Around 1913, a visual artist named Rudolf Laban gave up painting to pursue a career in dance. He admitted he seemed to have chosen “the most despised profession.” At the time, dance was the poor relation of all the other arts. Laban set out to change that.
Over the next 25 years, he performed, choreographed, and taught – activities familiar to most professional dancers. But Laban’s efforts went beyond this. He wrote about dance, he organized a dancers’ union, he initiated dance conferences, and he inspired a populist dance movement for amateur performers.… Read More