Designing for Movement: Dance Costumes, Art Schools and Natural Movement in the Early Twentieth Century

Using costumes created for the School of Natural Movement led by Madge Atkinson in the early twentieth century, this article focuses particularly on the role of design education and the more informal understandings of design emerging from experimentation in modern dance. It locates artistic collaborations between costumes and choreography in the cultural history of Manchester during the early twentieth century. In particular it discusses the development of unique approaches to design by the designers Walter Grimmond, Lilian Reburn, Stella Mary Pearce and Eleanor (Ella) Slinn, arising from their involvement with Atkinson and her dancers. It also considers the influence of leading design teachers, such as Walter Crane and Lewis Foreman Day, at the Manchester School of Art and Design, who constructed an innovative curriculum shaped by trade, cultural tourism and Asian philosophical perspectives. The combination of the designers’ knowledge of pattern, colour, shape and ornament and the dancers’ interaction with kinaesthetic image-making produced a set of diverse approaches to costume design and movement expression. This creative application of design principles, supported by the proximity of the Manchester textile industry, helped to construct an artistic milieu in which modern conceptions of design and performance were advanced in Britain.