Ann Hutchinson Guest papers

1948-1964

Ann Hutchinson Guest (1918-2022) was an American dancer and dance notator. She was born November 3, 1918, in New York. Her initial dance training began in the mid 1930s at the Jooss-Leeder School at Dartington Hall, England. When World War II broke out in Europe, she returned to New York where her continued training included ballet, modern, tap, and folk dance. In the 1940s she danced with the Welland Lathrop Company and in Broadway musicals, including One Touch of Venus, Billion Dollar Baby,and Kiss Me, Kate.

In 1947, Guest returned to London and worked closely with dance notation pioneer Rudolf Laban. She is credited with coining the term "Labanotation" and, in 1954, published her book of that title. A prolific writer, she also created games, wall charts, and other aids for teaching notation to children. Guest notated many major choreographic works including those by George Balanchine, Kurt Jooss, Marius Petipa, Antony Tudor, Hanya Holm, and Doris Humphrey.

Guest was one of the founders of the Dance Notation Bureau and served as its president until 1961, when she moved to London, where she founded the Language of Dance Centre in 1967. A recipient of three Rockefeller Foundation grants for the research and writing of Labanotation textbooks, she also received honorary doctorates from Marygrove College in Detroit, Michigan, and Ohio State University. In 1987, Guest inaugarated the Language of Dancer series of publications, whose output included Nijinsky's "Faune" Restored.

Guest was married to musician Ricky Trent from 1946 to 1954 and dance historian Ivor Forbes Guest from 1962 until his death in 2018. Guest died in 2022 in London.