Laban & Co. ?

having inherited a new set of books, all reflecting areas of dance and dance history and dance theory, I keep coming back to the enormous heritage created by and on the instigation of Rudolf von Lábán. 

i also keep thinking as I survey even just briefly through books such as Lábán's "The Art of Movement" and the extensive postulations, all backed by notation, models etc., is how much of this heritage could have been helpful for the next generations of dancers, also in the "postmodernists" in the US of A (Anna Halprin on the West Coast, the echos that became Judson Dance Theater on the East coast, with Elaine Summers creating her very own lineage as a pendant to Summers) let alone post-War European dance artists. this entire heritage seems near lost today, submerged into immediate, sensorial spectacle, echoing forms of forms of forms created before. (continued with artificial intelligence modells) 

following through on the ever more detailed and intricate, sensorial understanding of movement and dance that have emerged, from Francois Delsarte and Genevieve Stebbins, all the way to Charlotte Selver and Elaine Summers (Sensory/Kinetic Awareness) how can we make use of this inheritance? 

it is understandable that a first generation just coming off European-formulated "Classical ballet" and its becomings wished to remain open, all too often going into Indian and Chinese-based bodymind systems and -traditions instead, from Yoga to Tai Chi and Chigong. but there is more, and more to keep developing, whether "serial" choreography echoing "serial" composition in 20th century "classical"-derived European/American music or their further developments into aleatoric, chance-based, improvisatory strategies. 

in a certain sense, one could say that European-derived choreography became ever more organic-understanding, the rather superficially pre-set mindset releasing into every more sensorial-present states. with Mary O'Donnell-Fulkerson's attempt at syncretizing both extremes into a single perspective (Open Form Composition) a wholesome understanding has emerged that allows this development to come to full-circle and start moving.