Biography

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(1906 – 1988)

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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. 

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Summary of Interview

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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.

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Tape 19 

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Aurel Milloss: I think it was 1924, circa, I was in Yugoslavia and Laban had a tour with the Hamburger Tanzbühne Laban. The group was full of interesting people, there was Dussia Bereska, Gertrude Loeszer, Angiola Sartorio, Jens Keith, Edgar Frank, I believe, also, Werner Stammer, if I remember well, he was still a beginner at the time, and such people. Small group, maybe twenty people, I don't know. And I saw these performances in Zagreb, I saw “Gaukelei” (Juggling), “Drachentöterei” (Dragon Slaying), “Oben und Unten” (Up and Down), and such pieces. And I was very excited. I set my mind to one day go to Laban to study with him.

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I come from classical dance, I am Hungarian, too, by birth, like Laban, but I spent little time in Hungary because my home town was in southern Hungary, and southern Hungary has become partly Romania, partly Yugoslavia and I left as soon as I finished high school. I went to Paris first, to study - ballet – I studied with [Olga Iosifovna] Preobrajenska [1871 – 1962], but even before that I had studied classical ballet as a child, not very regularly, because my life was torn back and forth during the first war and because of that I couldn't follow regular lessons, but I did study, classical ballet, with different masters, in Belgrade, Bucharest and so on. As a child before the first war, I had my very first lessons in Budapest from an Italian master, Nicola Guerra, but then the war came, there was a long gap. 

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So I really wanted to devote myself to dance. I had also studied music, my father always thought I would become a conductor, as I had successfully completed my studies at the conservatoire, I had already conducted orchestras where I was only seventeen years old but it was dance that interested me. For a while I was in Paris and the impression of [seeing] Laban had stayed with me always, and one day I said: I’m going to Berlin. 

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At that time there was a theatre sciences institute in Berlin, at the university, in the philosophical faculty, where [they had] very interesting lectures on ballet, the cultural history of the ballet, Oskar Bie and about dance, Curt Sachs, who published the famous book “Weltgeschichte des Tanz” [Translated as World History of the Dance, 1937]. And I thought that would be interesting for me - and maybe I could meet Laban there, because I had heard that he was no longer in Hamburg but had come to Berlin. And I met Hertha Feist, first, and then I met Laban - he had his choreographic institute in a villa on Gildstrasse, number 10, I remember, Berlin Grunewald, and at that time he was especially focused on the problem of Kinetography, and that's when he first published, the first, elementary conceptions of the current form. This in collaboration with Universal Edition (unclear). Back then they also published a magazine: “Schrifttanz” (Writing Dance). It was interesting. I took a few - mostly solo lessons with Laban, from him, also practical lessons, and I didn't learn anything there, very little, but he inspired me very much. And I said to him: “I come from Ballet and I want to continue studying Ballet ... but Ballet is not enough for me!” I said.

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And he said to me: “Yes, because you know and feel exactly that Ballet is a purely formal position theory of the subject. Ballet, classical ballet is position theory and what you want is movement theory. And that’s what I'm looking for”, he said to me. So I did resolve position problems in motion- (interrupted, noise)

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AM: - There was an analysis of natural movement. And there he did studies with me, experimental, improvisation and so on, to experiment with everything that leads to Eukinetics, that belongs to Eukinetics. That inspired me a lot. And I said to him, about the form: “I'm afraid of this system, I think this system binds, and then one can only compose within it, the same as in classical dance, and then it’ll just be the five positions, the four arabesques, four attitudes, and so, that it’ll the same thing, just more modern, it’s not right.” And he said: “Yes, you are right, but it takes a lot of time to work it out”. He told me that.

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But I had to live, I had to work, and - as a dancer, I had to earn my money, and I continued to study classically because it was a concrete technique. And I went to Victor Gsovski, in Berlin, to study classically and I travelled to Italy in the summer of 1927 and '28, to [Enrico] Cecchetti [1850 – 1928, who taught Preobrajenska] and I saw with Cecchetti, that the way he teaches classical ballet is really a science. Not just mechanics, technique. Mechanics too - but [classical ballet] as a science. And in every study lesson of an hour and a half, Cecchetti always had half an hour, daily, of different ‘temps lié’ combinations. And he always shouted, in Italian: “Bisogna cantare il passo! One must sing the step!”

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- and I said, aha! Movement theory! And I come back to Laban, and I told him that. I say: “Dear master, even the classical school, if it is taught correctly, as it is with Cecchetti, is movement theory.” And he says: “Yes, because Ceccheti is a genius. But go [and look at] other schools!” And he was right.

