Peter Brinson

Peter Neilson Brinson (6 March 1920 – 7 April 1995) was a British writer and lecturer on dance. At various times he was a film-maker, writer, and academic, and did much to raise the profile of dance education in Britain and elsewhere. and he made seven programmes on video based on his original scripts.

He was linked to the work of the London School of Contemporary Dance, as his interests were wider than ballet. He went on to become director of the Royal Academy of Dancing (1968) and director of the UK and Commonwealth branch of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation from 1972 to 1992, continuing his work in promoting the arts. He was an academic at York University, Toronto, and the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance at Goldsmiths' College, London, and his work also led to the foundation of the first chair of dance studies at a British university, at the University of Surrey, from whom he received an honorary Doctorate of the University in 1994. He has been credited as "playing a leading role in transforming the nature and status of dance education in Britain and many other parts of the world." and The Arts in Schools (1982), edited by Ken Robinson (educationalist).

Brinson developed myelofibrosis, and after being diagnosed in 1988 he required numerous blood transfusions – although he made the most of the time these took, and used the time to read and write without interruptions. He died on 7 April 1995.

Archives Peter Brinson left his professional papers to the Laban Archive held at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.