Rudolf Laban

Rudolf Laban, the famed dancer-choreographer and 'founding father' of modern dance, also had experience as a painter, sculptor, and architect, and allowed those skills to influence his innovative choreographic techniques. His important works and his creation of one of the most significant forms of dance notation make him an essential component of dance history. Rudolf Laban: The Dancer of the Crystal examines Laban's training, his teaching experiences, and the discovery and development of his principles of form and movement, paying special attention to his choreographic and philosophical work. Author Evelyn Doerr presents intriguing tidbits of the artist's experience, such as Laban's ambivalent position as the 'dance organizer' of the Nazi party in Germany, embedded in a historical and philosophical context, offering insights to his choreographic processes and the events that shaped his life.
The book presents the different stages and elements of Laban's choreography discussing, for example, Laban's "dance-sound-word" instructional approach, his concept of the "movement choir" and examples of its realization, the concepts of eukinetics and choreutics, and a description of how these subjects were taught in Laban's school. Doerr also analyzes important elements in Laban's theories of spatial harmony and of effort, and she investigates his various early systems of dance notation, leading to a detailed explanation of kinetography, Laban's final notational system. A complete bibliography and an appendix of works choreographed between 1897 and 1936 help make this book an important contribution to Laban scholarship and to the dance, theater, and cultural history of Europe in the first half of the 20th century.

Evelyn Doerr is the author of several books about Rudolf Laban in German. Most recently Doerrr published The Complete Choreographic Works, which includes Laban's complete choreographic oeuvre. Currently, she is working on a 3-volume edition of Laban's letters.

Part 1 Prologue
Chapter 2 1. Childhood and Youth in Pressburg and Vienna (1879-1899)
Chapter 3 2. Artistic Work in Munich, Paris, Nice, Vienna (1900-1910)
Chapter 4 3. Artistic Work in Munich and Ascona (1910-1914)
Chapter 5 4. Artistic Work in Hombrechtikon and Zurich (1915-1918)
Chapter 6 5. Artistic Work in Nuremberg, Stuttgart, Mannheim (1919-1921)
Chapter 7 6. Artistic Work in Hamburg (1922-1926)
Chapter 8 7. Artistic Work in Würzburg and Bad Mergentheim (1926-1927)
Chapter 9 8. Artistic Work in Berlin (1928-1936), Paris 1937
Chapter 10 9. Artistic Work in Dartington, Newtown, Manchester, Addlestone (1938-1958)
Part 11 Appendix: Annotated List of Laban's Works
Part 12 Glossary
Part 13 Bibliography
Part 14 General Index
Part 15 Name Index
Part 16 About the Author