We cannot observe the ever-changing flow of thoughts and feelings directly, but we can infer motivations and intentions by how someone moves.
Moreover, we can affect our own thoughts and feelings by changing the ways in which we move.
In the upcoming MoveScape Center course, “The Transformation Drives,” we work with effort combinations, rhythms, and patterns to experience the links between body and mind, thinking and feeling, willing and acting.
Find out more in the next blog.… Read More
Experimental psychology and Rudolf Laban were born in the same year.
In 1879, a German scientist named Wilhelm Wundt opened the first psychology laboratory at the University of Leipzig. That same year, Rudolf Laban was born in Bratislava, near Vienna.
Perhaps this is mere coincidence. Nevertheless, there is a relationship.
Wundt’s aim was to examine connections between physiology and human thought and behavior; that is, between body and psyche. As an artist-scientist, Laban’s aimed to understand body movement as both a physical and psychological phenomenon.… Read More
Studies of repetitive physical labor in British industry during World War II stimulated Laban’s conceptualizations of the dynamics of human movement. Initially, Laban was hired by the efficiency engineer F.C. Lawrence to notate workers’ actions. Soon they both realized that it was not what was being done, but how it was being done that was significant.
Within two years, Laban and Lawrence expanded the scope of their studies to examine white collar labor in clerical and managerial jobs. They found that mental activities also required effort. … Read More
Irmgard Bartenieff once observed that Laban’s effort theory and notation enabled his colleagues and students “to study and work with some extremely elusive phenomena in tangible ways.” Dynamic kinetic energies – which Laban called “efforts” – are certainly elusive, changing and disappearing even as they occur.
That is why those who study movement need to invest in an effort bank in two ways.
First, movement experience with the effort elements and compounds is essential. This should be enriched through reflection on the “felt sense” of the states and drives and the images and contexts they bring to mind.… Read More
Investing in an “effort bank” helps the movement specialist use Laban’s effort theories effectively. An effort bank is not a brick-and-mortar structure, however. It is a personal treasury of experience acquired by moving and observing effort.
The upcoming MoveScape Center course, “The Transformation Drives,” helps participants invest in their effort banks. This is done in several ways.
First, the course provides images and suggestions for embodying the eight variations of each of the transformation drives – Passion, Vision, and Spell – and discovering their personal meanings.… Read More
The parsimony of effort theory poses practical problems for movement observers. There are only four motion factors and eight effort qualities, which makes the categories for classifying effort quite general and abstract.
For example, compare the actions of driving a shovel into hard soil and passionately embracing a loved one. Superficially the two actions do not look at all the same. Yet increasing pressure (the contending quality of the motion factor of weight) is likely to be present in both actions.… Read More
Using a very limited number of movement elements, Laban found a clever way to theorize the diverse kinetic qualities of human movement. He conceptualized an “effort chemistry” analogous to chemical science.
Chemists have identified a limited number atomic elements – substances that cannot be broken down into simpler substances. Combined with each other, however, elements produce the diversity of organic and inorganic substances that make up our material world.
In Laban’s effort chemistry, the four motion factors combine in groups of twos and threes to produce a variety of dynamic states and drives. … Read More
In the previous blog I claimed that Laban’s effort theory is elegant; that is, his ideas explain the dynamics of human movement clearly, directly, and economically. Yet the elegant parsimony of the model is also troublesome.
At its most basic level, there are only eight qualititative terms in the effort model with which to describe any movement that any human being can do. How can only eight terms begin to capture this diversity?
Because effort theory doesn’t end with only eight movement qualities. … Read More
When a scientific theory explains a phenomenon clearly, directly, and economically, we say it is elegant. Does Laban’s characterization of the dynamic qualities of human movement meet these criteria?
According to Laban, every movement evolves in space and time bringing the weight of the body into flow. This would seem to be a clear and direct statement – possessing some of the qualities of elegance.
Explanatory economy (aka “parsimony”) is also an important component of elegance. This is based on the long-standing principle that the simplest explanation is most likely to be correct.… Read More
Effort, as Laban conceived it, is the driving force of human movement. The need to move and its manifestation in dynamic action comes not only from the conscious mind but also from the most remote and inward recesses of consciousness. In this sense, effort is deeply personal.
At the same time, bodily movements share certain features, regardless of the unique personal circumstances of the individual. In this sense, human efforts are universal.
The kinetic dynamics of effort are both personal and universal. … Read More