Keeping fit with the Laban Archive

We’ve been having a bit of a ‘keep fit’ theme in the archive recently. Felicity Croydon, archive assistant, has been cataloguing a box of papers from the Keep Fit Association and Central Council of Physical Recreation and came across this gem of a book featuring exercises with Eileen Fowler.

The Keep Fit Association’s exercises are based on Rudolf Laban’s principles.

And Ann Lewis, one of our inspiring ‘Retired not Tired’ archive volunteers found a booklet of exercises sent to Peter Brinson, former Head of Postgraduate studies at Laban, from the ‘Laurance Institute of Health and Stamina Ltd’ in the 1940s.

We’re looking forward to trying some of these out in the office!

Both these items will be available to view soon on the archive catalogue

Happy endings

Our ‘Retired not Tired’ Dance for Health archiving group comprising Jane Mandlik, Gill James, Hilary Ball and Ann Lewis, hard at work.

So we have come to the end of term and our hard working volunteers are finally having a bit of a breather. They have been working extremely hard with amazing results!

Ann Lewis finishes listing her box of Peter Brinson material.

Sara Manazza finishes cataloguing her box of photographs of small dance companies in the UK covering the dates 1898-2002, from the Peter Williams Collection held in the Laban Archive

And have found some really interesting things on the way …

Gill James and a Ballet for All flyer advertising the first ever time that members of the Royal Ballet and the Martha Graham Company performed together on the same stage, at the Theatre Royal, Stratford. Held in the Peter Brinson Collection in the Laban Archive.

Extract from a programme of the Young Playhouse Association where a certain David Bowie was performing in 1967 in a work by Lindsay Kemp. Held in the Peter Brinson Collection in the Laban Archive.

Printed manuscript, with corrections, of ‘The Romantic Ballet in Paris’ by Ivor Guest, a standard work for dance historians, first published in 1966. This manuscript is dated 1965. Held in the Peter Brinson Collection in the Laban Archive.

These items will soon appear on our Laban Archive catalogue – have a browse to see what else we have!