| Description | Early Trust Arts Dance records document the School of Dance-Mime at Dartington under the direction of Margaret Barr. There are records of early estate performances of Comus and a nativity play at Staverton Church. Also school prospectuses and programmes, administrative material and reports. Includes correspondence with Beatrice Straight as secretary to the School of Dance-Mime.
The core of the Trust Arts Dance records data primarily from the professional period and include correspondence with Kurt Jooss and members of the Ballets Jooss (Fritz Cohen, L Greanin), and also Rudolf Laban. Ballets Jooss records include their American tour in 1935, and an aliens register with names of members of the Jooss-Leeder School of Dance and other German refugees on the Dartington estate, completed about 1940. Other similar records document the troubles of refugees at Dartington in the early days of World War II. There are also school records including class registers for the Jooss-Leeder School of Dance, tuition fees, curriculum etc, a prospectus for the school, and other material. Ballets Jooss records include correspondence with company members resident and on tour, contracts, performance lists and receipts, and private interviews with German members of the Arts Department.
One folder includes correspondence between the Dartington Hall Trust and Jenny Gertz, a dance movement specialist who worked with child evacuees during World War II.
The series also contains a record of choreographer and movement theorist Rudolf Laban, resident at Dartington between 1938 and 1940. The Laban records include correspondence between Laban and Trust founders and employees, letters from Lisa Ullmann, and later records of the establishment of the Laban Art of Movement Studio. The reports include a study on the introduction of Laban-Lawrence Industrial Rhythm to Dartington Hall Trustees and Dartington Hall Ltd - observations and training. Correspondents include F C Lawrence. Also included are records of the establishment of the Addlestone-based Laban Art of Movement Centre. In all, the Laban records at Dartington cover the years 1938 to 1985 and include letters, reports, memoranda, grant applications, press cuttings, brochures and obituaries.
Other correspondents in this series include Leonard Elmhirst, Christopher Martin, F A S Gwatkin, E S Porter, W B Curry. There is also general material on recitals and courses at Dartington. |