dance choreographer and teacher from Germany. She studied with Mary Wigman and Emile Jacques-Dalcroze. She choreographed several Broadway shows, including Kiss Me Kate (1948) and My Fair Lady (1956), as well as producing modern dance pieces like Trend (1937). Holm taught many students, most significantly figures like Glen Tetley, Alwin Nikolais, Don Redlich, and Valerie Bettis.

Tape 95

Summary of Side One

They talk about Mary Wigman and her personality as an artist. The ‘artist’ as a concept is discussed, particularly what it means to be an artist and a teacher. They also talk about the ego and its role in art. The conflict that Laban and Wigman felt about staying in Nazi Germany or leaving is brought up and Holm talks about her awareness of Hitler. They debate the morals of Laban working with Hitler and whether or not it can be overlooked. Holm’s students in Germany were tired and dispirited. Holm describes the piece Totenmal a piece by Albert Talhoff.

Kurt Jooss (Tapes 82 – 92)

Biography

(1901 – 1979)

He met Laban in the early 1920s and studied and danced with him. In 1924 he left Laban to join forces with Sigurd Leeder to create Die Neue Tanzbühne. In 1926 he and Leeder studied classical ballet in Paris. In 1927 he and Leeder create was to become the Folkwang Schule where many years later Pina Bausch would study. His most important choreography was undoubtedly The Green Table (1932). In 1933 the entire company slipped out of Germany and made their way to the Dartington Hall in Devon, UK. Laban would later join them in 1938.

Summary of Tape 82

Publications about Laban. Laban, a magician! Laban’s illnesses. His constructions of solid geometry in Dartington in ‘38/’39. Laban in Paris with Dusia Bereska. Learning with Laban in the 1920s. Laban created what Jooss calls a Deep dance, connecting with his desire to create a dance for men. How Wigman’s dance related to Laban’s ideas. Laban the choreographer: his Bachanale in Tannhäuser, Die Geblendeten [The Blind Ones] and Gaukelei [Jugglers]. Like Bereska, Laban had very expressive hands. Jooss became jealous of Gertrud Loeszer with whom Laban created duos based on Wagner’s music. Laban, a reluctant teacher. Eukinetics in the 1920s.

Summary of Tape 83

Working with Laban. Reflections on Wigman. More about his relationship with Laban (which he turned into a piece called Tragedy earning him a kiss from Wigman). About Bereska and Laban, broadening into a discussion of other women in his life (Martha Fricke, Maja Lederer, Suzie Perrottet, Gertrude Loeszer). The suicide of André Perrottet. An early example of Laban claiming ownership of those he works with: he tries to forbid Jooss from leaving his company. Later reconciliation. Dartington. Jooss’ politics and Green Table, and his debt to Laban in the conception of that piece. The Bayreuth Tannhäuser, conducted by Arturo Toscanini.

Summary of Tape 84

1920s studying with Laban. His admiration of Laban ‘the destroyer’. Jooss’ jealousy of anyone Laban admired. Bereska’s problem with alcohol. Loeszer and Laban’s 1924 Wagner duets. Jooss’ career with Sigurd Leeder after 1926 in Paris. Laban’s name was given to a number of schools. Laban’s reputation in Germany post WWII. Journalist and critic, Fritz Böhme.

Summary of Tape 85

Back to Summer 1920 when Jooss met Laban in Stuttgart. Summer course in Gleschendorf in summer 1922. Hamburg in 1922, work on productions including Die Fledermaus. The Swinging Temple, Ober und Unter, Faust. Touring Germany. February 1924 he meets Sigurd Leeder. 1924 the disastrous Yugoslavian tour. Laban’s fiftieth birthday (1929), then Bayreuth (summer 1930) and Berlin Opera House. Laban’s plan to create a big choral piece The Earth (Die Erde). Gleschendorf Laban’s idea of the hochter tanzer, mittel tanzer and tief tanzer. The Swinging Temple, Rounds (Reigen) and Round Dances. Work on Gaukelei. Laban’s struggle to improve conditions and salaries of dancers. The Second Dancer’s Congress in Essen. The final break with Wigman. The 1932 Dance Competition organised by Rolf de Maré where The Green Table wins first prize. Bayreuth Tannhäuser.

