Laban had a fertile imagination. To enrich his parsimonious effort theory, he envisioned characters to represent different proportions of indulging and contending qualities among effort combinations. He illustrates this with the combinations of the Action Drive.
For example, Laban associates Floating (all indulging qualities) with the soft loving movements of a goddess or angel, while Punching characterizes the violent and hateful movements of a demon.
Laban goes on to write: “The characterization of a mere mortal will be more difficult, because imagination credits gods, goddesses, and demons with plain and uncomplicated effort habits whereas those of mortals are seen to be much more intricate.”
Find out more about effort habits and character in the upcoming MoveScape Center workshop, “The Transformation Drives,” beginning October 31.