The Laban Sourcebook

Book excerpt: Rudolf Laban (1879 – 1958) was a pioneer in dance and movement, who found an extraordinary range of application for his ideas; from industry to drama, education and therapy. Laban believed that you can understand about human beings by observing how they move, and devised two complimentary methods of notating the shape and quality of movements. The Laban Sourcebook offers a comprehensive account of Laban’s writings. It includes extracts from his five books in English and from his four works in German, written in the 1920s and translated here for the first time. This book draws on archival research in England and Germany to chart the development of Laban’s groundbreaking ideas through a variety of documents, including letters, articles, transcripts of interviews, and his unpublished Effort and Recovery. It covers: The beginning of his career in Germany and Switzerland in the 1910s. His astonishing rise to fame in Germany in the 1920s as a dance teacher, choreographer and creator of public dance events. Following his move to England in 1938, the application of his ideas to drama, education, industry, and therapy. Each extract has a short preface providing contextual background, and highlighting and explaining key terms. Passages have been selected and are introduced by many of the world’s leading Laban scholars.