And on to Creekside …

In this the last post in our series celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Faculty of Dance at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, we take a look at items in the archive illustrating the development of the Laban Building at Creekside.

In 1997 an international architectural competition was launched to find an architect to design a new building for what was then the Laban Centre (now the Faculty of Dance, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance). The Centre had been based at Laurie Grove in New Cross, SouthEast London since 1976. But the Centre had run out of space and needed world class facilities to match its world class status as the largest training school for contemporary dance in the world at that time. Out of a field of one hundred and twenty competing architects, six were shortlisted.

The Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron were chosen as the winners.

Photograph of architectural model of the Laban Building at Creekside by Herzog & de Meuron, Scale 1:200, c1999. RefNo: LA/D/14/6

Photograph of deconstructed architectural model of the Laban Building at Creekside by Herzog & de Meuron, Scale 1:200, c1999. RefNo: LA/D/14/6

A funding application was made to the Arts Council which provided half the funds needed to build on a brown field site in Deptford in Lewisham, an area rich in history. See a section of an historical  Ordnance Survey map, from the National Library of Scotland, of the area from 1898 here.

Front cover of the Summary document,  Volume 1 of the Stage 3 Submission by the Laban Centre London, Lottery Bid No. 98-506, June 1999, RefNo: LA/D/6/3/13

The new building was planned to be a flagship ‘which will drive the regeneration of the Deptford Creekside locality. The new LCL [Laban Centre London] will provide cultural and community facilities of significant value to the residents of Deptford and the surrounding area.’ (Lottery Bid No. 98-506, Laban Centre London p.2)

The full application document included volumes on the design of the new building, arts and educational activities, public benefit, financial viability, management and marketing, along with weighty appendices including plans of the new building.

 

 

 

 

The funding bid was successful and work began on the new building in 2000.

Laban Centre staff visiting the building site of the Laban Building at Creekside, c2000. Photographer unknown. RefNo: D4/2008/25/29/1

By October 2002 staff and students were able to move in.

Photograph of members of Laban staff, including Reg Fitch and Anthony Bowne, in the new Laban Building at Creekside, c2002. Photographer unknown. RefNo: D4/2008/25/31/1

On 5 February 2003 our new building was offically opened by the Rt Hon. Tessa Jowell MP, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.

Photograph of an invitation and programmes for the official opening celebration of the new Laban Building at Creekside, Deptford, SE London, February 2003. RefNo: LA/2004/49

Performances at the official opening ceremony were given in the new Bonnie Bird Theatre by Transitions Dance Company, CandoCo Dance Company, Ballett Frankfurt and The Cholmondeleys and The Featherstonehaughs. Recordings of these performances can be viewed in the Laban Library and Archive.

On 11 October 2003, Laban, now the Faculty of Dance, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, won the prestigious Stirling Architecture Prize for its new building at Creekside. The Prize was announced at a glittering awards ceremony held at Explore@Bristol, the science centre.

Photograph of an invitation and menu card for the Stirling Prize dinner held on 11 October 2003. RefNo: D4/2005/22/1/6

 And in 2005, Laban merged with Trinity College of Music to form Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, the UK’s only conservatoire of music and contemporary dance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peter Brinson: “if I have looked into dance I have looked into life”

“I thought to myself, if I have looked into dance I have looked into life”

Note written by Peter Brinson, D12/2003/16/42/7, c1990s

So wrote Peter Brinson in the 1990s, near the end of a career dedicated to dance. But who was Brinson and why is he important to the history of the Faculty of Dance at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance?

Peter Brinson giving a speech at Graduation Day at the Laban Centre (now the Faculty of Dance, Trinity Laban). With Mirella Bartrip and Sir Walter Bodmer. Undated. Photographer: Tony Nandi. RefNo: D11/A/10/2/42/2/1

Brinson was born in Llandudno on 1920. After serving in the Second World War he took first-class honours at Oxford University in Politics, Philosophy and Economics. He then became Director of Research at the Film Centre in the early 1950s. It was around this time that he saw ‘The Green Table’, a ballet by Kurt Jooss, being performed at the Oxford Playhouse, and ‘Les Sylphides’ performed by what was then Sadlers Wells Ballet at Covent Garden, and became captivated by dance. He took two ballet classes a week for the next three years and regularly saw all the repertory of the Sadlers Wells Ballet thus building a knowledge of classical ballet. He began reviewing ballet performances for ‘The New Statesman’ , eventually becoming dance critic for ‘The Times’, the ‘Observer’, the ‘Sunday Times’ and the ‘Financial Times’ whilst also giving lectures on ballet and dance at Oxford, Cambridge and London universities. He also co-authored a book ‘The Choreographic Art’ with Peggy van Praagh which was the only book of its time to combine the history and practice of choreography [copies are available to view in the Laban Library and Archive]. He also wrote ‘Background to European Ballet’ which was the result of research funded by the Council of Europe and the British Council.

Brinson’s dance lectures for the Oxford University Extramural Department developed into lecture demonstrations where he would take dancers with him to demonstrate ballet technique and dance excerpts from classical ballets. Around this time Brinson was asked by the newly formed Gulbenkian Foundation, a charity focused on fostering knowledge and raising the quality of life of people throughout the fields of the arts, charity, science and education, to look at how the Foundation might help dance in the UK. He suggested that a small touring unit be formed that would tour nationally taking ballet into the towns and villages of the UK. He was invited to apply, successfully, for a grant for such a unit, and thus ‘Ballet for All’ was born in 1964.

