Output details

Robert Cohan on Teaching

The Robert Cohan on Teaching research includes extensive video footage of Cohan teaching students from Middlesex University, the Beijing Dance Academy as well as professional dancers. Interview footage with Bannerman and Donnelly (aka Went) details the approach and methods developed over years of working in UK, particularly the work done with the London Contemporary Dance Theatre (LCDT) a company that included both Bannerman and Donnelly.

The website also includes scholarly articles and commentary complementing the recent publication of a biography, as no published works deal with his teaching in a detailed and formalised way. Extracts from his critically-acclaimed work Stabat Mater performed by Middlesex students, with added commentary by Cohan illuminates the ways in which his teaching prepared dancers for the stage and also notes that the training system had to meet the needs of LCDT, a repertoire company that performed work by a range of choreographers.

Through interviews with Bannerman, Cohan also provides commentary on classic works such as Class, Forest and Nymphaeas providing insights on his role as teacher/choreographer in a seminal period n the development of contemporary dance in Britain.