Rudolf von Laban

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Rudolf von Laban , 1879–1958, Slovakian dancer, choreographer, and dance theorist. After studying in Paris and performing in N Africa, Germany, and Austria, he founded (1910) a dance school in Munich; Mary Wigman was one of his early students. He founded schools bearing his name all over Europe during the 1920s. In 1930 he was appointed director of the Allied State Theaters in Berlin, but was forced to leave after the Nazis came to power. In 1938, he emigrated to England, where he established (1946) the Art of Movement Studio in Manchester. There, he worked until his death on his system of notation, known as Kinetographic Laban or Labanotation, which evolved from a system of dance notation to a method of recording all body movement. It is so accurate that the system is now used to copyright dance scripts and to analyze movements in sports and industry. His work has been continued at the Dance Notation Bureau, in New York City. His writings include The Mastery of Movement on the Stage (1950), Principles of Dance and Movement Notation (1956), Effort: Economy in Body Movement (with F. C. Lawrence, 1974); A Life For Dance (1975).

Laban, Rudolf von (orig. R. L. de Varalja; b Pozsony (now Bratislava), 15 Dec. 1879, d Weybridge, 1 July 1958). Hungarian dancer, choreographer, ballet master, and dance theorist. He studied painting, dancing, and acting in Paris and Munich and toured N. Africa with a revue troupe. Between 1907 and 1910 he performed in Germany and Austria and in 1910 founded a school in Munich, where Wigman was one of his pupils. After the First World War he taught in Nuremberg, Mannheim, and Stuttgart (where Jooss was one of his pupils) and in 1925 established an Institute of Choreography in Würzburg. He was then ballet director of the Berlin Staatsoper (1930–4), also staging large productions for amateur movement choirs around Germany. In 1938 he went to England and worked with Jooss at Dartington Hall, after which he founded the Art of Movement Studio with Lisa Ullmann in Manchester. Although not a choreographer of any lasting significance Laban became the leader of the pre-war Central European school of modern dance by virtue of his teaching and the theories by which he and his pupils analysed the laws of dynamics and expression in human movement. Most important was his development of a new system of dance notation, Kinetographie Laban which was first published in 1926 and later codified as Labanotation. In England he applied his theories to dance education and also to designing corrective exercises for factory workers. He wrote several books including Ein Leben für den Tanz (A Life for the Dance, Dresden 1935, London 1975), Modern Educational Dance (London, 1948), Principles of Dance and Movement Notation (London, 1956), and Choreutics (London, 1966).