Photographs and programmes of Ballet for All held in the Peter Brinson Collection in the Laban Archive

 

Ballet for All developed a formula whereby a ballet master, six dancers, two pianists and two actor-narrators could both entertain and instruct, with scripts written by Peter Brinson in the form of ballet-plays. The dancers were seconded from the Royal Ballet Touring Company.

Front page of a ballet-play script by Peter Brinson for Ballet for All,  Oct 1973. [RefNo: D12/2003/16/81/1]

Ballet for All proved to be very popular and Brinson continued to lead it into the early 1970s. Its influence continues today as most major dance companies have educational units that are considered a crucial part of their work.

Following a brief spell as Director at the Royal Academy of Dancing in 1968-69, Brinson was offered the job of Director of the Gulbenkian Foundation in London which he took on in 1972 and held until 1982. It was here that he began his campaign for recognition of and help for the arts. He set up and chaired an inquiry into Dance Education and Training in Great Britain (published in 1980), which assembled for the first time, detailed statistics and laid out a national plan for dance. It was as a result of this inquiry that Europe’s first Dance Department, at the University of Surrey, was established in 1981.

Whilst still at the Gulbenkian Foundation, Brinson became the Chairman of the Dance Board at the  Council for National Academic Awards from 1975-1984, which validated the pioneering BA (Hons) in Dance Theatre at the Laban Centre (now the Faculty of Dance, Trinity Laban). During this time he also sat on the validation panels at London Contemporary Dance School, Middlesex Polytechnic (now University) and other centres.

In 1982 he left the Gulbenkian Foundation to join the Laban Centre (now the Faculty of Dance, Trinity Laban), a decision that Brinson writes about in a piece held in his collection in the Laban Archive – see below:

‘Something very new’ written by Peter Brinson, 1984, p. 1 [RefNo: D12/2003/16/41/4]

 At the Laban Centre Peter Brinson launched the one year Community Dance and Movement Course  (later validated as the Postgraduate Diploma in Community Dance) and became Head of Postgraduate Studies. He initiated the Sociology of Dance and Politics of Dance courses at undergraduate, MA and research levels and continued as a consultant at the Centre until his death in 1995. On his death, Peter Brinson’s papers were given to the Laban Library and Archive as the Peter Brinson Collection. The Collection can be accessed via the archive catalogue .

Brinson’s influence was in no way limited to the UK. As his reputation grew over the course of his career he was invited to speak at innumerable international conferences and to carry out research projects and write reports on dance for governments all over the world. He wrote many articles and papers and published many books over the course of his life – some of which are available in the Laban Library and Archive.

Photograph of Peter Brinson and Simone Michelle, members of staff at the Laban Centre,  at a Laban Centre staff party, 1991. Photographer: ?Marion North. RefNo: LA/D/12/6/1

As Shirley McKechnie writes, when describing Peter Brinson,

“…he had the soul of an artist, the intellect of a philosopher, the astute mind of a politician, the tongue of a diplomat and the manner of a man of the world.”

McKechnie, p. 46

Bibliography:

Brinson, Peter with Ralph, Richard. (1997). ‘Dance Memoirs’, Dance Research: The Journal of the Society for Dance Research, Vol XV, No. 1. Summer 1997, pp 13-30

McKechnie, Shirley, (1997). ‘Voices from Austalia. A Tribute to Peter Brinson’, Dance Research: The Journal of the Society for Dance Research, Vol XV, No. 1. Summer 1997, pp 31-48

Nugent, Ann, (1996). ‘In Memorium: Peter Brinson’, Dance Research Journal, 28/1 Spring 1996, pp 127-129

Ralph, Richard. (1997). ‘Peter Brinson’, Dance Research: The Journal of the Society for Dance Research, Vol XV, No. 1. Summer 1997, pp 5-12

 

 

Bonnie Bird: ‘pioneer, educator and dancer’

In this the 70th anniversary year of the Faculty of Dance at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London, we decided to delve into our history using items from the Laban Archive. In this blog post we take a look at the life and work of Bonnie Bird who played a crucial part in the development of what was then the Laban Centre.

Bird was born in Portland, Oregon and was educated at the Cornish School of Fine Arts in Seattle where she studied with Martha Graham. Graham invited her to join the Graham concert group in New York where she performed in many premieres over the period 1933-37. In 1937 she became head of the dance department at the Cornish School where she trained Merce Cunningham among many others, and where John Cage was an accompianist. She was amongst the first members of the dance faculty at the 92nd Street Y in New York and taught there from 1951-1963, establishing the Merry-Go-Rounders, a highly successful company that presented dance for children. She was a founder member and president of the American Dance Guild and the Congress on Research and Dance. In 1974 she began a long association with the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance (now the Faculty of Dance at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance), applying and developing her theories on dance training by helping to institute Britain’s first BA (Hons) degree in Dance Theatre studies, and subsequently Britain’s first MA and PhD degrees in Dance Studies. (TL, 2016)

Bonnie Bird with participants at the Cage/Cunningham Residency held by the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance in the Great Hall at Goldsmiths’ College, July 1980. Photographer: Peter Sayers. [RefNo: LA/D/12/4/1/44, Laban Library and Archive]

Bonnie Bird proposed the foundation of a postgraduate course for dancers who had already completed a minimum of three years full-time professional training and which would entail students becoming members of a professional repertory company  – thus  Transitions Dance Company was born. The name ‘Transitions’ was chosen ‘to indicate the fact that the company is the means by which the dancers bridge the gap between student life and professional dance’. (Laban Centre for Movement and Dance, p. 4)

Bonnie Bird (centre) with members of the first season of Transitions Dance Company, including Sonia Rafferty (1st on the left) and Anthony Bowne, Administrative Director of the company (6th from the right), 1983-1984. Photographer: Tony Nandi [RefNo: D24/1/J/1, Laban Library and Archive]

Thirty-three years later, Transitions Dance Company is still going strong.

