Laban wrote Choreutics during 1938-39, while convalescing at Dartington Hall in England. He intended for the book to introduce his ideas to the English reading public. Then World War II broke out. The resident artists at Dartington Hall were dispersed, and Laban gave the manuscript to his Dartington benefactors for safe keeping. The manuscript was only rediscovered and published in 1966, after Laban’s death.
When Laban wrote Choreutics, he had not yet invented the symbols for effort notation. Consequently, he had to use spatial direction symbols, amended with a small “s,” to represent effort qualities and combinations.
Consequently, many of the effort sequences discussed in Chapters 3, 6, and 9 appear to be spatial sequences rather than patterns of effort change. Converting the direction symbols to their effort correlates requires decoding.
But once this is done, Laban’s discussion of effort and the dynamosphere (his model for effort patterning) becomes much more comprehensible.
Take advantage of my hard work breaking the code. Register now for “Decoding Choreutics,” beginning in early March.