Summary of Tape 87

Back to the 1920s. Knust’s mother used to cook for Laban’s students/dancers as they couldn’t afford to buy food. Gleschendorf. Life in times of inflation (1922). Berlin in the 1930s. Life under the Nazis. How Jooss and his company left Germany for Maastrich, Holland where they premiered The Prodigal Son. Their tour of the US. Racial segregation. And so to Dartington. Talk of Pavlova, Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham. Laban’s early life in Paris. Laban’s Freemasonry and Nietzsche.

Summary of Tape 89

Berlin in the 1930s. How Laban became Maitre de Ballet at the Berlin Opera House. Jooss claims it was his doing (so does Joseph Levitan, p.2). The beginnings of dance notation (Jooss claims that Bereska devised the linear form that became Labanotation). Reflections on the cultural milieu of Munich in the 1910s. The development of movement scales and how they swing. The relation to the three planes of movement. Eukinetics and the four motion factors – weight discussed at length in relation to tension. Laban drops the (Delsartian) terms ‘central’ and ‘peripheral’. Warren Lamb’s matching of a person to a job. Laban’s movement philosophy in the 1920s in Stuttgart. Laban’s first Bacchanale from Tannhäuser in Mannheim (1926?). Life in Laban’s troupe in the 1920s, particularly in the time of inflation. More detail, some quite graphic, of the performances and living conditions of this period. How they made costumes. A description of the vocal chorus for Faust.Tape 82 (Side 1)

Fritz Klingenbeck (Tapes 19 & 51)

No biographical details available.

Summary of Tape 19

He met Laban in 1925 and in 1926 joins him in Würzburg, at the Laban Choreographic Institute. He specialises in Notation and becomes Laban’s assistant. He claims that the five line vertical stave for notation was his idea. Laban’s choreographies for the 1928 Magdeburg Dancers Congress. Die Nacht. K notated Laban’s Titan. FK takes over Laban’s dance roles. Preparations for the 1929 Vienna Festzug.

Summary of Tape 51

The relationship between Laban and FK. The status of Laban in Berlin when Maitre de Ballet (1930 – 1934). The origin of Laban’s names and an outline genealogy. A sketch of Laban’s first marriage to Martha Fricke. Sketch of life in Ascona 1913 – 1917 [n.b. he wasn’t there himself]. Sketch of Laban’s character. Life after Laban had left Schloss Banz (ca. 1937). Mention of an American woman who gave him $10,000 to escape Germany. The history is taken up to Manchester via Dartington. FK wanted to make a film about Laban. Laban a man who didn’t understand people and worked with talentless people who didn’t understand his work. Thoughts on notation. The relation between a score and its interpretation in performance. Laban’s injury that ended his dance career, how FK took over his roles. Reflections on Rheinhardt and his style of theatre. Harald Kreuzberg. Laban and improvisation: ‘Art is what gets written down!’ The originality of Laban’s Bacchanal for Tannhäuser. Bereska.

Albrecht Knust (Tape 73)

1896 – 1978

Knust was a dancer, choreographer, teacher and movement notator. He met and began to study with Laban in 1922. In 1926 he began making his own choreographies and became interested in Laban’s ideas about dance notation. In 1935 he created the Dance Notation Bureau in Berlin. After the war he continued his work on notation, publishing an eight-volume work on the subject.

Summary of Interview

Very poor sound quality means that only a gist of the interview was possible. Mention of the Deutsche Tanz Buhne which was an organisation that looked after unemployed dancers. Discussion of training and productions in 1921/22. Mentions of notation.