In 1985 Bird set up the Bonnie Bird Choreography Fund to encourage new young choreographers. She used her 70th birthday year to tour the world, raising money for the Fund.

John Cage, Merce Cunningham and Marion North at a celebration for Bonnie Bird’s 70th birthday, in New York, 1984. Photographer unknown [poss. Bonnie Bird]. [RefNo: D5/2007/35/2/49, Laban Library and Archive]

The Bonnie Bird Choreography Fund  (BBCF) has influenced many internationally renowned choreographers including Lea Anderson, Matthew Bourne and Rosemary Lee.

Bonnie Bird, Matthew Bourne and Gillian Lynne at the Bonnie Bird Choreography Awards, 1989. Matthew Bourne was one of the recipients of the award that year. Photographer: Tony Nandi [RefNo: LA/D/12/1/2, Laban Library and Archive]

The BBCF continues in its work today, with recipients of the 2015 awards being Botis Seva and Yami ‘Rowdy’ Lofvenberg.

 In 1989 Bonnie Bird offically retired and the theatre at the Laban Centre (now the Faculty of Dance, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance) was named after her.

 

 Speech for the dedication of the Studio Theatre at the Laban Centre, Laurie Grove, to Bonnie Bird, 1989. (RefNo: D5/2007/35/8, Laban Library and Archive)

 

Bonnie Bird remained Artistic Director at the Centre until her death in 1995. The Bonnie Bird Theatre at the Laban Building, Creekside, London has the following dedication on its wall:

‘this theatre space celebrates bonnie bird; pioneer, educator and dancer whose spirit animates the commitment to developing dance artists of the future’.

Bibliography:

Laban Centre for Movement and Dance. (1993). Transitions Dance Company tenth anniversary year 1983-1993. London, England: Laban Centre for Movement and Dance

Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance Faculty of Dance. [TL] (2016, November 3). Bonnie Bird. Retrieved from http://www.trinitylaban.ac.uk/about-us/our-history/bonnie-bird

 

Marion North: ‘vision, persuasiveness and sheer determination’

Marion North, former Principal of the Laban Centre, was born in Hull and studied at Homerton Teacher Training College, before undertaking postgraduate study at the Art of Movement Studio in Manchester in the 1950s.

 

Marion North’s letter of acceptance on to a postgraduate course at the Art of Movement Studio, 16 April 1951. [RefNo: D4/2007/39/5/68]

After completing her studies, Marion joined the Art of Movement Studio’s faculty, where she specialised in the detailed observation of human behavioural movement. She became apprenticed to Rudolf Laban, developing a test for assessment of personality through the analysis of physical behaviour and pioneering creative movement in the workplace as recreational activity for industrial workers.

 

Notes on  ‘Vision Drives’ by Marion North, c1950s [RefNo: D4/2007/39/5/34]

Marion left the Art of Movement Studio in 1958, the year that Rudolf Laban died.  She became Head of Dance at Sidney Webb College, London from 1962-72 and then Head of the Dance Department, Goldsmith’s College from 1972-80. She became Principal of Laban in 1973. Under her leadership, Laban offered Britain’s first BA (Hons) Dance Theatre (1977), the first MA in Dance Studies (1980), the first MA in Dance Movement Therapy in collaboration with Hahnemann University, Philadelphia (1995) and the first MA Scenography [Dance] (1999).

Under Marion the Laban Centre became an international institution, particpating in international events as well as hosting choreographers and dancers from around the world to teach, work and inspire students at the Centre.

 

Laban Centre students performing at Ninian Park, Cardiff in front of Pope John Paul II, 2 June 1982. Photographer: ?Marion North [RefNo: LA/D/12/4/10/1/2]

 

Photograph of a workshop at the Laban Centre with choreographer Jacob Marley, 1989. Photographer: Tony Nandi [RefNo: LA/D/12/4/11/2/1]

Marion invited Bonnie Bird from the US to come and teach at the Laban Centre. Marion and Bonnie had first met at the Dance Notation Bureau in New York in 1970-71. They struck up a partnership ‘which was to have a dominating influence on the Laban Centre.’ (Willson, p. 179). Bonnie Bird came to work full-time at the Laban Centre in 1974.

Photograph of Bonnie Bird teaching in Taipei, with Transitions Dance Company, c1992. Photographer: Tony Nandi [RefNo: LA/D/12/5/2/3/1]

 

Marion was a Visiting Professor at numerous colleges and universities in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, France, Greece, Japan and Taiwan. Her own studies included a longitudinal study of movement characteristics of babies to adolescence as well as the application of Rudolf Laban’s principles in industry.

