The 1936 Berlin Olympics

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

Image credit Leeds University Library