So, I thought to myself I will have to deal with the matter on my own. I’ll have to master the classical technique well and afterwards in my - I always wanted to compose [my own] choreography, that was my impulse - afterwards I will find a synthesis in my own compositions, based on Eukinetics, not Choreutics in the same way as Laban did but rather a synthesis between a classical approach and Choreutics, which is possible because of Eukinetics and based on what Laban predicted. Without Laban, I wouldn't have used classical ballet the way I use it today. For me, I integrated Laban into today’s classical tradition. And classical tradition has become freer in my ballets.

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And my ballets are such that you can't say they're classical, or modern, or Laban, or not Laban - no! They are Milloss: but they have emerged because I understood the universal in Laban, and I wanted to do that and I am doing that. For me, Laban was the greatest prophet in the history of dance. Every conversation with Laban was a world to me. I came away from him enriched; only my muscles studied little with him, but that is not bad. In one lifetime alone you cannot replace what classical ballet has achieved in its 500 years of evolution. So what Laban said that remains, it is a truth, a great truth, it remains in history, even if people do not yet know how big it was, in the future there will be people who will discover a phrase here, a phrase there, maybe an article, a book - they will analyse and discover: voila, who Laban was.

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Furthermore, Laban's spirit/aura [Geist], his fluidum has spread. You will see ballets from everyone, even from those using a classical approach, even from Balanchine who really only does form dance, a genius in his way, but even there, too - which is [an approach] in opposition to movement theory in Laban’s sense - here too, you feel Laban's influence, whether or not every one of these creators, including Balanchine, is aware of this. Because it is his fluidum [aura] that has become manifest, it has suffused the atmosphere, it is in the air, and everyone, every choreographer, everyone feels it without knowing that it comes from Laban. You can observe a phenomenon today: the choreographers who come from the modern dance school - Cunningham for example, and others - they have a tendency to take what is good and what is necessary from the classical ballet. People who come from the classical ballet have a tendency to do everything that Laban actually predicted.

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Today you see a similarity in the choreographies: those that come out of modern dance as well as those based on the classical - they resemble each other. Bejart, for example, comes from the classical but is very modern, and many people who come from the modern have already developed  the classical. It is a fact that what Laban wanted is gradually, organically becoming reality over time. People don't know this originates with him, but they will know; I am convinced of it, and I am extremely grateful to Laban, without Laban I would not have become the person I have become today. I had another great teacher for my spiritual development; that was Bela Bartok. He was another universal human being who created music and art from this universal feeling and for me he was a great master. I always say that my greatest masters for technique were definitely Cecchetti and Gsovsky, but for my art and for my Weltanschauung and for my inner moral world, my masters were Bela Bartok and Rudolf von Laban. 

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Part 2 - Q&A

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In the second half of the interview, which takes the form of a Q&A session, the interviewer speaks English, while the translator speaks English and German and Aurel Milloss speaks German and French, as indicated.

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Translator (in German): Laban’s writings

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AM: -Writings?

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Translator (in German): Yes, Laban’s writings, have you, in what way, have these (unclear) helping you?

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AM: They inspired me. "Die Welt des Tänzers” [The world of the dancer] – as well as his first booklet, "Choreographie", which was only one booklet, published in Jena, interesting, then "Gymnastik und Tanz- Des Kindes Gymnastik und Tanz” [The Child's Gymnastics and Dance] and then there was a special issue of the magazine "Die Schönheit", with articles by him, also in the magazine "Der Tanz" there were sometimes articles by him, and I went to his lectures, in Hamburg, in Essen, in Magdeburg, in Berlin, and they were all very interesting, very inspiring, and I also have his books that he published in England, two books, I think, yes, and then I have his autobiographical book, "Ein Leben für den Tanz” [A Life in Dance], which he had dedicated to me , when I had created a classical interpretation of his ballet "Gaukelei" [Juggling].

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INTERVIEWER: (in English) Does he find that he follows Laban's ideas on improvisation as a means of evolving choreography or does he find he works on more set forms of choreography?

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Translator (in German): When you do your choreography, you know, improviz - I always get this one upside down - improviz, improvise -

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AM: Improvise.

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Translator (Ger): Yes, do you know this with your choreography, but do you do your choreography with the steps and this form?

AM: No. With the steps that I invent in the moment, because I have to invent them out of my feeling, out of my thinking, or out of feeling, but controlled through my thinking and then set into shape. And I think that they absolutely correspond to the principles of Laban, but also to the principles of classical dance, but the classical dance as I see it today: a re-evaluation.

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Translator (in English): Yes he does use improvisation and also, he says his choreography comes at the moment, in the moment, he works with the people (unclear)

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AM: Modern dance is often anarchic. Laban was never anarchic. There was always a relationship between Laban and the Ballet. But the point was that Laban saw the ballet differently.

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Translator (Eng.): Sometimes modern dance was anarchic (unclear) but he says Laban was not.

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INTERVIEWER (Eng.): We need maybe something about Laban's work in Berlin. Does he know anything about (unclear)

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Translator (Ger.): What did you see, when, the work of the Laban in Berlin?

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AM: In Berlin, and in Magdeburg and in Essen I saw “Die Grünen Clowns” [ the green clowns], “Titan”[ Titan], “Die Nacht” [The Night], “Ritterballett” [Ballet of the Knights], “Narrenspiegel” [Fool’s Mirror] and in the State Opera in Berlin I saw the dances for the opera “Prinz Igor” [Prince Igor], and I saw the dances for the classical operetta "Eine Nacht in Venedig” [A Night in Venice] by Johann Strauss. And “One Night in Venice” by Johann Strauss was classical ballet! And everyone said, impossible, Laban didn't do that because nobody wanted to believe that he was also a master of the ballet. And it was perfect classical ballet.

Translator(Eng.): "Night in Vienna", which Laban did in the State Opera, he saw and people said this cannot be Laban because it’s too classical, and yes it was all Laban and it was perfect.

AM: But Laban had the spirit of classical ballet too! And he could present it as a demonstration of his real understanding of the style.

Translator (Eng.): When he presented it, it had life and spirit.

INTERVIEWER: Why wasn’t he more successful as a Ballet master?

Translator (Ger.): People say to us, when Laban was in Berlin, he has not so much success with choreography. Do you think that?

AM: I saw something else, I saw: “ Walpurgisnacht in Faust” [Walpurgis night in Faust] by Gounod, not to his ballet music, but to other music, also by Gounod, in collaboration with the conductor Erich Kleiber, who conducted it, and people did not find it appealing. And, personally, I thought it was genius.

Translator (Eng.): People, the general press found some things he did were not successful but he thinks he had the mark of a genius.

INTERVIEWER: In what - what was his mark of genius? Was it in his spontaneity, or visual picture…

Translator (Ger.): You have said this dance Laban has genius. Yes. And what was this genius, was it in the image, in Eukinetics, in …?

AM: In everything. In everything. He had a vision and that vision was perfect. Not - perfectly executed, he was a nervous man, he never had the time and patience to work out all the details exactly. But it was all there.

Translator (Eng.): Because he was very visionary maybe (unclear) but it was not perfectly performed.

INTERVIEWER: Some say he was not able to create a ballet because he would never allow things to remain the same for two, twice running, and he always wanted change, so that this was, put the dancers.. into insecurity.

Translator (Ger.): We met a Laban dancer in Berlin, and she said to us, Laban was a little hard with choreography, every day, every day he wasn't the same, yes?

AM: No, his choreography was always the same.  When “Narrenspiegel” [Fool’s Mirror] was on tour, it was always [performed] the same, every day. It was not improvised, that is not true. Laban's choreographies were well thought out, only he did not create [“gestaltet”] them virtuously, he didn’t have the patience.

Translator (Eng.): when it was finished it was always the same, the ideas were lightly (unclear), the had defined the forms

AM: … Those were solid structures.

Translator (Eng.): But for the soloists it was hard

AM: (in French) C’était des structures très solides. [Those were solid structures.]

INTERVIEWER: Hertha Feist suggested that he left his soloists alone, a lot, that he turned his thumb up or down (unclear)

Translator (Ger.): Hertha Feist said yesterday with soloists in these dances, often they work alone, and Laban came later and says this is good, but this is not good.

AM: I didn't see it that way.

Translator (Eng.): He didn’t see it that way.

INTERVIEWER: He was able to work with soloists…

AM: I always saw Laban differently than the people who surrounded him.

Translator (Eng.): He says Laban always knew what he wanted.

AM: As I come from classical dance, and I have learnt how to think. And consequently I could see the thought processes in Laban’s [theories]. The structure. He constructed [his forms],  constructed very carefully. 

Translator (Eng.): He had very carefully constructed these things.

INTERVIEWER: Laban knew what he wanted, but did he know how to get it – as a choreographer?

Translator (Ger.): Laban has this idea constructed, but when he works with these people, has these people known this idea? 

AM: Maybe on occasion, with a few, but all his major works were constructed.

Translator (Eng.): His work, he had thought out, simply (noise, unclear)

INTERVIEWER: Did he ever see Laban dance himself?

Translator (Ger.): Did you, when Laban danced, did you see Laban?

AM: Yes, I saw him.  

INTERVIEWER: Can he describe what sort of a dancer he was.

AM: He really was very interesting, you know, but of course, in terms of type he wasn’t a typical dancer. 

Translator (Eng.): He wasn’t really a dancer. (laughs)

AM: Er hatte interessante Gesten gehabt He had  interesting gestures. 

INTERVIEWER: Yet he danced for quite a long time, for a while –

AM: Nur etwas möcht ich sagen: alleine seine Kinetographie, also sein Tanzschriftsystem, beweist wie nahe er zum klassischen Tanz stand. Denn er hat entdeckt, dass der Mensch zwei Arme hat, zwei Beine hat, einen Kopf, einen Rumpf, und wo er notieren wollte musste er genau, eine Sezierung, anatomisch sezieren den Körper und genau festlegen, aha,  der Raum ist vor rück rechts links hoch tief und all die Diagonalen etc etc und hat da hineingebaut, nur so durch die Notation haben sich die ideen der neuen Choreutik geklärt.

AM: But there is one thing I would like to add: his Kinetography alone, i.e. Laban notation, proves how close he was to classical dance. Because he discovered that man has two arms, two legs, a head, a torso, and when he wanted to notate, he had to do a dissection, anatomically dissect the body very precisely -  aha, the space, in front, back, to the right or left, up, down - and all the diagonals etc etc and he built [this structure] there, and only in this way, the ideas of the new Choreutics have been clarified.

Translator (Eng): He brought it out very clearly in his system (unclear) he understood it structurally.

INTERVIEWER: What about Bereska, the dancer?

Translator (Ger.): Did you see Bereska -

AM: Yes.

Translator (Ger.): when she danced? 

AM: Yes. Didn’t impress me.

Translator (Eng.): Not very good.

AM: She was a beautiful woman, was interesting as a person, but she wasn’t an impressive dancer.

Translator (Eng.): She was an interesting woman but she really wasn’t a great dancer

AM: The most interesting dancer in his dance company [Tanzbühne] was Gertrude Loeszer.

Translator (Eng.): The most interesting stage dancer was Gertrude Loeszer.

INTERVIEWER: More interesting than, ah, Wigman?

Translator (Ger.): Was Gertrud Loeser more interesting than Wigman?

AM: Different. She was a Laban interpreter, whereas Mary Wigman was – had her own world. Mary Wigman had a kind of, Asian, something… she was something completely different.

Translator (Eng): Gertrud Loeser interpreted Laban’s ideas very well -

AM: What Wigman took from Laban was the idea of a primal dance [Urtanz].

Translator (Eng.): (noise) Wigman took the idea (unclear) 

AM: And then she developed it for herself, which is why she always created these mysterious things, witch dances, visions, dream visions, ceremonial figures and so on, that was the world of - 'In the sign of the dark' – this was the best Mary Wigman. Colossal. But it's just that - Laban wanted something different. But he didn't manage to produce anything as perfectly as Mary Wigman's things, they were perfect. And Laban could not be perfect, he had far too many ideas for this, always new and new, he had no patience to work out every detail - but: he inspired.

Translator (Eng.): Wigman realised her ideas more perfectly than Laban did, though he had many more – Wigman was always more on the dark side of life, while Laban had (unclear)

INTERVIEWER: Yes, ah, what is it, is Jooss, closer to the person who interprets Laban, or develops Laban.

Translator (Ger.): Was Jooss like Getrude Loeszer, an interpreter, or –

AM: No, I didn't see Jooss as an interpreter of Laban, I only saw Jooss in his own ballets, “Den Grünen Tisch” [The Green Table] and many other ballets before he ever made “The Green Table”. It was very interesting - his personal inventions were very Jooss, but they were similar to Laban's earlier type, Expressionism. You know, Jooss is – he starts from the gesture. And he develops the gesture into something wonderful.  Jooss is an, an enormous man. I always - I admire him very much. And, but, it – Laban didn't always start with the gesture. There was a separate cosmic vibration to Laban, and that's why he is different. You can't really say that Jooss interpreted Laban. I didn't see him in Laban's ballets, he used to dance in Laban's ballets but before the tour in Yugoslavia, so Jooss wasn't there anymore, Jooss was already in Münster in Westphalia, so I never saw him dance with Laban, I never saw that.

Translator (Eng.): He’s seen many many (unclear), also from before “The Green Table”, (unclear) and matures his ideas, (unclear) he was influenced, the influence from (unclear) Laban was there, (unclear) he became free from this influence and found his own language…

INTERVIEWER: Did he find Laban as a teacher, always constructive, or did he find him sometimes unhelpful and destructive?

Translator (Ger.): When Laban was a teacher, was he always constructive?

AM: He was not a pedagogue, he was a great inspiration, a hypnotist, a great stimulator.