 

Announcement of a lecture given by Dr Marion North on ‘Observations of personality development as seen in the movement of babies’, 5 March 1982, at the Tavistock Centre, London. [RefNo: D4/2007/39/5/73]

Marion held a PhD in Psychology and Movement Study from the University of London. Marion North was awarded an OBE in 2000 and Doctor of Letters honoris causa by the University of Salford in 2001.  She retired in 2003 having overseen the move of Laban (now the Faculty of Dance) into its new building at Deptford, South East London. In 2004, Marion  was awarded CBE as former Principal and Chief Executive of the Laban Centre.

Marion North with students from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance at her 85th birthday party, 2 November 2010. Photographer: Tony Nandi [RefNo: D4/2011/3/102]

Marion North died in 2012.

Anthony Bowne, who took over as Principal of the Laban Centre from Marion and led it into a new phase of its history as Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, summarised her legacy as follows:

‘Marion’s vision, persuasiveness and sheer determination have made an enormous contribution to developing the profile of contemporary dance education and training in this country. Her belief that creative work should be at the heart of every dance student’s experience continues to be a guiding principle in the development of all our dance courses and activities, and her conviction that Rudolf Laban’s work should form a significant dimension of studies here has secured us a unique place in the dance profession. Marion leaves us with a wonderful legacy, including our stunning building – her ultimate vision realized. We are now the guardians of this legacy, charged with responsibility to look always for innovative ways forward and creative solutions to the challenges facing us.’ [TL, 2016)

Bibliography:

Willson, F.M.G., 1997. In Just Order Move: The progress of the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance 1946-1996, Athlone Press, London.

Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance Faculty of Dance. [TL] (2016, August 1). Marion North. Retrieved from http://www.trinitylaban.ac.uk/about-us/our-history/marion-north

 

 

 

The Laban Centre for Movement and Dance at Laurie Grove

The  Art of Movement Studio at Addlestone, run by Lisa Ullmann in the 1950s and 1960s had been focused on the training of teachers in the Art of Movement and in Modern Educational Dance. However, by the early 1970s, the British government decided that there was an over-production of teachers and therefore aimed to halve the numbers being trained by the year 1980 (Willson, p.78). As a result many colleges closed or merged with others. This change in government policy forced the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance, as the Studio came to be known in 1975, to change direction. It came under the wing of Goldmsiths’ College in New Cross, London, eventually moving to the area in 1976 with Marion North at its helm.

The site of the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance at Laurie Grove, New Cross, London, 2016. Photographer: Sasi Del Bono.

North believed that a degree in dance should be accepted ‘as valid a preparation for life in careers unconnected with dance as is, say, a study of literature or of the social sciences.’ (Willson, p.180) She had a wide-ranging interest in Rudolf Laban’s ideas as well as experience with movement in industry, therapy and community work. She regularly visited America and was exposed to modern dance and movement study there. As a result, North wanted the Laban Centre to provide specialised training for those who were going to make careers as professional dancers, therapists and community workers, as well as those who wanted to pursue postgraduate research and work. (Willson, p.180).

This is Rudolf Laban’s desk that he used at the Art of Movement Studio at Addlestone. It then became Marion North’s desk and is now based at the Laurie Grove site at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance [RefNo: LA/D/14/1]

Under North’s leadership, the Centre launched a three -year vocational Dance Theatre Diploma (now the BA (Hons) Contemporary Dance) and a one-year course in Dance Studies (now the Graduate Diploma in Dance Studies) in 1974-75.

Front and back cover from a programme for a performance on 3 June 1977 by the first students to enrol in the three year Dance Theatre Diploma at what was then the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance [RefNo: LA/D/4/11/1/3]

In 1977, the Laban Centre had a BA Honours degree in Dance Theatre validated by the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA). This was the first time an institution in the UK and Europe sought validation for a degree in dance itself. In 1980, the  CNAA also validated an MA in Dance Studies offered at the Centre as well as the research degrees of MPhil and PhD.

Draft rationale for the MA in Dance Studies introduced at the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance in the early 1980s [RefNo: LA/D/2/4/35/1/1 pp 114-115]

The number of students enrolling at the Laban Centre increased by 50% in the late 1970s, putting pressure on the already limited space at Laurie Grove in New Cross. The site had been a former primary school which had  a church, St James’,  next door. Agreement was reached whereby the Centre could lease the Church and convert it for its use. The conversion was opened by Sir Roy Shaw, Secretary-General of the Arts Council, in 1984 and comprised ‘eight dance studios, a wardrobe complex, an audio editing room, a video editing studio, an administrative complex, an exhibition foyer, music rooms, staff tutorial rooms and the Centre’s considerable dance library and archives.’ (Brinson, p. 35) Other building works completed the whole Centre in 1989 when it was opened by Sir John Drummond, the then controller of BBC Radio 3.

 

Photographs of the newly furbished library and archive (top left), pilates studio (top right), atrium (bottom left) and costumes studio (bottom right) at the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance, Laurie Grove, 1984. Photographer: Tony Nandi [RefNo: LA/D/12/6/4]

 

By the second half of the 1980s there were 250 full-time students and a teaching staff of around 30. (Willson, p. 206)

1982 saw the introduction of the Advanced Performance Course (now the MA Dance Performance) with the formation of Transitions Dance Company spearheaded by Bonnie Bird. The late 1980s and all of the 1990s saw the Centre continue in its ascent, providing more courses validated now by City University including MA Dance Movement Therapy,  MA Dance Management & Development and MA Scenography Dance. In the year 2000 the achievements of Marion North and the Laban Centre were recognised and Marion North was awarded the OBE.

