EVENT: "Rudolf von Laban and the Mystical Origins of German Modern Dance," lecture by dance scholar Marion Kant

Marion Kant, a noted researcher and author on dance and its place in society, will give a lecture on "Rudolf von Laban and the Mystical Origins of German Modern Dance" at 2 p.m. Friday, April 4, in the Gamble Room in Rush Rhees Library on the University of Rochester's River Campus.

Laban was a choreographer and dance theorist who founded schools throughout Europe during the 1920s. In 1930, he was appointed director of the Allied State Theaters in Berlin, but was forced to leave after the Nazis came to power. He developed a system of dance notation, now called Labanotation, which evolved into a method of recording all body movement that is also now used in sports and industry.

Kant studied musicology at Humboldt University in the former East Berlin and wrote her doctoral thesis on "Romantic Ballet of the 19th Century: An Investigation of Gender in Romanticism." She also trained as a dancer and performed with a dance group attached to the Comic Opera in East Berlin.

Kant has done research in pre- and post-war German dance and the history and aesthetics of dance in several institutions in Europe, including the Berlin Academy of Science, Berlin's Free University, and the University of Surrey, where she was the June Layson Surrey Scholar.

The author of several books, including Dance Under the Swastika, Kant has taught at Trondheim University in Norway, Cambridge University, and the University of Pennsylvania, where she also was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies.

Kant's talk is sponsored by the Department of History and by the Program of Movement and Dance.