Translator (Eng.): He wasn’t a teacher, he was… 

AM: He was an intellectual/spiritual pedagogue for talented people. But it wasn’t for people without talent.

Translator (Eng.): For brilliant people he was a wonderful teacher, but he wasn’t a person who (unclear)

INTERVIEWER: Does he believe Laban’s emotional involvement with some of his pupils helped or hindered his work?

Translator (Ger.): Uhm. Laban had many friendships with many women. 

AM: Yes.

Translator (Ger.): Was this good for Laban’s work or not?

AM: I can't judge that, I didn't want to pry into his intimate life.

Translator (Eng.): He says he can’t really say anything like that because your intimate life is your own affair.

INTERVIEWER: Yes, yes, yes…

AM: Every human being, every human being has weaknesses. It's human [nature].

Translator: Uhm, it’s part of the man.

INTERVIEWER: His intimate life seemed to be part of his work as well, you know, he, he did mix it. (unclear)

AM: I saw him dance Don Juan. 

Translator (Ger.): Yes?

AM: With Hertha Feist. That’s how he was in life, certainly.

Translator: He says in Don Juan with Hertha Feist, and his life and his love (unclear)

INTERVIEWER: Yes, I feel for me Don Juan is a key ballet in Laban’s life.

AM: I saw Don Juan by ?? And I personally danced Don Juan, the same music. Of course I did it differently. I went into the Gluck style and so on, with Laban the hell scene was a bit like this, and it was also the time ...  and because of that I consider Don Juan as not important.

Translator: (unclear)

AM: It was stylistic. But real style pieces are different.

Translator (Eng): (unclear) many interesting pieces, but not, united

INTERVIEWER: Laban had a good sense of humour about other people, did he, was he able to have the same sense of humour about himself?

Translator (Ger.): From other people, Laban saw this very funny maybe, and he made a lot of drawings, cartoons from other people, was he the same with theirs?

INTERVIEWER: Could he laugh at himself, really?

AM: Laban had a lot of irony, too.

(Recording is interrupted.)

Translator (Eng.): Laban was very ironic, perhaps more about other people than himself.

AM: Was very new.

INTERVIEWER: Yes… he had a sort of inability to settle at anything for very long. Does he think that’s because his ideas were so fermented?

Translator (Ger.): Laban doesn't stay with these idea for a long time. Do you think this was because he has too many idea?

AM: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Which part of Laban’s work do you feel has been most important to you?

Translator (Ger.): From this idea of the Laban, which are the most interesting for you?

AM: His broad horizon, how he saw dance as a phenomenon, the incredible variety of possibilities, and that it also gave a lot of space to imagination, and that everything that happens in movement was really present with Laban.

Translator: The idea (unclear)... fantasy and reality are the same thing

AM: It always hurts me that none of my colleagues - some of the most famous choreographers - cites Laban. I have always said: I am also a student of Laban.

Translator (Eng.): Many people never admit that they have learnt from Laban, but he always says that he –

INTERVIEWER: When did he last discuss with Laban?

Translator (Ger.): When was the last time you have met Laban?

AM: I met [him] from 1926 to 1935, at the beginning, and then I had difficulties in Germany, just like him, and I went to Budapest and he went to London.

INTERVIEWER: (unclear), let’s go –

(Recording stops.)

AM: - and Laban always said to me: Don’t worry, I prefer your approach, because you are not dogmatic - we are more alike in our views than others who approach my ideas dogmatically.

Translator (Eng.): The teachers in Laban’s schools became very dogmatic and they didn’t like –

AM: When I graduated with him, his teachers didn't want me to get my diploma and Laban said, "Why? He is the only man who thinks like me! ”And I got my diploma.

(noise, unclear, recording stops.)

AM: If Laban was alive today, I'm sure, I would be best friends with him.

Translator (Eng.): He was with Laban always the best of friends.

AM: And he would stand by me, too.

(End of recording.)

Ludmilla Mlada (Tape 48)

Biography

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(1918 - 2003)

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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.

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Summary of Interview

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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.

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Tape 48 [00.36. 54 – 01.17.06]

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LM: … Rotherham where they were playing one of those dreary tours that CEMA sent us on for six weeks in each year when you brought light and radiance into the lives of our war-torn factory workers. And so us new members, in a way student members really, we had lessons from 

JH: Were you playing in a factory? 

LM: No, no we were playing in a recreation all-purpose hall of Ridley Warrington which I think is the site of one our colleges of education or nearby anyway where I had played a recital. Anyway, it was nearby. And well, I’ll cut all the cackle on the Jooss bit because you can have that when you want Jooss. They were going on about these Schwungskalen [swinging scales], because, remember, they’d got it pre-Laban coming to England and were re-analysing it. So we had the Time, Space, Energy, and the Eight qualities which you probably about which are different to what he subsequently had and that’s what people were being educated in. So he kept mentioning this Laban chap, you see, and What’s all this? He was obviously the great god Pan coming. 