Laban Centre luminaries Valerie Preston-Dunlop, Marion North, Mirella Bartrip and Bonnie Bird, 1992. Photographer: Tony Nandi. [RefNo: D11/A/13/26/4/1]

Marion was not alone however in carrying out the transformation of the Centre and moving it rapidly forward. Other names like Bonnie Bird and Peter Binson  figure heavily  and we shall be looking at their input in subsequent posts. But our next post will look in more detail at Marion North and her achievements.

 

Bibliography:

Brinson, Peter, 1993, Years of change: 21 years of the Laban Centre, Laban Centre for Movement and Dance, London

Willson, F.M.G., 1997, In Just Order Move: The progress of the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance 1946-1996, The Athlone Press, London

 

 

A brief history of the Faculty of Dance: the Addlestone years

In July 1953 the Art of Movement Studio (now the Faculty of Dance, Trinity Laban) moved from Manchester to Addlestone in Surrey. It moved into a site that had previously been occupied by a choir school called ‘St Mary-of the-Angels’. The site had been purchased by William Elmhirst, son of the wealthy philanthropists Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst, owners of Dartington Hall in Devon. William or “Bill” Elmhirst had been captivated by Rudolf Laban and his teaching at Dartington and was keen to support his activities. He  purchased the Addlestone site for £15,000 for Laban and Lisa Ullmann.

Photograph of Diane Davis at the door of the main house at the the Art of Movement Studio, Addlestone, 1958. Photographer: ?Marion North. [RefNo: LC/A/14/2/177]

For the next twenty years, the Studio at Addlestone was devoted to training teachers who would serve or were already serving in schools and teacher-training colleges. (Willson, p.71)

The document below is part of the Studio prospectus sent out to students in the 1960s, outlining the courses the Studio ran.

(RefNo: LA/A/5/11/1/7-8)

In 1962 Margery Weekes, a PE teacher at Catford County Girls School, enrolled at the Art of Movement Studio on the one year Special Course.

Here Margery describes some of the teaching she received at the Studio. She mentions Lisa Ullmann teaching effort actions, and Valerie Preston-Dunlop who taught ‘space’ and ‘scales’:

[RefNo: D31/3]

Throughout the 1960s and ’70s the number of full-time students at the Studio averaged just under 80 per year (Willson, p.72) but the total number of people it reached through its short courses and summer courses ran into the thousands.

Marion North had first come to train at the Art of Movement Studio in 1951 when it was still based in Manchester. She became an assistant to Rudolf Laban and Lisa Ullmann and remained with them at the Studio until 1958. She left in order to widen her experience and worked with factories and communities, applying Rudolf Laban’s ideas. In the mid-1960s she was appointed head of the Movement and Dance Department at Sidney Webb College. In 1972 Marion was offered and took on the Headship of the Movement Department at Goldsmiths’ College, University of London and in 1973 she also took over leadership of the Art of Movement Studio at Addlestone when Lisa Ullmann retired.

Photograph of Marion North, 1980s. Photographer: Tony Nandi [RefNo: LC/A/17/14/3/16]

The text  ‘In just order move: The progress of the Laban Centre for Music and Dance 1946-1996′ by F.M.G. Willson describes in detail all the political machinations whereby the Art of Movement Studio at Addlestone came under the responsibility of Goldsmiths’ College in the 1970s. Suffice to say that with the help of a grant from the Gulbenkian Foundation, and the promise of renovated old school premises at New Cross to be made available, Goldsmiths’ commited themselves to selling the site at Addlestone and moving the Studio to Laurie Grove, New Cross, London in September 1976 (Willson, p.177).

Our next blog post celebrating our 70th anniversary will follow the Art of Movement Studio’s move to Laurie Grove, New Cross and the fundamental changes carried out by Marion North which would drive the institution forward to becoming the Laban Centre and ultimately the Faculty of Dance at Trinity Laban.

 

 

 

Bibliography:

Willson, F.M.G., 1997, In Just Order Move: The progress of the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance 1946-1996, The Athlone Press, London

Significant Others

Sylvia Bodmer was born in Duisburg, Germany in 1902. During her 50-year career, she gained a reputation as one of the foremost proponents of the inclusive and free-interpretive dance style of Rudolf Laban. Bodmer showed an aptitude for mathematics as a child, but her gender proved an obstacle to employment in that field, despite a good qualification. She gravitated toward dance, and came to know about Rudolf Laban’s work through Suzanne Perrottet, one of his earliest followers. After 18 months with Perrottet, she went to study with Laban’s school in Stuttgart. Laban, impressed with her dancing, in 1922 asked her to join his performing dance group Tanzbuhne Laban, with whom she spent two years.

Here is an exert from her memoirs referring to her time spent with Laban in Gleschendorf.

Ref:SB40001                                                                        Ref:SB40002

In 1924 Bodmer joined with Lotte Mueller in Frankfurt to form a school based on Laban’s ideas, and then joined with Edgar Frank in 1927 to form a chamber dance group.