Renée Laban (Tape 79)

Summary of Interview

Renée was Laban’s sister. A description of his early life in Paris with his wife Martha Fricke. The Labans in France. An account of Laban’s early family life and his relatives, especially his younger sister Renée who died as a young girl (Renée was named after her dead sibling). An account of his first sexual experience in a brothel aged 14 or 15. An account of his escape from Germany to France in 1937

Azra Laban (Tape 82)

(Born 1902).

Summary of Interview

She was taking Vivienne Bridson (and JH) through a photograph album commenting on various photos. She shows them a Kinetogram she made whilst studying with Knust in 1926. She shows paintings of her mother (Martha Fricke) who met Laban when working in Munich. She first met Laban at the age of 19 and they missed each other at the railway station in Berlin. Talk about his production of the Bacchanal of Tannhäuser at Bayreuth in 1930.

Maja and Etelke Laban (Tape 62)

Biography

Maja Laban (Née Lederer).

Maja married Laban in 1910 and left him in 1919. She died in 1979. She was a musician. Correspondence relating to her divorce in 1930 is in the Special Collections of the Brotherton Library, Leeds.

Etelke Laban (1915 - ??).

Summary of Interview

Maja Laban (née Lederer) was Laban’s second wife and mother of five of his children. Etelke, his youngest eldest daughter from this marriage is also there. This is a short transcript. She offers an outline biography of Laban including his association with the Masons. Laban’s work as a graphic designer in Munich in the 1910s. Laban’s studio in Theresien Strasse in Munich from 1910 – 1913. She left Laban in 1919 and moved back to Munich. Etelke describes her father as ‘many minded’. Maja interjects: ‘Er war der Grand Seigneur’ (He was the Great Seigneur). Etelke remembers meeting him when the third Dancers’ Congress took place in Munich in 1930. His way of playing piano says a lot about his approach to expression – he did it his way.

Sigurd Leeder (Tape 52)

Biography

(1902 – 1981)

He studied dance in Ascona with Sarah Norden, a pupil of Rudolf Laban and Mary Wigman. He met Rudolf Laban in 1923 and Kurt Jooss in in 1924. A close collaboration between Leeder and Jooss followed, lasting twenty-three years. In 1928 he participated in the second Dancers Congress in Essen, with Kurt Jooss, Dussia Bereska, Fritz Klingenbeck and Rudolf Laban, where kinetography - subsequently known as Labanotation - was introduced by Laban himself. In 1933 he met Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst, who invited him, Jooss and their dancers to England in early 1934, following Hitler’s rise to power. This was the foundation of the Jooss-Leeder School of Dance at Dartington Hall in Devon. His approach to teaching was based on Laban’s concepts of eukinetics and choreutics.

Summary of the Interview

Leeder made costumes for Laban [1924]. Laban’s solo recitals with Loeszer. A detailed account of Laban at work on a piece and on Loeszer as a dancer. On the male dancer. The Status of Dance in Germany. Laban’s and Wigman’s Teaching, the development of the Joss-Leeder approach. Laban’s Visit to see a performance by Leeder’s students. Eukinetics as practised by Laban, and Jooss and Leeder. Leeder’s attachment to and development of Laban’s ideas in an artistic context. Laban Principles, the basic ideas. Ascona and Monté Verità. Events Leading up to the 1936 Berlin Olympics débacle. His detainment in Schloss Banz. Dartington Hall. Laban Notation. Laban on Leeder’s Performances. Laban the story teller, and teller of tall tales. Laban’s reading and writing, his problems with writing. Laban in Berlin. Laban’s aesthetic of simple movement. The Bacchanal in Tannhäuser. The Development of Modern Dance in the context of Opera.

Warren Lamb (Tape 54)

Biography

(1923 – 2014)

Lamb studied with Laban at the Art of Movement Studio in Manchester and very soon was assisting him in movement observations in factories. He also undertook teaching commitments that Laban was unable to meet. By the early 1950s he began establishing himself as a management consultant developing a form of employment profiling based on Laban’s ideas. His first published book was Posture and Gesture (1965). He worked with Irmgard Bartenieff and Janet Kestenberg developing and promoting his idea that Shape and Effort were inseparable elements of a movement profile.

Summary of Interview

A British Drama League talk: how Lamb first came across Laban. Laban’s gift as a teacher. Lamb’s introduction to Laban’s Movement Assessment in Industry. Students at the AMS Manchester – an ‘odd crowd’. F.C. Lawrence. Early Days at the AMS Manchester. The story of when Laban drilled the class in the diagonal scale. Lamb’s first assessments in factories. A significant moment when WL’s eyes were opened to Laban’s showmanship. Working on assessments for Lawrence. Hettie Loman’s British Dance Theatre. Setting up an office in London in 1952. Laban’s demand of 33% of his income (which was rejected). Shape or Choreutics, the beginnings of Lambs integration of Effort and Shape. Laban rejected Lamb’s new direction. Laban’s mysticism. Warren Lamb’s first writings: Movement and Personality (unpublished), Posture and Gesture (1965). Ullmann asks to read the MS before publication to sanction the text (request denied). Laban a master at talking about movement. Evening Sessions in Manchester working on how to evaluate assessments. Laban’s seigneurial character. Lamb’s work as a continuation not a rejection of Laban’s thinking. Extensions of Lamb’s work – Dr Janet Kestenberg. Wilhelm Reich and Felicia Sachs (in 1953). The Art of Movement Studio in 1947, learning with Laban.

F.C. Lawrence (Tape 55)

Biography

Lawrence was a pioneering management consultant who co-authored Effort (1947) with Laban. He also published his own book Marginal Costing (1955).

Summary of Interview

His work as a Director at Dartington Hall in 1941/2. His intuition that Time and Motion study was limited, hence an interest in Laban (in Wales at that time). Early work on movement assessment, work at Tyresoles and the Mars Bar factory (some interesting detail of the work in the latter). His estimation of Laban. The relation between the Elmhirsts and the AMS (Bill Elmhirst paid for the premises at Addlestone). Laban working with cherry pickers at Dartington Hall. Working with Warren Lamb at Pilkington Tiles and other places. Difficulties getting the work accepted. Further Examples of movement assessments that they conducted at Dunlops and Trebor. The Writing of Effort (1947) and the help of A. Proctor Burman [mentioned in the Foreword on p.vii]. The search for precise terminology. Final example of movement observation from Glaxo (very interesting).

Murray Louis

Biography

(1926 – 2016)

Louis was known as one of the most influential American modern dancers and choreographers. When studying with Hanya Holm he met Alwin Nikolais who would later become his mentor and lifelong partner. He was lead soloist in Nikolais’ Playhouse Dance Company which later became known as the Nikolais Dance Theater.

Summary of Interview

Laban’s influence in the US came through Hanya Holm. His and Alwin Nikolai’s conception of space. Notation and his ultimate rejection of any form of notation. His projected choreography at Berlin Opera House, a chance to reconnect with the tradition of experimental dance excised by Hitler. A possible programme of work for Berlin. The difference between steps and dance, the life within the movement. How to develop intelligent dancers – his studio with Alwin Nikolai. Technique and performance. On embodied abstract dance.

Joseph Levitan (Also written ‘Lewitan’) (Tapes 60 & 71)

Biography

Levitan was a writer and teacher who met Laban in 1922/23, and left for the US when Hitler came to power.

