Laban’s inclusion of Flow as one of the four key elements of movement dynamics was influenced by Henri Bergson’s notion of flux. According to this popular French philosopher, reality is a constant, dynamic flow of change, unlike the static and discrete objects we perceive.
Laban’s work reflects his conceptual debt to Bergson. While objects seem to stand still, Laban writes, “this illusion of a standstill is based on the snapshot-like perception of the mind,” analogous to cutting a film into pieces. The sum of such snapshots, Laban writes, “is not yet the flux itself.”
For Laban, like Bergson, life was not a sequence of moments ticking past, but a continuous flow – creative, conscious, and unfolding from within.
Flow, then, comes from within. This makes it just a little different from the other elements of effort. Find out more in the next blog.