Yat Malmgren

After a distinguished career as a solo recital dancer and classical soloist, Yat Malmgren eventually created Drama Centre, London together with John Blatchley; Doreen Cannon (a former assistant to Uta Hagen) later succeeded by Reuven Adiv (a former assistant to Lee Strasberg); Harold Lang; and Christopher Fettes.

His distinguished pupils include: Sean Connery, Diane Cilento, Patricia Neal, and Anthony Hopkins; and later: Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Geraldine James, Helen McCrory, Paul Bettany, Tara Fitzgerald, Michael Fassbender, Anastasia Hille, Tom Hardy, Anne-Marie Duff, John Simm and Daniel Betts.

He was born in March 1916 in Gavle, a delightful little town north of Stockholm. Trained in Stockholm and Berlin, he enjoyed great success as a solo recital dancer in Berlin, Paris, Warsaw and Stockholm. In Brussels in 1938 he won the Gold Medal of the Olympiad of Dance, but - the second World War being imminent - he joined the Ballets Jooss at Dartington Hall in Devon, where he first encountered Rudolf Laban. Much later, Laban was to entrust him with the completion of The Glossary of Terms employed in Movement Psychology, since the latter then believed that the European Modern Dance, as it had previously been understood, had no future in Britain. This Yat was to do with conspicuous success, eventually completing the Theory with the so-called Confluence of Externalised Drives.

The rest of his exceptional career was divided between London, Gothenburg, Stockholm and San Francisco.

More information:

The Guardian Newspaper - obituary of Yat Malmgren

Back Stage West - Colin Firth web interview

More information:

Soul of the American Actor - 2016 web article

2017: Swedish Radio´s podcast Spotlight with and about Yat Malmgren and the work. Including recordings made with Christopher Fettes in 2000 at Drama Centre, plus commentary from Simon Callow and Pierce Brosnan.