Summary of Tape 60

He first met Laban in 1922/23. Laban’s last job in Berlin after being at the State Opera. His condition in Paris in 1937. Laban’s attitude to other kinds of dance. Laban’s role in the Memorial Celebration of Anna Pavlova (January 1931). Laban’s appointment as Maitre de Ballet of the Berlin State Opera. How he made work. Levitan talked much with Laban who was ‘more a thinker than a dancer.’ The cultural ferment of the interwar years – Bauhaus and more. Laban’s choreography ‘an invitation to an improvisation’. Levitan’s Journal Der Tanz was part of a more general attempt to broaden a discussion and understanding of dance: Laban was an enthusiastic participant. Kurt Jooss’ Green Table. Resistance to Der Tanz, ‘the last thing they wanted to use was their brains’. Levitan’s explorations of ‘Movemental Phraseology’. Laban’s will to understand worked in Germany but didn’t wash with Americans don’t ‘give a damn for thinking.’ Those who influenced dance in the US. Laban’s personality and how he makes (or doesn’t make) relations. How he wasn’t accepted by most, excepting his loyal few.

Summary of Tape 71

Laban’s Totalising Conception of Human Movement: a development of his thoughts about Laban the philosophiser begun on Tape 60. Isadora Duncan. The context of modern dance in the 1920s and Laban’s place within it. JL found Laban’s dances ‘awful’ – too cerebral. He couldn’t translate his philosophy into physical movement. Another account of Laban’s process as a choreographer. The connection between Laban and Wigman. Laban in Paris. His choreographies were acknowledged but never praised.

John Martin (Tape 80)

Biography

(1893 – 1985)

John Martin was one of America’s leading dance critics. In his early years he was an actor and developed an interest in Stanislavsky’s system of acting, particularly the notion that there are ‘dramatic impulses that arise within’. This may have influenced his approach to modern dance and his insistence that dance is the ‘expressions of an ‘inner compulsion’. After performances by the Denishawn Company there was a demand for dance critics, and in 1927 Martin was taken on by the New York Times. He saw it as his role to spread an understanding of modern dance (as opposed to ballet). His The Modern Dance was published in 1933.

Summary of Interview

Discussion of the dance styles of Mary Wigman, Harald Kreutzberg and Yvonne Georgi (both pupils of Wigman). Wigman’s relationship with Dalcroze’s music-oriented approach to dance). Laban had little influence on American dance. Possibly his notation (which Martin didn’t feel worked). A critique of Laban’s geometric approach to dance. Wigman’s approach appealed because it was expressive. He describes the effect of seeing Jooss’ Green Table and explains how dance promoters worked in the US. Discussion of Fritz Cohen (who wrote the music for Green Table) and his wife Else (who danced for Jooss).

Tape 19 Part 1 – Aurel Milloss

Biography

(1906 – 1988)

Milloss was Hungarian born and trained in Ballet by Russian teachers. He created some 3,000 ballets which are all notated and lodged in the archives of the Giorgio Cini Foundation in Rome.

Summary of Interview

He saw a number Laban’s choreographies in the disastrous Yugoslavian tour of 1924. He took private lessons from Laban in 1928. The difference between ballet (positions) and movement. He reflects on the limitations of Laban’s eukinetics. Laban was a prophet for modern dance. He saw and respected Laban’s ballets created in the Berlin State Opera. The dancing of Bereska and Loeszer described. What Wigman took from Laban. He argues that Jooss’s choreographies (which started from gesture) were similar to Laban’s early expressionist style but different from his later style.

Ludmilla Mlada (Tape 48)

Biography

(1918 - 2003)

Born Dorothy Rosemary Olga Ludmila, Ludi Horenstein, or Ludmilla Mlada made a lifelong contribution to British modern dance throughout the twentieth century. She studied at Marie Rambert’s school in the late 1930s and performed with Ballet Rambert on tours to Belgium (1946) and Canada (1947). She also danced with the Ballets Jooss in the 1940s and trained with Sigurd Leeder (1947-1950). Leeder photographed Mlada in performance, capturing the drama and expression in her work, examples of which can be seen in her archive collection at the NRCD.

