Dartington College

Important centre for activity in the contemporary dance scene based in Devon

The work at this institution and by key practitioners was crucial in the birth and development of New Dance and styles of movement we still see within the ICDS 2000-current

In the 1940s and 50s, Darlington had been associated with Europe an modern dance- Rudolph Laban and Kurt Jooss made their base there

By 1963 there was an established course for modern dance mainly based on Graham technique

Mary Fullerton was invited over from America in 1973, bringing frustrations she had encountered within her own training such as a competitive atmosphere, classes taught as repetition rather than personal exploration

She offered classes that allowed students to discover their own style of moving

She introduced release technique and contact improvisation to Britain, which were already popular in America

Fulkerson developed her own choreography using improvisation, non-dancers, props, costumes and sections of spoken narrative

Many of the choreographers that later were associated with New Dance were trained by or had a connection to Fulkerson