ABSTRACT
Sheila Fletcher's Women First makes it clear that Laban had a significant impact on the teaching of the dance and gymnastics elements of the physical education teacher training course at Bedford during the period 1940-1970. As a result, Fletcher claims that Bedford women were modern dance pioneers, further helped along when Laban and many of his students came to England due to the political situation in Germany. Bedford pioneer, Joan Goodrich, together with Diana Jordan and Lisa Ullmann, ran modern dance holiday courses to train teachers in Laban's principles of movement. Jacqueline Smith-Autard, later to become a member of staff at Bedford, wrote Dance Composition in 1976, a textbook to support the teaching of creating dances. Central European dance involved using the body as an instrument of expression. In so doing, it required dancers to work with others and create their own movements.