Summary of Interview

A dancer with the Ballets Jooss who came across Laban when touring England during the war. Mention of Perrottet and her son André. She studied with Leeder and got her diploma. Kinetography Laban dispute with Ann Hutchinson, Leeder and Knust. As a protégé of Leeder she presented his account of Notation. She did a full notation of Der Schwingende Tempel which was renamed The Swinging Cathedral. A detailed account of how parts of the choir were colour-coded. There was also a ground plan. An account of an exchange with Laban on choreutics.

Jean Newlove (Tapes 17 & 18)

Biography

(1923 – 2017)

Jean Newlove was Laban’s first assistant in England and worked on movement observation in industry. She then worked with Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop where she met and married writer and actor Ewan MacColl. With Theatre Workshop she led Laban-based movement training and undertook small roles. She taught Laban-based movement throughout her life and published two books on the subject: Laban for Actors and Dancers (1993) and Laban for All (2004).

Summary of Tape 17 – Some time in 1974

(Conversation about her first job for Laban at Lyons, the bakery company, possibly their large factory in Hammersmith, which she undertook when on leave from being a Land Girl. She recounts getting to work by the underground which was being used as a massive bomb shelter.)

Julia Perrottet (Tape 79)

Summary of Interview

Brief recollections of Laban’s visits to the Perrottet family in Basel and working with Laban at the AMS. Laban’s comments on the quality of his students.

Suzanne Perrottet

Biography

(1889 – 1983)

Suzanne Perrottet trained as a violinist and it was when she was teaching rhythm and music at Emile Jaques-Dalcroze’s school in Hellerau that she came across Laban. Both she and Mary Wigman (also at Dacroze’s school) determined to leave Hellerau and join Laban in his summer course at Monté Verità in Ascona. She actively took part in the Dada experiments in Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich. In 1918 later took on Laban’s school in later renaming it the Bewegungsschule Suzanne Perrottet where she taught until 1979.

Summary of Interview

Suzanne Perrottet: - his legs, he went like this, step, step, step (unclear), like that, and both legs against the wall, so weighted (unclear) - da da da dee, da da da dee, da da da dee - and I noticed that, the others didn't do it that way, and he was quite round and chubby, and - but he had fire! And then the man said to me, did you see, that one, that's Jooss. I want you to meet him, you make a good fit together! And this Jooss, I remember, the first time, I saw him - (some non-verbal, possibly miming, laughter) and later – that was funny - when I was in England, in '36, to see Jooss, there was his child, there was the little one, the child, Anna, I think she must have been [about] three years old, something like that, and he says to me, you know, she dances with the music all the time, if we have radio – ah, radio hadn’t been – when we have the gramophone on and so she starts [dancing]. And I go into the room, and there I see the child – da da da dee, and da da da dee (repeats same melody / rhythm as before) and I say, but that is not possible! That's what you did back then! And he says: "Ah yes, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

Valerie Preston Dunlop

22 August 1974, 15 August 1991

Biography

(1930 - )

Valerie Preston began studying with Rudolf Laban at the Art of Movement Studio in Manchester in 1946 where she undertook work on movement observation in industry, as well as specialising in Labanotation. She later joined Hettie Loman’s British Dance Theatre. She taught at the Laban Centre and apart from her award-winning biography of Laban has published many books on Laban and on dance.

Summary of Tape 11

Her early dance education. Description of conditions (appalling) and the curriculum (chaotic) at the AMS, Manchester. Notation and the beginning of debates with Ann Hutchinson. Industrial work with Warren Lamb. Dancing with Hettie Loman. Learning to teach without much training. The advent of the Ministry of Education and its deadening effect on the teaching. Laban’s 70th birthday celebrations at the AMS. Living with Laban and Lisa in Manchester. His way of living. Notation of the transversal rings. Laban’s lack of intelligent company – whom could he talk to? Laban, a father figure to VPD. Tensions with Lisa Ullmann. Ullmann’s insecurity. Her devotion to Laban. Laban’s character, not pompous but occasionally fierce. His various illnesses.