Sylvia brought her young family to Manchester, England, in 1938. She began teaching dance, and founded the Young Dancers’ Group. Laban and Lisa Ullmann also found themselves through different circumstances in Manchester. It is here that Bodmer and Ullmann set up the Manchester Dance Circle in 1943. It created a platform for Ullmann’s training classes, Bodmer’s movement choir works, and Laban’s lectures.

Laban and Lisa Ullmann left Manchester in 1953 (Bodmer, W.2004 p.6), taking the Art of Movement Studio down to Addlestone, Surrey. Sylvia continued to run the Manchester Dance Circle.

Central to Laban’s teaching were his concepts of body movement, ‘space harmony’ and dynamics. This enabled him to work out ways of systematizing the study of human movement, and so led him to the development of movement notation. He was unique in his development of the idea of ‘efforts’, the idea of scales related to points in space defining an icosahedron around the human body and in his applications to practical questions in time and motion study and the assessment of personality. Sylvia’s earlier mathematics training allowed her to quickly define Laban’s direction and to develop her own ‘space forms’.

‘Bodmer’s notebooks overflow with diagrams in both his and her writing. The steeple, the arc, the round and the double bend scrutinised in their regular, expanded and contracted forms. Her comprehension of harmonic principles, and the function of the scaffolding provided by platonic solids in relation to the psyche and to the structure of the body.’… ‘Bodmer was not only able to write about it, simply and coherently, but also to choreograph studies.’ (Preston-Dunlop, V. 1998, p. 259) 

Here are three sheets of handwritten notes by Sylvia Bodmer, covering different types of ‘flow’, c1940-50

Ref: SB 29

Bodmer became known as one of the finest interpreters of Laban’s work, both as a solo dancer and a teacher. She continued to teach and develop his work for the rest of her life until she died in 1989.

 

Bibliography

Bodmer, W., ‘Laban Lecture 2004’, Movement & Dance, quarterly magazine of the Laban Guild, (Spring 2005 p.6)

Preston-Dunlop, V., ‘Rudolf Laban: An extraordinary Life’, (Dance Books Ltd, London 1998)

 

What was Rudolf Laban like?

 

Photographs of Rudolf Laban at the Art of Movement Studio, Manchester, c1948. [RefNos: LC/A/1/4/18, LC/A/1/3/30, LC/A/1/4/5, Laban Archive, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance]

In 1938 Rudolf Laban arrived penniless and destitute in the UK, a refugee from Nazi Germany. By the time of his death in 1958 his school, the Laban Art of Movement Centre in Addlestone, Surrey was flourishing, his ideas on movement in education were becoming widespread in schools and colleges across the UK, and his ideas on movement in drama were being taught at theatre schools. But who was he and why did he come to the UK? And what had he done in his life before he arrived in Dover at the age of 59?

Valerie Preston-Dunlop first met Rudolf Laban when she was 16 and a new student at the Art of Movement Studio in 1947. Rudolf Laban was 68 by then and a somewhat reclusive figure who spoke English with ‘a very dark voice and strong German accent’ (Quote from Petit, June (2012) at 30min 7secs].  It wasn’t until many years later after Valerie had travelled extensively throughout Europe meeting people who had known and worked with Rudolf Laban, that she discovered just how prestigious a career he had had in Germany before falling foul of the Nazi regime and fleeing to Paris and the UK.

Much has now been written about Rudolf Laban’s life and career, not least the book Rudolf Laban: An extraordinary life by Valerie Preston-Dunlop (1998) London, England: Dance Books. A brief summary can be found on the Trinity Laban website.

But we wanted to find out what he was like as an educator and as a human being. So we interrogated the Laban Archive to find out.

Here is Sylvia Bodmer, one of Laban’s pupils in the 1920s in Germany who went on to have a distinguished dance career, talking about Laban. Bodmer had participated in Laban’s summer dance workshops in 1922 in Gleshendorf, a village in north Germany, where the dancers experimented with movement outside in the thistle-laden meadows:

[RefNo: D1/H/3/2, Laban Archive, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance]

She refers to Laban  having ‘women all around’. During the course of his life he married twice and fathered nine children by five different women and had many mistresses.

In this audio interview Bodmer talks to Valerie Preston-Dunlop about Laban’s teaching methods at Gleshendorf:

[RefNo: LC/E/1/3/A/1, Laban Archive, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance]

Having managed to get out of Germany and eventually arriving in the UK in 1938, Laban joined up with Lisa Ullmann, Sylvia Bodmer and others and ran modern dance holiday courses up and down the country. Margaret McCallum, a dance teacher in schools in the UK at the time, took part in modern dance holiday courses at Bedford College of Physical Education in 1942 and at St. Margaret’s School in Bushey, taught by Rudolf Laban and Lisa Ullmann.

Here McCallum describes what Laban taught her to Valerie Preston-Dunlop:

[RefNo: LC/E/1/20, Laban Archive, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance]

McCallum mentions Rudolf Laban’s work with factory girls and finding economical ways for them to work. Britain in the early 1940s was ‘in the throes of an all-out war effort’ (Preston-Dunlop, p. 218). Laban teamed up with Frederick Lawrence, a management consultant concerned with work efficiency in industry, and together they tackled the problem of enabling women to undertake the heavy lifting and industrial jobs previously done by men. Laban introduced the use of momentum, so that through swinging movements of the whole body, women could achieve what men had done using leverage of their arms. He also applied the concepts of movement harmony so that a job requiring a downward pressure for example would have an upward movement to release that pressure incorporated into the movement phrase (Preston-Dunlop, p.223).

Joy Walton taught dance in schools just after the war. She attended workshops in the early 1940s run by Rudolf Laban. Here Walton talks about Laban, the way he taught her and her fellow students and the kind of person he was:

[RefNo: LC/E/1/19, Laban Archive, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance]

Marion North became a student at the Art of Movement Studio in the early 1950s. By 1956 she had become a teacher at the Studio and in that year went on a voyage to the United States of America to expand her experience and studies. She and Laban exchanged many letters during the course of her travels and they reveal a close and caring relationship between them. Here is an extract from a letter from Laban to North where he warns her of the work ahead once her trip is over:

“But don’t expect too much of a happy continuation of your free experiencing of the world and of personal satisfaction. The mastery [underlined] of life demands a lot of abdication in this respect. Becoming a master is almost the death of happy journeymanship, with a lot of complicated responsibility for the whole rather than for one’s own elation. This is what I, old fool, have forgotten in the uproar of our separation, and I would not be worth [sic] of your friendship if I would not tell you what I think now about it. Strange to say, I [illegible] myself have ripened –  a bit late, isn’t it? – through my relatedness with you and I am grateful for that.”

[RefNo: D4/2012/15/11/10/2, letter dated 19th August 1956. Laban Archive, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance]

Photograph of Leni Heaton, Lisa Ullmann, Rudolf Laban and Adda Heynssen eating Easter cake outside at the Art of Movement Studio, Addlestone, 1957. Photographer: Marion North. [RefNo: LC/A/1/5/67, Laban Archive, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance]

North went on to become the Principal of the Art of Movement Studio, renamed the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance, in 1973. We shall hear more of her story in later blog posts as we continue our history of what is now the Faculty of Dance at Trinity Laban, in this our 70th year.

Next month we focus on the life and career of another of the big names in our history, that of Sylvia Bodmer.

 

Bibliography

Bodmer, Sylvia (1980s) [Recording of interview with Sylvia Bodmer]. Sylvia Bodmer Collection (D1/H/3/2). Laban Archive, Library and Archive, Faculty of Dance, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London, England.

Bodmer, Sylvia (1985) [Interviews with Sylvia Bodmer]. Laban Collection (LC/E/1/3/A/1). Laban Archive, Library and Archive, Faculty of Dance, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London, England.

Laban, Rudolf and North, Marion (1956) [Laban 1956. Original letters between Marion North and Rudolf Laban during this year; transcripts and originals]. Marion North Collection (D4/2012/15/11/10/2). Laban Archive, Library and Archive, Faculty of Dance, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London, England.

McCallum, Margaret (2004) [Interview with Margaret McCallum and Christine Edwards]. Laban Collection (LC/E/1/20). Laban Archive, Library and Archive, Faculty of Dance, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London, England.

Petit, June (2012) [Recording of interview between Jane Fowler and June Petit (nee Preston), concerning June’s experiences as a student at the Art of Movement Studio, Addlestone between 1958-1959]. Laban Collection (LC/E/1/26). Laban Archive, Library and Archive, Faculty of Dance, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London, England.

Preston-Dunlop, V. (1998). Rudolf Laban: An extraordinary life. London, England: Dance Books Ltd.

Walton, Joy (2004) [Interview with Joy Walton, a former pupil of Rudolf Laban’s]. Laban Collection (LC/E/1/19). Laban Archive, Library and Archive, Faculty of Dance, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London, England.

Where it all began – the early days of the Faculty of Dance

The Art of Movement Studio (now the Faculty of Dance, Trinity Laban) first opened its doors to the public in January 1946 at 183-5 Oxford Road, Manchester. It was housed in rooms over a garage in a not particularly salubrious neighbourhood but it did have ‘a large room with windows all down one side and a reasonably well boarded floor’ (Thornton, p. 4).  The Studio was the result of a lot of hard work on the part of Lisa Ullmann and Rudolf Laban who, since arriving in Manchester in 1942, had been training students in the cellar of a large house in Palatine House, Didsbury, Manchester (Preston-Dunlop, p. 222). They had also been travelling the length and breadth of the UK conducting short courses and holiday courses and running a teachers’ training course for the past few years since Laban’s arrival in the UK in 1938.

Photograph of Lisa Ullmann teaching Meg Tudor Williams, Mary Elding, Valerie Preston (later Preston-Dunlop), Warren Lamb and Hettie Loman at the Art of Movement Studio, 1947 [RefNo: LC/A/14/1/3]

Lisa Ullmann had trained at a Laban School in Germany and been on the teaching staff at Kurt Jooss’s Folkwangschule Essen (now the Folkwang University of the Arts). She came to England with Ballets Jooss in 1934 to teach at the Jooss-Leeder school at Dartington Hall. During this time, she set up and ran a movement choir and conducted evening classes for the Worker’s Educational Association in Plymouth and for teachers at the University of Exeter. She came across Rudolf Laban whilst passing through Paris in 1937 (Preston-Dunlop, p. 206). He had managed to escape Germany having fallen foul of the Nazi regime, but was now penniless and destitute. On her return to Dartington she must have discussed his plight with Kurt Jooss who then issued a personal invitation to Laban to come and stay at Dartington Hall, which he did in 1938.

