Handbook for Dance in Education, Macdonald & Evans, 1963.

A Handbook for Dance in Education was the title of the 2nd edition of a Handbook for Modern Educational Dance, but written almost 20 years after the original. Dance education had changed, radically, from being child-centred to being the study of an art form. Since there was still a demand for Laban’s ideas for dance in an educational setting, I decided to update the book to include the creating and appreciating of dance compositions while staying true to Laban’s essential concepts of dance as an educative experiential force.
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Readers in Kinetography Series A (Books 1 to 3) and Series B (Books 1 to 4), Macdonald & Evans, 1966/67.

This text introduces the innovative use of notation that became known as Motif Writing, a way of making Labanotation (or kinetography) accessible, and connecting notation with structured improvisation.


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Practical Kinetography Laban, Macdonald & Evans, 1969.

I had introduced Motif Writing by taking the symbols out of the three line staff of a Laban notation score and using them as indications for creative movement. Kinetography Laban was the original name for the system so at that time I used it rather than the American title Labanotation. Removing the symbols set up all manner of questions on the grammar of movement and how to describe it, such as distinguishing between a motion and its destination, a form and its intention, the location of centre, turning and twisting, and so on. In this book I set out to show the connection between Motif Writing concepts and those in the main system and the clarification of some of these issues.
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Dance is a Language, isn’t it?, Laban Centre 1979.

This is an informal text that uses unusual page format to link practice with theory and reflects the discourse of the time on whether dance could be regarded as a language or not. It introduces the structural model of movement known as The Star that would become the starting point for the development of Choreological Perspectives.

Available from the Laban library
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Dancing and Dance Theory (ed.), Laban Centre, 1980.

In 1979 LABAN Centre hosted an international conference on the centenary of Laban’s birth. This text was commissioned to document some of the events and seminal discussions that integrated Laban studies with professional dance technique and choreography for the first time.

Available from the Laban library
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The Nature of the Embodiment of Choreutic Units in Choreography, PhD Thesis U.M.I 1981.

My doctoral research introduced CHUMM analysis, (Choreutic Units and their Manner of Materialisation) where both actual and virtual spatial forms are shown to be present in clusters in choreography, a key concept in releasing Laban’s space harmony analysis from his practice of spatial scales.
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Point of Departure: The Dancer's Space, 1984. 2nd edition, Verve Publishing, 2008.

Building on the CHUMM innovation, this text explains the content of Laban’s scales and rings and suggests ways of using them radically rather than as a fixed form.

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Schrifttanz: A View of Dance in the Weimar Republic, with Susanne Lahusen, Dance Books, 1990.
*supported by Goethe Institute

Having curated the Laban Collection of documents on Laban’s work in Germany it was clear that a mass of his most innovative work had been lost when he emigrated to the UK in 1938 and his books and schools were forbidden. This translation of articles from the journal Schrifttanz begins the publishing focus on Laban as an artist/researcher and man of theatre.

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Rudolf Laban, an introduction to his work an influence, with John Hodgson, Northcote House, 1990.
*supported by Bretton Hall, trans, Actes Sud.

In 1990 the Laban Centre commissioned me to curate an exhibition on the breadth of Laban’s work, in collaboration with John Hodgson. This text was written to accompany the exhibits.

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Dance Words (ed), Harwood Academic Publishers, 1995.

This text was written at a time when I was introducing Choreological Studies as a development of Laban Studies in which Laban’s terminology and concepts are juxtaposed with the concepts and practices of other giants of dance practice. It shows the range of language used in the profession to get at movement, the most non-verbal of art forms.

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Rudolf Laban: An Extraordinary Life, Dance Books, 1998. (de la Torre award) Paperback Ed. 2008.

I had published detailed articles on ‘The Making of Modern Dance’ on Laban’s turbulent life in Munich, Monte Verita and Zurich 1910 -1918. John Hodgson has been expected to write Laban’s biography but it became clear that he was not able to do so. So I decided to write it using the copious data I had amassed for the Laban Collection from archives and individuals all over Europe. This became the first comprehensive text on the man’s work.

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Looking at Dances, Verve Publishing, 1998.
*commissioned by LCA Utrecht. Trans as Dansen nader bekeken, LCA Utrecht 1999.

In this text the format reflects the way dance people speak in the studio rather than how we write. It introduces the reader to ways of communicating, or not, in dance through discussing choreographic choices through a choreological methodology. Being practice-based it has become a popular text for dance students.

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Dance and the Performative: a Choreological Perspective, Laban and beyond, with A. Sanchez-Colberg. Verve and S. Rubidge, P. Salosaa. Verve Publishing, 2002.

In this text Choreological Perspectives are scrutinized and the practice/theory connection is discussed and supported in articles by other practical scholars using a variety of choreological methods.

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CHAPTERS IN OTHER BOOKS

'Dance in Great Britain in the 70's and 80's' with D.G.Madden, in The Dance Has Many Faces (ed, Walter Sorell) 3rd Ed, 1992

'Rudolf Laban', biography for entry in Dance Perspectives International Encyclopedia on Dance, 1987.

'Rudolf Laban's Choreographic Works' in Encyclopaedia of Music Theatre, (ed. G. Schuller), Bayreuth University Press, 1989.

'Laban, Schoenberg and Kandinsky 1899-1938', in La Danse Tracee (ed. L. Louppe), Centre Pompidou, 1990.

‘Bodies in Dada’ in The Arts in Crisis: a History of Dada (ed. Stephen Foster), Iowa, Hall and Co, 1997.

'Rudolf Laban and Kurt Jooss in exile' in Artists in Exile (ed. Gunther Berghaus), Berg Publishers, 1989.

Preface for French edition of Laban's 'Modern Educational Dance', Editions Complexe, Brussels, 2003.

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PUBLISHED ARTICLES

'Rudolf Laban's Cultural Environment', Working Papers, I. 1987.

'Laban and the Nazis: Towards an Understanding of Rudolf Laban and the Third Reich', Dance Theatre Journal, Vol 6 No 2. 1988.

'Choreological Studies, 1928 and 1988', Movement andDance, No 77, May. 1988.

'Laban's Kammertanzbhune Revisited', Movement and Dance, No 77, May. 1988.

‘Rudolf Laban: the seminal years in Munich, 1910-14' Dance Theatre Journal Vol 7, Nos 3 and 4. 1989.

'Laban in Zurich, 1914-1919: the nightmare years', Dance Theatre Journal, Vol 10 No 3. 1993.

'Dance Dynamics', Dance Theatre Journal,Vol 13 No 2. 1996.

'Symbolism and the European dance revolution', Dance Theatre Journal, Vol 14 No 3. 1998.

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