The Nazi government’s tightening grip on all the arts and media brought an end to Laban’s dance career in Germany.  And it nearly brought an end to Laban before he was found, ill and destitute in Paris, by members of the Jooss Ballet.

Through his old friends, Laban secured an invitation to the Dartington Hall, where the wealthy Elmhirst family was engaged in an ambitious project – the economic, social, and cultural regeneration of a rural community.  Though deeply depressed on his arrival, Laban found new energy to continue his increasingly diverse studies of human movement through the Dartington circle.… Read More

After democracy was imposed on Germany following its defeat in WWI, the new Weimar Republic became a magnet for avant garde artists of all persuasions.  Laban was among them.

There is a lot to read about the dark demise of German democracy, but for summer reading I recommend Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood.  This semi-autobiographical novel chronicles the twilight of the Weimar Republic, drawing on real events and characters the writer encountered, such as his solicitous German  landlady, a decadent English cabaret singer and her admirers, a gay couple, and a young Jewish heiress.… Read More

Laban’s transition from painting to dancing took place over several years, extending roughly from 1913 to 1919.  These were years he spent in Switzerland – in Monte Verita and later in Zurich.

Laban himself will make guest appearances in the two books I have chosen as summer reading:  Mountain of Truth and Memoirs of a Dada Drummer.

Mountain of Truth, by Martin Green, examines the counter-culture community of Ascona between 1900-1920.  During this period, Ascona became the place for many of Europe’s spiritual rebels to visit or live, and Green discusses Laban as one of the most interesting and representative denizens.… Read More

While the Austro-Hungarian Empire was slowly unraveling, Laban left his homeland in 1899 to study art, first in Munich, then in Paris, and later back in Munich again.  This was the period when the great European art academies were still functioning, along with iconoclastic art movements that were breaking new ground.

Trilby, by George du Maurier, is my summer reading recommendation.  Published in 1897, the novel’s setting reflects the author’s own bohemian years as an art student in Paris. … Read More

Before World War I, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was the largest political entity in mainland Europe.  This multi-ethnic empire included much of today’s Austria, Hungary, Romania, Albania, Serbia, Croatia, and parts of northern Italy.

Two books by Fredric Morton make enjoyable reading:  A Nervous Splendor and Thunder at Twilight.

A Nervous Splendor focuses on events and personalities in Vienna during 1888-89.

The central story revolves around the double suicide of crown prince Rudolf, heir to the Empire, and his young lover.  But other leading figures of Viennese culture such as Sigmund Freud, Gustav Mahler, Gustav Klimt, and Arthur Schnitzler are woven into this account of the beginning of the end of the Austro-HungarianEmpire.… Read More

The Spell Drive is the time-less drive. For me it evokes a magic and mysterious atmosphere in which the mover is held in thrall and time itself seems to stand still.

For this effort drive I have chosen “The Listeners,” by the English poet Walter de la Mare.

‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest’s ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller’s head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
‘Is there anybody there?’… Read More

Passion Drive is the space-less drive. The mover, engulfed by emotion, loses all motivation to maintain a reasonable orientation. Feelings of all kinds – love, anger, grief, longing, resignation – are the very stuff of poetry.

While there are many contenders, I have chosen “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night,” by the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.… Read More

For the Action Drive I have selected a short poem by the popular American poet, Carl Sandburg. One critic notes that Sandburg’s style “gives him entry into steel mills and mean streets, into shacks along the railroad, into the hearts of obscure people to whom he feels allegiance.”

Sandburg himself wanted to write “sentences truly alive, with verbs quivering.” See what you think in the following selection, “Prayers of Steel.”

Lay me on an anvil, O God.
Beat me and hammer me into a crowbar.… Read More

Vision Drive is the weightless drive.  The mover, freed from the earth-bound pull of gravity, is free to soar on the wings of imagination.  The following poem, “High Flight” by the aviator John Gillespie Magee, seems to capture this ecstatic mood.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, – and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence.… Read More