JH: This was Jooss or Leeder? 

LM: Both of them, because we never get [Inaudible sentence in a thick foreign accent]. … had been researched very much in clinical detail. [Muttering] I don’t think we met any Labanese until we took Julia Franke along on a large tour, and she was probably being groomed for the National ballet of Canada but we didn’t know it. And she was having private lessons with Laban and so he hauled her off to see Perrottet. Perrottet told Celia [Lustig?] because Celia and I were quite good chums… 

JH: When was this? 

LM: June probably, of ’47. Laban was still alive you see, and Perrottet told Celia, ‘One day he will come back to me and my son, our son [André]’, and Celia thought this was terribly pathetic. Do you know, this is why he has made a point to our friend about it [sense unsure]. So what this man must have been to have had an influence on an aging woman… all those … and I don’t want this on the tape because it’s about living people and it’s unfair… but this was when I realised what a fascinating man he must have been, where a woman who must have been then as old as I am now, if not even a little older could have this actually trusting attitude that her lover would come back, when she must have had to have known that he wouldn’t. [A remark about the heat in the room]. So we chalked that one up. 

JJ: I’ve met her

LM: Oh so you’ve met her. 

JH: And while, in a sense, he isn’t going to come back now, but she still has that kind of ‘My lover’ feeling about it. 

LM: For me it’s all very Vienna Succession and Klimpt-ey. And the whole Central European thing. A bit in a cloud…

JH: But almost all the women…

LM: I realise that. I think we’d got to New York by then. But wherever we went elderly ladies, as old as I am now, would go ‘Ahh, O God’, not so much about Laban but about the whole ambiance. Well then as the ballet broke up, a friend came to stand in for him, said ‘I’ve like to give you a memento’ …. That’s another story for when we get to the Jooss thing. All highly scurrilous stories about his various mentors. But as a memento he gave me this book. And his sister had been a Laban student, though I don’t think she’d been a Laban playmate, shall we say. By that time I was well hooked on this whole 1920s Expressionist do, you see. And I had an imaginary character called Elvira von Ashtosh with which I used to convulse the ballet members, particularly the older ones, by doing this thing, with all these terrible poems. And of course they thought it was funny to see an English woman playing up like this. But I realise now that it wasn’t far off the mark, quite honestly. And one must remember that one had been brought up with all these old Fritz Lang films, because my brother had a little Pathé camera so we sort of grew up with Metropolis, you name it, we saw it! That type of thing, so I knew the background of it already very well. And nothing I have heard since has led me to believe I was wrong, even meeting people like [inaudible] who I know quite well. 

Then I went as a student to Leeder, and then of course I started hearing really much more about … 

JH: Then you went to Leeder

LM: Then I went to Leeder and it started becoming clear because this was taught within its own terms of reference and of course it was what he had done in Essen and at Dartington as head of the, at that time, it was the Examining School, as you know in Essen, for the finalist who had their Laban diplomas. So we they all had to go there and be examined by Jooss and Leeder and of course Lisa. So he had reminiscences of these various ladies whom he hadn’t worked with of course because he’d come from a different background altogether, Leeder. But he had heard of them. Then we went in about October/November ’51 to hear Leeder give a lecture in the Lexis Theatre. 

Cut in tape

LM: So it was one of those exercises where you go into the ballet. Now whether we were present that time or not I don’t remember, but I gather sir and madam approved. But the next time... So that was all very traumatic because he himself was there. [Inaudible exchanges as they eat a meal together] 

