Rudolf Laban

by Karen K. Bradley, F. Chamberlain (Contribution by)

Rudolf Laban was one of the leading dance theorists of the twentieth century. His work on dance analysis and notation raised the status of dance as both an art form and a scholarly discipline. This is the first book to As a first step towards critical understanding, and as an initial exploration before going on to further primary research, Routledge Performance Practitioners are unbeatable value for today's student.

160 pages, Paperback

First published October 6, 2008

Reviews

[Athanasiou Geolas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overall a wonderful overview of the many roles that Rudolf Laban's work has taken - perhaps an even better overview for the reader who is also a dance practitioner. However, as I am not a Dancer and am more interested in the impact Laban has had on performance theory, dance notation and the history of dance, this book left me wanting more. Perhaps it is only a testament to the quality of the ideas that this was even a problem, but the book struck me as lacking in the precision and rigor one would hope for in a general academic book. There was very little discussion of Laban's relationship to his contemporaries who were not dancers themselves and the philosophical context of Laban's work was only tacitly acknowledged. It seems however that I might have simply been hoping that this was a different kind of book. Karen Bradley writes beautifully. Her text is imbued with all of the empathy and poetry I've come to expect from conversations with dancers; and, I imagine that the portions of the final chapter relating concepts to practice would be of great interest to practitioners looking for a literal translation of some of the concepts discussed into movement.

[Ella · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5