{"product_id":"9781906830809","title":"Moving With The Times","description":"\u003cp\u003eUncompromising innovator, researcher,\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003edancer and scholar, mentor and matriarch\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShe is a bishop’s daughter with a silver-spoon\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003echildhood and youthful traumas through\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ethe death of her father, wartime separation\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eand teenage poverty. Valerie’s meeting, aged\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003esixteen, with the extraordinary Hungarian\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRudolf Laban, guru of expressionist dance,\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eset her on a life-long career devoted to\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003equestioning, championing and developing\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ehis initial insights into dance as a deeply\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003esignificant art form for human wellbeing.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHer writing exposes her battles to integrate\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003edance practice with dance scholarship in a\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eworld set up to keep them apart.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShe shares the difficulties of balancing the\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003edemands of family with professional life\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eexacerbated by the catastrophic illness of her\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ehusband John and her own experience of\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003emental breakdown.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShe describes her travels taking dance all\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eover the globe and collecting evidence across\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEurope of Laban’s leadership of German dance\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ein the 1920s and 1930s, work that the Nazi\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eregime almost succeeded in annihilating.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe book traces her support of what is\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003enow Trinity Laban Conservatoire for Music\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eand Dance, from being in its first cohort of\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003estudents in a grubby studio in Manchester to\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ebeing honoured as a Fellow in its Herzog and\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ede Meuron award-winning building in South\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLondon.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eValerie shares her wholehearted commitment\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eto whatever was on offer at difference stages of\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eher life from performing and choreographing,\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003erenovating a Victorian garden and running\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eclubs for disadvantaged people, writing books\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eand directing documentaries, educating\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003edancers and dance makers, engaging with\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eall manner of people along the way from the\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eleft-wing theatre director Joan Littlewood to\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ethe establishment Archbishop of Canterbury\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eor the astounding choreographer William\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eForsythe, while nurturing her family and embracing Quakerism.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Dance Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47033319096560,"sku":"9781906830809","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781906830809_p0.jpg?v=1763617696","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781906830809","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}