Kinetography Laban Dispute with Ann Hutchinson, Laban and Knust

The first time I really met him was when Ann Hutchinson came winging over from America, anxious to [inaudible] Laban, well it was then called Kinetography Laban. And as you know the field had been split by the war, so Ann was developing a transatlantic script, Knust was doing his thing in one bit of Europe and not so much Jooss but Leeder was teaching, so we could learn this horrible thing. And then of course we had to learn it as students. So I was supposed to be the Queen Bee of it by this time. You never believe this now because I have been erased since 1984 from all records but you just have take it from me that Valerie Whatshername [Preston Dunlop] and I were the upandcoming young smarties. She was Ann’s protégé and I was Sigurd’s. We use to meet in a hotel and have these great script conferences. So we then decided [inaudible] because I think the pianists were on the warpath by then, we better go down and see Herr, himself. So we all travelled down to Addlestone, I suppose in that funny train. And we met Laban. This was Ann [Hutchinson] and Sigurd and Valerie and me. I’d never met him before and he was exactly as he has been described, very much. An Uncle-ey type. Do you know that Wisteria arch? Well it was then in full bloom. It hadn’t all withered by then. [inaudible] … Madly Edwardian, and I thought to myself, This is absolutely his background. This garden must have been set out about the time he was a lad. It was all very Klimt and this and that. He was very keen to get this off the ground and we each had a [inaudible], I think I may have thrown those notes away, if I haven’t you could have them all because there might be little quotes like, Mr Laban said you better do this. I was supposed to be in charge very much of the theatre staff, and Valerie in charge of all the education. Well, by that time as usual Sigurd and Lisa couldn’t agree. Lisa was being critical about it or citing Ann or what it really was the internecine strife, etc. etc. At that point it all split up. Ann went back to America and I think the next thing was that the [inaudible] well and truly. So by ’53 I think Ann, I think what is was that Ann had quarrelled with Lisa and Sigurd, or else they had all quarrelled with each other. 

Der Schwingende Tempel

And by ’53 Lisa and Sigurd came together again and so muggins who was the Queen Bee was asked to record what had been Der Schwingende Tempel was now in deference to being in a Christian country to be called the Swinging Cathedral. It had been a Temple for many a long year in the old Deutschland in the pre-Hitler days you see. 

JH: Was that the reason for the change? 

LM: Well, that’s what Sigurd said. 

JH: It seems to me to be a total myth. 

LM: It was called the Swinging Cathedral by the time I was let loose on it anyway! And I said, Isn’t this fascinating and they’re going to pay me x number of pounds for writing this notation. [Back to the meal and the choice for the next course.]

[break in tape]

LM: Not the Eccleston, but some hotel by the side of the British Museum, where he used to stay, Leeder used to stay. Montague, Marmaduke – something like that. And there I met him. He came down into the alcoves you have in those hotels. And this was what was to be done. So we’ve got two or three weeks at that big conference hall near the YMCA. On a high platform there is a piano. There was everything with their labels cut off, because you know what a vandal Laban was musically for mixing things up. So [inaudible] must have got the score in the own right in the archive somewhere of the Swinging Cathedral. There were different colours: there was red, black, yellow, probably green, blue and probably white, as I recall. And the black were very stosey [?] you see, and then there were crazy ones, and I had to sit there doing all these movement themes, you see. Well remember, Knust hadn’t been over all that often by then, so you had to invent your own ways of how to do all the ground plans. And I don’t think Laban, not for very much of the time. But it wasn’t difficult because you know they did it often enough. 

JH: Who was actually doing it? 

LM: Lisa was doing it. 

JH: Did she know Der Schwingende Tempel? 

LM: You’ll have to ask her! How do I know? 

JH: I’ll ask her. 

LM: [inaudible] And some of the music was quite [inaudible] and it was quite mixed, you know, taken from here and there. I don’t think in the end it had to be tied onto the music [inaudible] . Well this involved showing the draft to Lisa who was being quite [inaudible] Well they paid me so it must have been. Well, I got rather fed up with it frankly. There was rather a backlog on, there are notes, and you don’t know what you’ve written and have to make it all up. [inaudible – sound quality deteriorates at 00.52.00] I had a student whom I had taught notation, because you must remember that at this time I was the queen pin of notation, you see. It is hard to believe, but there it was. I was put into a think machine and obliterated soon afterward, by Sigurd of course. [inaudible] And on one occasion and this would be in this hotel opposite the British Museum. They invited me to dinner and we had dinner and afterwards I think we went up to … I had to work with Lisa over these… by now I was getting near to the final draft, I would imagine it was the second Saturday or third Saturday or whatever it was by then, and I was in Lisa’s room and Laban was there and he was tired and so he went off to his room and we said, Well we’ll get on with it. And then, I think we had coffee, I suppose it was in her room, so he went out, and I thought, Well what a pity because we were talking choreutics by then, which was also my field and of course it was fascinating because he really [inaudible] talked about something one already knew enough about to realise that he knew so much more than me. [inaudible] And then, for some reason, he came back again and why he went out of the room I can’t imagine. Whether he went to take a phone call, but we started going on talking Choreutics and then she came back and they were saying – now this you won’t believe, but you just have to, you have to believe this is true – they said, Oh do these movies in the A-scale and all that. Now Sigurd did teach them very creatively, certainly and I had been teaching choreutics very much driving it into dance by then, and apparently they were fascinated, particularly Laban. Now, Ah we must get together and I want to see how this works on a theatre person. Well this was subsequently quashed, very much, of course. But just for that one half hour, or whatever it was, there was this curious rapport that there can be when large, middling and small, very small, are sharing something; very, very big ideas. And it was one of the most marvellous moments of my life, not because it was Laban, because who they are I couldn’t care less, whether they’re famous or not, but because they are this [inaudible] in the air. We cleared the furniture aside, the chairs and whatever it was, just moved, and ‘Now try the three-ring’ and Do I know the seven-ring’, no I didn’t. I didn’t know any more than four rings. How do you do this and how do you do this? And it was marvellous, but it was all in movement, it wasn’t really talking. And then he really was an old, tired man. He went away and I supposed we finished what we were doing and that was that. 

