University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2016 The Choreography of Everday Life: Rudolf Laban and the Making of Modern Movement Whitney Elaine Laemmli University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the History Commons, and the Theatre and Performance Studies Commons Recommended Citation Laemmli, Whitney Elaine, "The Choreography of Everday Life: Rudolf Laban and the Making of Modern Movement" (2016). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 1823. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1823 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1823 For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Choreography of Everday Life: Rudolf Laban and the Making of Modern Movement Abstract “The Choreography of Everyday Life: Rudolf Laban and the Making of Modern Movement,” explores how an inscription technology developed in German expressionist dance found unlikely application in some of the key institutions of twentieth-century modernity. Called “Labanotation,” it used a complicated symbology to record human bodily movement on paper. Initially used to coordinate mass-dance spectacles in Weimar Germany, the system was quickly adopted in the United States and the United Kingdom in fields angingr from management theory to psychiatry to anthropology. My research analyzes the widespread appeal of this seemingly quixotic tool and to situates it within broader literatures on modern technology, art, media, and politics. Ultimately, I argue that Labanotation succeeded so spectacularly because it promised to reconcile the invented and the authentic, the individual and the group, and the body and the machine at moments threatened by massive social upheaval. Laban’s work thus not only served to preserve a fading past, but opened up new possibilities for the literal choreographing of modern life. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group History and Sociology of Science First Advisor John Tresch Keywords History of information, History of science, History of technology, History of the body, Labanotation, Movement Subject Categories History | Theatre and Performance Studies This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1823 THE CHOREOGRAPHY OF EVERYDAY LIFE: RUDOLF LABAN AND THE MAKING OF MODERN MOVEMENT Whitney Elaine Laemmli A DISSERTATION in History and Sociology of Science Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2016 Supervisor of Dissertation ______________________________ John Tresch Associate Professor, History and Sociology of Science Graduate Group Chairperson _______________________________ Beth Linker Associate Professor, History and Sociology of Science Dissertation Committee M. Susan Lindee, Janice and Julian Bers Professor, History and Sociology of Science Beth Linker, Associate Professor, History and Sociology of Science THE CHOREOGRAPHY OF EVERYDAY LIFE: RUDOLF LABAN AND THE MAKING OF MODERN MOVEMENT COPYRIGHT 2016 Whitney Elaine Laemmli iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Over the past seven years, I have never regretted my decision to join the Department of History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania. Both the Department’s sense of community and its uniquely creative vision of the field produced a graduate career that I simply could not have envisioned elsewhere. My dissertation committee members, in particular, provided incredible support for an unusual project from its earliest days. My advisor, John Tresch, has been a model of intellectual curiosity and generosity, an example I hope to follow in my own career. Beth Linker’s astute insights about the history of medicine, the body, and disability have been matched only by her kindness and her willingness to offer advice about all of life’s dilemmas. Susan Lindee shaped many of my most foundational intellectual experiences in the history of science, and her analytical sharpness and savvy continue to inspire me. I would also like to thank Ruth Schwartz Cowan for introducing me to the history of technology and encouraging me to pursue work on dance, and Rob Kohler for advocating “thinking big” about the field. Finally, my thanks to the late Riki Kuklick, whose unstinting enthusiasm for scholarship and life I miss daily. Penn’s graduate student community is matchless in its camaraderie, and I am grateful for its continued dedication to making the third floor of Cohen one of the most intellectually dynamic spaces on campus. Every member of the Department enriched and shaped my thinking, but I would particularly like to thank Rachel Elder, Andy Hogan, Mary Mitchell, Elaine LaFay, Allegra Giovine, and Matthew Hoffarth for their support, iv encouragement, and friendship. Special thanks also to Nellwyn Thomas, who made my first two years here truly special, to Brittany Shields, for doing and knowing everything exactly one year before I do, and to Sarah Campana, for making Philadelphia a home. My debt to Matthew Hersch—for his unconditional belief, endless editing, and inhuman persistence—is difficult to measure, but I hope to repay him over many, many years. Early in my graduate career, I was fortunate to receive a Social Science Research Council Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship in Art/Science Studies, which provided me with both early research funding and intellectual guidance. Peter Galison and Caroline Jones were inspiring leaders and colleagues Jeremy Blatter, Stephanie O’Rourke, Tim Prizer, Christy Spackman, Rebecca Uchill, Julia Yezbick, Lee Douglas, Fiona Greenland, David Baylis, Amanda Bevers, and Eszter Polonyi transformed how I thought about my incipient project. Thanks also to the University of Pennsylvania’s Dissertation Research Fellowship for funding the bulk of my archival research and to the ACLS/Mellon Dissertation Completion Fellowship for supporting my final year of writing. Both a six-month predoctoral fellowship and several recent workshops at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science provided invigorating intellectual experiences. My heartfelt thanks to Lorraine Daston for the invitation and for fostering a place so full of vitality and good cheer. Thanks too to Christine von Oertzen, David Sepkowski, Veronika Lipphardt, Rebecca Lemov, John Carson, Harun Kucuk, Sigrid Leyssen, Rohan Deb Roy, Elena Aronova, Elena Serrano, Skuli Sigurdsson and Nina Lerman for feedback and fun. I am also particularly grateful to have met Judy Kaplan, Jenny Bangham, and Sarah Blacker, who have been both true friends and astute interlocutors. v Over the past year, I have also been fortunate to be associated with Harvard University’s Department of History of Science, which provided a congenial home as I finished the project; particular thanks go to Jenna Tonn and the entire DAWGs writing group. Finally, I could not have completed this project without the help of many dedicated, creative archivists. In particular, I would like to thank Sharon Maxwell at the University of Surrey NRCD Collections, Jane Fowler at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, Todd Harvey at the Library of Congress’ American Folklife Center, Mei-Chen Lu at the Dance Notation Bureau, and the entire staff of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. vi ABSTRACT THE CHOREOGRAPHY OF EVERYDAY LIFE: RUDOLF LABAN AND THE MAKING OF MODERN MOVEMENT Whitney Elaine Laemmli John Tresch “The Choreography of Everyday Life: Rudolf Laban and the Making of Modern Movement,” explores how an inscription technology developed in German expressionist dance found unlikely application in some of the key institutions of twentieth-century modernity. Called “Labanotation,” it used a complicated symbology to record human bodily movement on paper. Initially used to coordinate mass-dance spectacles in Weimar Germany, the system was quickly adopted in the United States and the United Kingdom in fields ranging from management theory to psychiatry to anthropology. My research analyzes the widespread appeal of this seemingly quixotic tool and to situates it within broader literatures on modern technology, art, media, and politics. Ultimately, I argue that Labanotation succeeded so spectacularly because it promised to reconcile the invented and the authentic, the individual and the group, and the body and the machine at moments threatened by massive social upheaval. Laban’s work thus not only served to preserve a fading past, but opened up new possibilities for the literal choreographing of modern life. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... iii ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... vi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ........................................................................................... viii INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1 SCIENCE, POLITICS, AND THE BODY IN MOTION ................................................ 19 PAPER DANCES: THE DANCE NOTATION BUREAU’S RATIONAL REPOSITORY ........................................................................................................................................... 56 CORPORATE BODIES: