ABSTRACT
Valerie Preston-Dunlop and Lesley-Anne Sayers, from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London, recently recreated very different dance works from the 1920s. In this article they discuss the value of recreation as creative practice and the discoveries they have made regarding “lost” works, for example, Rudolf Laban’s Die Grünen Clowns (Green Clowns) and Nacht (Night) and Sergei Prokofiev, Georgi Yakoulov, and Léonide Massine’s collaboration for Le Pas d’Acier (The Steel Step). Considering the potential of educational centers specializing in recreation as research laboratories for the profession, they reflect upon, from two different perspectives, the need to document and disseminate knowledge about creative processes as opposed to simply recording performance.