Summary of Tape 12

The exercises in Mastery of Movement are cribbed from Knust’s Tanzschreibstube. Esmé Church at the Northern Theatre School, Bradford. Laban’s 70th birthday celebrations. Struggles between Sigurd Leeder, Knust, and Ann Hutchinson about notation. How and why he wrote Mastery of Movement (1950) and Principles of Dance Notation (1956). The difference between motion and position in his notations. Further details about the differences between Laban’s, Knust’s and Leeder’s forms of notation. Laban’s last book [Effort and Recovery]. Bill Carpenter and Movement Psychology. Laban’s last days were spent ‘writing, writing.’ Ullmann’s role in the AMS – organisational and managerial. The difference between his books in German and his ‘bread and butter’ English books (excluding Effort). The importance of his Effort work in industry. The making (reduction) of Laban’s ideas into systems. Benesh and Laban notations. Notation has no application for the work of choreographers like Bausch who is about gesture, prompting the question ‘what is dance?’

Felicia Sachs (Tapes 74 & 94)

Summary of Tapes 74 and 94

She was a private pupil of Laban’s and of Bereska’s from 1934 – 1936. A description of how Laban moved and of his accident when performing in Don Juan. Persecution the Jews by the Nazis (Sachs and her husband were Jewish). A portrait of Laban’s personal life and relations with women (and the fact that he used to rent two flats simultaneously). Description of Dusia Bereska, her teaching, drinking and her unique way of dancing. In the second tape she talks about productions by Rheinhardt and Piscator. The liberal attitude in 1920’s Berlin. Moholy-Nodj and Bauhaus style. Hitler’s rise to power and the rapid rise of anti-semitism. Discussion of Leni Reifenstahl’s film Triumph of the Will (1935). She calls Laban infantile for not facing up to the reality of Hitler’s regime. An account of his anti-Nazi activities in Bavaria. Laban tells her he had a Jewish grandmother.

Veronica Sherborne (Tape 39)

Biography

(1922 – 1990)

Sherborne (née Tyndale-Biscoe) initially trained to be a teacher of physical education and dance at Bedford College of Physical Education in 1940 – 43 and later as a physiotherapist. There she studied under Joan Goodridge, an early supporter of Laban. After a two-day course with Laban she went to Manchester to study with him and Lisa Ullman at the Art of Movement Studios in Manchester, where she studied with Warren Lamb, Valerie Preston-Dunlop and Geraldine Stephenson. She was then invited to help him on his book Modern Education Dance (1948). She is author of Developmental Movement for Children (1990).

Summary of Interview

Studies with Joan Goodridge (at Bedford College of P.E.) and Laban. Her shift from using the 8 Efforts to working with the Motion Factors (Weight, Space, Time, Flow). A critique of Laban’s followers who have confused his thinking. She denies having a hand in writing Modern Educational Dance, a book she finds turgid. Her teaching in Primary Schools. Her thoughts about Weight. Jung’s 4 Archetypes. Laban’s Drives and Inner States. Work at Withymead with Laban, focusing on movement observation (rather than psychological analysis). Work in the Drama Department of Bristol University. Working with gravity and children with learning difficulties. Laban and parenting. Dervish dances. An account of her career. Lisa Ullmann. Sylvia Bodmer. The importance of experiencing your weight on the ground, a feeling of grace and harmony. Flow. Warren Lamb’s theory of Flow (loss gain ration between Flow and Effort). Geraldine Stephenson. Laban’s work in industry. Further reflections on models of teaching.

Gertrude Friedburg Snell (Tapes 20, 45, 47)

The signal in all the tapes was appalling and there is little on any of them.

Summary of Tape 20

In the 1920s she became his assistant and worked with Knust on notation. She was interested in mathematics. In Manchester she found him changed, more human. An image of Laban the prankster. More on his character.

Summary of Tape 45

Establishment of the Deutsche Tanzbuhne in Berlin for unemployed dancers. She found it funny as an anti-fascist being paid by them and employing Jewish people. Frau Lieschke and her relations with the regime. Laban’s detainment in Schloss Banz (was it a prison or not?). Employment of Jewish people: a case of don’t ask, don’t tell.

