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Vol. 3 No. 1 (2025): Revista Estud(i)os de Dança 5

The Unforgettable Legacy of Rudolf Laban: An Interview with Dick McCaw (Emeritus Reader, Royal Holloway, University of London)

DOI
https://doi.org/10.53072/RED202501/00303

Abstract

Interview with Dick McCaw, Emeritus Reader in Performative Practices at Royal Holloway, University of London. Dick McCaw was a disciple of the dancer and choreographer Geraldine Stephenson (1925-2017), a former student and assistant of Rudolf Laban during his exile in England. This affiliation places McCaw in the second generation of Laban's disciples, which guarantees legitimacy to his original positions on Laban's thinking and its relationship with the teaching of the Art of Movement. The content of the interview, which is preceded by a biographical overview of the interviewee, was organized into three sections: i) Laban's unpublished writings recently translated and published by McCaw (2024a); ii) clarifications on the controversial historical period in which Laban, under the auspices of the Third Reich, in addition to coordinating a network of dance schools, was ballet director of the Berlin Opera House; iii) the teachings received from Geraldine Stephenson and the reverberations of Laban thinking in the present.

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