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The 1936 Berlin Olympics

Laban detail from Titan floorplan
Rudolf Laban's life as told through archives in Leeds University Special Collections.
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Laban Der Freie Tanz
Laban moves to Ticino. Part of an interactive resource at Leeds Special Collections about the life and career of Rudolf Laban.
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Laban and two women in a tree
Laban moves to Ticino. Part of an interactive resource at Leeds Special Collections about the life and career of Rudolf Laban.
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Labankurse Zurich programme
Laban over winters in Zurich. Part of an interactive resource at Leeds Special Collections about the life and career of Rudolf Laban.
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Laban exhibition - schools 1927
Laban develops dancing schools in Germany. Part of an interactive resource at Leeds Special Collections about the life and career of Rudolf Laban.
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Laban exhibition - floor plan for Titan
Laban's notation for 'Titan'. Part of an interactive resource at Leeds Special Collections about the life and career of Rudolf Laban.
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Laban's Schriftanz
Laban develops dancing schools in Germany. Part of an interactive resource at Leeds Special Collections about the life and career of Rudolf Laban.
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Laban figure drawing from 1920s
Laban develops dancing schools in Germany. Part of an interactive resource at Leeds Special Collections about the life and career of Rudolf Laban.
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Laban Dornroschen programme
Laban develops dancing schools in Germany. Part of an interactive resource at Leeds Special Collections about the life and career of Rudolf Laban.
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Laban Berlin Olympics 1936
Laban develops dancing schools in Germany. Part of an interactive resource at Leeds Special Collections about the life and career of Rudolf Laban.
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Laban Art of Movement Studio
Laban develops dancing schools in Germany. Part of an interactive resource at Leeds Special Collections about the life and career of Rudolf Laban.
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Laban remained in Germany after the Nazis came to power in 1933. Though he didn’t become a member of the National Socialist party, he did continue to work, organising a community dance event to celebrate the opening of the Olympic Stadium.

In this photograph of the First Company Rehearsal (see image), you can see the groups walking the pathways mapped out by Laban.

Working with massed groups was a development of his dance choirs. Laban had already organised several such huge events, notably in the Vienna Procession of Trades and Crafts, which he wrote about in his autobiography A Life for Dance.

His Berlin procession was politically much more sensitive – Minister for Propaganda, Josef Goebbels, attended a public rehearsal and was appalled at what he saw. While the Nazis had adapted populist forms to their own political aims, they misjudged Laban's notion of choral movement. Where Nazis saw unity in mass movement, Laban believed that in collective movement one finds individual pleasure and expression.

Vom Tauwind und der Neuen Freude (From the Spring Wind and the New Joy) was cancelled and Laban disgraced.

Within 18 months, he managed to escape Nazi Germany for Paris.

Dick McCaw

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