ABSTRACT
Just as Laban managed to write four books and a large number of articles between 1920 and 1926, so his final flourish of creative activity in England was marked by the publication of a further four books between 1947 and 1956. In the introduction to this chapter, I offer accounts and critiques of Effort and The Mastery of Movement on the Stage. In an interview with Hodgson, Frederick C. Lawrence explains what led to the writing of Effort. Notation continued to develop in the 1940s and 1950s, a history that is drawn through interviews and correspondence between Knust and Laban. The introductory overview concludes with a consideration of Laban’s educational work, particularly in Esmé Church’s Northern Theatre School where he taught and worked on touring productions.
There are three texts by Laban in this chapter all of which offer an overview in his own words of his work in England in the 1940s.
