Choreutics has always been my favorite book by Rudolf Laban, although it is by no means the most accessible of his writings. The text is prone to sudden jumps, from practical movement description to mystical metaphysics. Moreover, other mysteries surround this work.
For example, Laban wrote Choreutics during 1938-39, as he convalesced at Dartington Hall following his timely escape from continental Europe to England. According to his colleague Lisa Ullmann, Laban intended for the book “to introduce his ideas on movement and dance to an interested reading public in Britain.” Laban must have had the ideas in mind for some time, for the subject matter builds on his earlier German book, Choreographie, published in 1926.
Laban worked fervently on the book, and Louise Soelberg, a member of the Jooss Ballet also in residence at Dartington, worked equally hard to make Laban’s English sound English. The work was nearing completion in June 1940, when the onset of the war forced the closing of Dartington Hall and the dispersal of resident artists, including Laban. He gave the manuscript to his Dartington benefactors, Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst, for safe keeping.
The post-war years brought Laban better health and more opportunities for work and development of his ideas. According to Lisa Ullmann, Laban no longer felt the need for a book introducing basic concepts, and so, he abandoned the manuscript for Choreutics.
Ullmann’s explanation is no explanation, because Choreutics is not a basic treatise. It is an important theoretical work that carries forward Laban’s ideas about movement in space, ideas that are not fully expounded in any other of his subsequent publications in English. Why he abandoned any attempt to publish remains a mystery.
Fortunately, Dorothy Elmhirst did not abandon Choreutics. Several years after Laban’s death, she returned the manuscript to Lisa Ullmann and encouraged her to have it published. And in 1966, this masterwork finally became appeared, filling a vital gap in Laban literature.