Summary of Tape 47

Jo Meisenbach (See VPD’s biography for an account of his friendship w/ Laban pp. 53 – 54). Meeting up with Martin Gleisner in New York. Movement choirs and their political content. Fritz Böhme and his projected biography of Laban. Life in the years of hyper-inflation (1922 – 23). Account of Laban and Jooss meeting after the Paris premiere of Green Table in 1932. Changes in Laban notation from the cross to the five-line stave. Laban introduced the Icosahedron into his teaching in 1924. Summer course in Rangsdorf (outside Berlin) in 1935. Tauwind und der Neuen Freude, opening of the Dietrich Eckhardt Stadium 1936 Berlin Olympics. Irmgard Bartenieff stayed at her parents‘ house in Berlin

Simone and Willi Soukop (Tape 37)

John Hodgson JH

Vivienne Bridson VB

Simone Soukop SS

Willi Soukop WS

[From the beginning of Side B, which after 2.02 offers a clearer recording of Side A and then continues beyond for a further three minutes. Transcript follows the chronology of the conversation not the recording.]

Biographies

Vienna-born Willi Soukop (1907 – 1995), was a sculptor, member of the Royal Academy and early teacher of Elisabeth Frink. He sculpted Laban’s head which is now housed in the National Resource Centre for Dance at the Library of the University of Surrey.

Simone Moser (stage name Simone Michelle), (1916 – 19930. Paris-born Moser was a dancer and dance teacher. She was a member of the Ballets Jooss from 1936 to 39. In 1945 she married 1945 Willi Soukop. She was Director of the Leeder School of Dance from 1958 to 1965, and was a senior lecturer at the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance from 1965 to 1991.

Summary of the Interview

Simone was taught by Sigurd Leeder and later taught at the Laban Centre. Willi Soukop was a sculptor who sculpted a bust of Laban. Laban in England. The educational work set up by Ullmann. A sketch of a man who was tired and disillusioned (and not enchanted by the educational work). The relation between the Jooss-Leeder School, Jooss’s Ballet, Leeder’s school and Laban. The dance scene in the UK in the ‘40s and ‘50s as compared with the US. Sculpting Laban’s head. Was Laban a polymath or a dilettante? Laban’s Austro-Hungarian character. Martha Graham (with whom SS studied for a year).

Charles Weidman (Tape 80)

Biography

(1901 – 1975)

Charles Weidman’s career began when he danced with the Denishawn Dance Company created by Ted Shawn and Ruth St Denis. In 1927 he created a company with Doris Humphrey, also a dance with Denishawn. He wanted to create an American dance, one that yielded to the pull of gravity, rather than ballet which attempted to defy gravity.

Summary of Interview

He never met Laban but knew Juana and Wigman. He talks about the Humphreys-Weidman company and the work that they made together.

Mary Wigman (Tape 79)

Biography

(1886 – 1973)

Wigman’s first experience of dance was when, aged 25, she went to study with Emile Jaques-Dalcroze in 1911. Two years later she heard of Laban and joined his summer course in Ascona. She continued to study and dance with him until 1919, the same year that she gave her first solo performance. She championed an expressionist form of dance, ausdruckstanz. She started her own school in Dresden, the Mary Wigman-Schule in 1920-21. Her pupils included Hanya Holm and Harald Kreutzberg. She toured the United States in 1930, 1931 and 1933.

Summary of Interview

How she came to know about Laban through German-Danish painter Emile Nolde while she was in Dresden at the Dalcroze school in Hellerau, nr Dresden, studying with Suzie Perrottet. How she got to Ascona with help from architect Mies van der Rohe. An account of life and work in Monté Verità (Ascona) and how Laban helped a woman with kidney problems.

List of John Hodgson’s Interviews 1972 - 1991

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