Prospectus for the Art of Movement Studio c1950 [RefNo:  LC/C/4/391.39]

 By 1945, the demand for dance training was such that  Lisa Ullmann and Rudolf Laban decided to set up a centre and took on a five-year lease of the Oxford Road premises. They had wanted to call the centre the ‘Basic Movement Studio’ to emphasise their view of movement as ‘a common denominator to life’ (Willson, p.32) but this title had already been taken so they settled instead for ‘The Art of Movement Studio’.

There is no formal record of how many students were first enrolled at the Studio when it opened but various sources suggest it was around eight. They were to be offered instruction by Rudolf Laban, Lisa Ullmann and Sylvia Bodmer and each student ‘had to pay either £96 for three twelve week terms, or £40 for a single term.’ (Willson, p. 34)

Classes focused on  ‘theoretical tuition and practical exercise based on the sudy of harmony and rhythm in movement’ (Quoted from the Studio prospectus below).

 

The syllabus of the Art of Movement Studio, c1950 [RefNo: LC/C/4/391.39]

Dr Valerie Preston-Dunlop became a student at the Art of Movement Studio in 1947. Here she talks about some of the things that Rudolf Laban expected from her during the course of her studies there.

[RefNo: TL/2008/7/2]

Displays of dance were given at the Studio regularly, and as their work became more well known, students from the Studio were invited to perform at local halls and theatres.

Notice of a performance given by the Art of Movement Studio in 1947. The Studio had been invited to perform by the Manchester Dance Circle, a group that had been set up by Sylvia Bodmer, a former student of Rudolf Laban. [RefNo: LC/C/1/391.44]

Sylvia Bodmer was one of the first tutors at the Studio. She had come to the UK in 1938 to escape the Nazi regime. Prior to this she had trained as a dancer at the Laban School in Stuttgart, Germany and performed with Rudolf Laban’s dance group at Gleschendorf in the 1920s. She had gone on to found a successful school in Frankfurt which provided choreography for the Frankfurt Opera House. On her arrival in the UK she began giving private movement lessons and by 1943 had set up the Manchester Dance Circle, a community dance group, to promulgate Rudolf Laban’s ideas. Whilst at the Art of Movement Studio, she founded the Young Dancers’ Group using the Studio’s advanced students. They performed at the Manchester Library Theatre and elsewhere in the local area to much acclaim.

Photograph of members of the Young Dancers’ Group performing in Manchester, 1947. [RefNo: LC/A/17/2/7/16]

By 1950 the Art of Movement Studio was offering a selection of full and part-time courses and its student numbers had increased so much that it needed to find additional premises to rent nearby. Links were also being developed with the Unnamed Drama Society, with Joan Littlewood and her Theatre Workshop and with the Northern Theatre School. As these activities widened it became obvious that the Studio needed to find a much larger and better equipped centre. Through the generosity of the wealthy, philanthropic Elmhirst family, an estate of sixteen acres at Addlestone, near Weybridge, Surrey was donated and in October 1954, the Laban Art of Movement Centre was established.

Our series continues next month with a closer look at Rudolf Laban – who was he and what was he like?

Bibliography:

Preston-Dunlop, V. (1998). Rudolf Laban: An extraordinary life. London, England: Dance Books Ltd.

Thornton, S. (1971). Studio 25. Addlestone: Art of Movement Studio

Willson, F.M.G. (1997). In Just Order Move: The progress of the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance 1946-1996. London, England: The Athlone Press.

 

Life forms

70 years ago this month the Art of Movement Studio (AMS), later to become the Laban Centre and then the Dance Faculty at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music of Dance,  first opened its doors to the public. To celebrate, each blog posting this year will highlight an aspect of our history. To start off, we are celebrating the life of June Petit, an alumnus.

Life Forms: Celebrating the life of June Petit 1930-2015.

June taught PE at a college in Norwich before becoming in 1958, a student at the Art of Movement Studio (AMS). We have some lovely photographs of June dancing in the archive collection.

June attended many dance courses before she officially started at the Art of Movement Studio.

Lisa Ullmann, Summer School, Ashridge, 1955.

Ref: LC/A/7/4/4

She took this photograph of Lisa Ullmann whilst attending a summer school at Ashridge in 1955.

Below is a sound bite from an interview we recorded in 2012 and is held in our archive collection.  She talks about meeting Rudolf Laban and of his inspirational qualities, her abilities as a dancer, the problems of having narrow hips and being told off for messing around in Lisa Ullmann’s classes.

She explains how physically and mentally she was ‘stretched’ by the experiences of being taught by Lisa Ullmann and Sylvia Bodmer.

 

The students were encouraged to explore many art forms not just dance, providing them with a diverse interdisciplinary approach to their studies. At this point the course at the AMS was a teacher training course. After finishing her course she went on to teach movement at Central School of Speech and Drama; Woodberry Down School, North London; Brighton and Hove High School and Mayfield School, East Sussex. June continued for the rest of her life to be inspired by dance, art and everything creative.

Pottery form made by June Petit, 2012.

This is an expressive pottery form, made by June in 2012, depicting the energy and life forces that emanate from the landscape.  She made this piece when she lived in Lewes, East Sussex, inspired by the local landscape – the chalky cliffs of the Seven Sisters.