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SESSIONS Non-Technical Presentations, Panels & Workshops Recovering the Minuet from Laban's (1926) Choreographie / Abstract Presentation and reading session Jeffrey Scott Longstaff In his early German text Choreographie, Rudolf Laban (1926) documents a variety of approaches to movement study which were explored during initial developments of kinetography and choreutics. An entire chapter of this work is devoted to the “Minuet” which Laban describes in detail together with several musical motifs and one floor figure represented in Feuillet notation. The basic six-count minuet steps are described as to how they combine into longer sequences, themselves arranged into several sections and performed with a partner. What is curious, though perhaps characteristic of Laban as an author, is that the chapter is only briefly introduced with the single sentence: “As an example of a dance-representation of the ballet we give the usual direction for the minuet” (p. 56), and then no further mention or explanation is given about the significance of the minuet in particular. The topic is not explicitly returned to anywhere else in the entire book. Therefore, the significance of the minuet to discussions on dance representation and notation in Choreographie is obscure and Laban’s reasoning for placing this verbal description of the minuet as an entire chapter remains an open question. A two-part approach will be taken in this research to addressing this question: 1) to reconstruct the minuet as described by Laban with a Labanotation score and accompanying music, and 2) to interview Valerie Preston-Dunlop who reports that she was taught this minuet by Laban and received accompanying lectures in his dance classes during the 1940s – ‘50s in England. The reconstruction begins from the verbal descriptions, in conjunction with the timing / rhythm indications in the musical notation. The six-count basic Minuet step-patterns are first notated, and these are constructed into longer sequences. Advice and feedback on the notations will be gathered from Valerie Preston-Dunlop, Jean Jarrell, and (if available) Ann Hutchinson Guest. The motifs will be combined into a full score and this will be reconstructed as a duet dance with accompanying music. This notation and reconstruction will allow the Minuet movement to be observed from an external perspective from where larger spatial patterns may be observable. This may contribute to the analysis of why the Minuet is significant in this context of kinetography and choreutics. The interview will draw on the personal experience of Valerie Preston-Dunlop regarding her experiences in dance classes where Laban taught this particular dance. This can offer an historical account of Laban’s reasoning for teaching this dance and why he considered it vital as part of the foundation of his dance ideas. Preston-Dunlop will be interviewed and portions of this will be inserted into this paper where appropriate. Finally, the physical reconstruction will be observed and compared with Preston-Dunlop’s historical account. These two will be considered within the context of the overall topic of Choreographie with the intention to determine their significance to Laban’s dance concepts, and to the early development of the kinetography and choreutic methods. The presentation will consist of a reading session, with recorded music, of the Minuet score danced as duets. This will conclude with a theoretical discussion regarding the significance of Laban’s Minuet to Choreographie. Jeffrey Scott Longstaff, PhD, currently supervises PhD degrees at Laban Centre in London. His recent research into the re-evaluation of Rudolf Laban’s Choreutics has been published in the journal Perceptual & Motor Skills and presented at the International Council of Kinetography Laban (ICKL), Motus Humanus, and the Practice as Research in Performance symposiums (PARIP). Current projects include translations and annotations of Laban’s early German works Choreographie and Harmonie Lehere der Bewegung.
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