Stanford University Catches Up

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When I was a student at Stanford in the early 1970s, you could take some dance classes, but these were purely recreational and non-academic.  There was a wonderful modern dance teacher – Inge Weiss, a former Wigman dancer. There was no dance major, however. When I got serious about studying dance, I took a leave of absence, earning degrees through my PhD elsewhere.

Fast forward to 2005, when Stanford alumni who had published were invited to display their books during reunion activities.  … Read More

Dancing Art Nouveau

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In his first career as a visual artist, Laban was closely involved in the Art Nouveau movement.  Literally meaning “new art,” Art Nouveau was a self-consciously modern movement focused on the applied arts rather than the fine arts.  The movement expressed itself in innovations in architecture, furniture, fabric, dishes, lamps, jewelry – redesigning the everyday objects that people use and the spaces they inhabit.  

In short, Art Nouveau aimed to break with tradition and change the shape of the modern world.… Read More

Stability and Mobility

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“Stability and mobility endlessly alternate,” Laban writes in Choreutics. This basic pattern underlies all movement through space. For instance, in a turning leap, spinning while flying through the air leads to a temporary loss of equilibrium. But when the feet touch the floor, there is a return to quietude and relative balance.

According to Laban, “movements containing dimensional tensions give a feeling of stability.” These fundamental lines of motion – up and down, across and open, backwards and forwards – are Laban’s stable prototypes.  … Read More

Dance and Conflict

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The Dance Studies Association (DSA) has chosen “Dance and Conflict” as the theme of its conference this summer in Malta. This promises to be a huge international gathering now that the Congress on Research in Dance (CORD) and the Society of Dance History Scholars (SDHS) have merged to form DSA.

I’m quite excited by this conference theme because dance is often considered to be a trivial pastime. The ways in which dance can bring people together and enable them to overcome differences is often overlooked.… Read More

Dance and the Written Word

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Dance-Written-Word

Dance is a nonverbal art. Yet, as practitioners of an evanescent art, writing is often quite important to dancers. Nijinsky kept a diary. Loie Fuller, Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham, Agnes DeMille, and Paul Taylor produced autobiographies. Isadora Duncan wrote essays on the dance, as did Merce Cunningham and Murray Louis. Doris Humphrey and Twyla Tharp have addressed creative issues in dance. Katherine Dunham, whose career spans anthropology and performance, has written profusely.

 

The list goes on and on. Dance may be a nonverbal art, but dancers are hardly silent on this subject.… Read More

Flow Changes Everything

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When flow takes the place of another motion factor, Laban wrote, “the expression is more intense” and the whole configuration “gains new meaning.” In the Mastery of Movement correspondence course, we tested Laban’s assertion.

Readers were asked to choose one of the transformation drives – either Passion or Vision or Spell. They were to work out the eight effort quality combinations of that drive and then embody each mood.

The Vision Drive combines the motion factors of Space, Time, and Flow (the motion factor of Weight is latent).… Read More

April Dances Bring Advances 1

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In late April we celebrate National Dance Week. This year’s festivities come with scientific evidence that dancing is good for you!  A research team based at Colorado State University found that contra dancing may help to fend off aging in the brain.

A four-year clinical trial followed a group of 174 healthy adults aged 60 – 79.  The group was divided into four parts.  One group did aerobic walking, another not only walked but also took a nutritional supplement, the third group participated in stretching and balance classes, and the fourth group attended contra dance classes involving a sequence of figures as dancers progress up and down a line.  … Read More

Dancing with Your Eyebrows

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“You must not think of dance as steps,” Rudolf Laban once told a group of student actors.  “Dance is meaningful movement.  You can dance with your eyebrows. When I have taught you, you will be able to dance with any part of your body.’’

The acting students were skeptical, or course.  They thought that dance was frivolous, not serious.  Laban, however, had spent a lifetime investigating not only the physical aspects of dance, but also its mental, emotional, and social dimensions.  … Read More

A Life for Dance

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Laban’s autobiography, A Life for Dance, is a curious book, but one that reveals a great deal about his creative vision and theatrical activities.  As he notes in the letter to his publisher that opens the book:

“I recount in my book how a human being makes his way through thousands of circumstances and events.  Since this person happens to be a dance master or even a dance-poet, the book will frequently speak about the precious little-known art of dance. … Read More

Observing Movement, Observing Life

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In Mastery of Movement, Laban asks readers to observe a person in everyday life, a person portraying a character in a mime scene, and a dancer performing a national or period dance.  Observers are to analyze the use of the body, along with the use of space, time, and weight.

This is a useful exercise for any actor; it is also a task that Laban set for himself.  In his autobiography, Laban describes his first experiences as a young and very idealistic artist-to-be. … Read More