Laban intended for Choreutics, written in 1938-39, to be his introduction to the English reading public. With the outbreak of World War II, Laban was forced to postpone publication. After the war, however, Laban inexplicably abandoned the manuscript altogether.
Choreutics is not the only book that Laban abandoned, but it is the only manuscript that has vanished without a trace from the Rudolf Laban Archive, a vast collection of Laban’s writings and drawings from the final two decades of his career, now held by the National Resource Centre for Dance at the University of Surrey.
The Archive holds other book-length manuscripts. For example, I read Motion Study, a much longer first draft of the work that became Effort. I found multiple drafts of Effort and Recovery, which was slated for publication by MacDonald & Evans near the end of Laban’s life, but never published. I also read a partial typescript of Conflict and Harmony between Man and Woman, a collaborative work by William Carpenter and Laban integrating Jungian typology and effort theory.
However, though the Archivist and I searched, there were no manuscripts of Choreutics, hand written or typewritten, partial or complete. Perhaps they were lost, or sent to the publisher. Perhaps there is a good explanation. But the absence of Laban’s original work makes it impossible to discern how much Lisa Ullmann, as the editor, may have changed the work.
For example, each of the first 10 chapters concludes with a “Fact of Space- Movement.” To me, many of these concluding paragraphs seem more like philosophical speculations than facts. Did Laban see these as facts? Or is this something Lisa Ullmann added?
These are the types of questions to be considered in “Decoding Laban’s Choreutics.” Find out more…..