JH: He demonstrated, did he? 

LM: No, he didn’t actually. He sort of … I get the feeling of him telling and me doing. Either she was keeping very quiet and shut herself off, because you must remember that she did not approve of Leeder in those days and other theatrical thing. And Ruth Foster couldn’t bear any of us either. And afterwards there was a sort of complete cut-out. Anything I wanted to do I was automatically blacked. Don’t ask me why. I have no idea. 

JH: I have. [inaudible] 

[cut in tape]

LM: … Victoria.  I probably took the final score there to them. But the only time I remember vividly… oh there was another time. He came to a performance of Leeder’s group dance which were very movement [inaudible]. This would be summer ’55, about June ’55 I rather think. I was doing a dance called Priestess which I made up myself and he made a point of asking to see me afterwards. [inaudible] I am getting a bit tougher but in those days, you know I was completely mild and he thought [inaudible]. He did. ‘I must congratulate you that really was first class.’ He made a really good compliment. And he didn’t have to. Well, okay with historical background one couldn’t reproduce something which one meant [inaudible] 

[cut in tape]

JH: When you say you took it, did you have a final conference on it? 

LM: I think I just took it there and that was that. I can’t remember. I suppose I saw him. I might not have done.  The two times I remember very vividly is when he came back of his own accord because he wanted to go on talking about something he loved very much which he

[cut in tape]

LM: Put in the long term thing, the important thing, before the minutiae, that 

JH: That was in his mind all the time.  What were your dances, then? 

LM: It was for teachers. It was one of those courses where they came together for the whole day because… we had coffee and lunch, it went on all day. Either two or three Saturdays. [inaudible]

JH: Presumably they were getting the ideas from memory, then? Presumably at that point it was being recalled from memory? 

LM: I think Lisa was probably directing it. I can see that platform, the stage, with the piano at the end … [cut in tape] … three bars cut and ten bars interpolated. He was incredibly naughty about music 

[from 59.06 tape continues with two tracks overlaid, one JH and the other possibly LM, it becomes clearer from 01.05.09 but dips in and out, so only 2 – 3 seconds can be heard before it becomes muffled again].

About Ludmila Mlada 

Ludmila Mlada (Ludi Horenstein) (1918-2003) Born Dorothy Rosemary Olga Ludmila, Ludi Horenstein made a lifelong contribution to British modern dance throughout the twentieth century. Typified for her comic and dramatic solo recitals her legacy was lived out under three names, Rosemary Young, Ludi Horenstein and Ludmila Mlada, the latter being the most well known. Ludi 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). She went on to perform with the Studio Group and teach at, amongst other places, the Leeder School and the Webber Douglas School of Singing and Dramatic Art. Many of Mlada’s solo recitals featured dramatic characters including Lucifer and the Priestess, and Leeder choreographed a range of dances for her such as Galop, Nocturne, and Figura Tragica. Also, Buddy Bradley and Jane Winearls were among the choreographers who created dances specifically for Mlada. Leeder photographed Mlada in performance, capturing the drama and expression in her work, examples of which can be seen in her archive collection. Pioneer Women: early British modern Dancers 5 University of Surrey / National Resource Centre for Dance project 2008-2010 

The Ludmila Mlada Collection The Ludmila Mlada Collection was donated to the NRCD in 2003 and consists of photographs; correspondence, including letters from Sigurd Leeder; hand drawn programmes; over 200 music scores; over 100 gramophone records, including non-commercial recordings of music composed specifically for Horenstein by pianists Joseph Brand, Thomas Henderson and Anthony Bowles; hundreds of news cuttings with reviews of her performances and also dances scored in Laban notation by Mlada. For further information about the collections please contact nrcd@surrey.ac.uk [From Pioneer Women: early British modern dancers June 2008-May 2010:, Professor Rachel Fensham (Principal Investigator, Surrey) Professor Alexandra Carter (Co-Investigator, Middlesex) Helen Roberts (Co-Investigator, NRCD) Emily Churchill (Project Archivist) Laura Griffiths (Project Archive and Research Assistant)]