Potential and Actual Kinespheres

Posted on March 14, 2019 by Carol-Lynne Moore

In order to resolve differences between the definitions of Lamb (growing and shrinking of the kinesphere) and Kestenberg (growing and shrinking of the body shape), we elaborated Laban’s concept of “kinesphere.”

Laban defines the kinesphere as “the sphere around the body whose periphery can be reached by easily extended limbs without stepping away from that place which is the point of support.” This definition makes the kinesphere sound like pre-existing bubble of territory surrounding the body, with boundaries in far reach space.… Read More

Respecting the Laban Legacy: A Case Study

Posted on March 12, 2019 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Several years ago, colleagues and I found that our Laban Movement Analysis students in the Columbia College Chicago Certificate Program had developed very fuzzy notions about shape flow – an important “mode of shape change.” As a faculty, we developed the following procedure to address this problem.

First, we reviewed the literature about shape flow. Based on the primary sources, we established a working definition for identifying shape flow. Then we tested the definition, to see if different observers could agree.… Read More

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

Posted on March 7, 2019 by Carol-Lynne Moore

I would like to draw an analogy between the Buddha and Laban. After Buddha died, it fell to his disciples to carry on his teachings. Buddha did not record his ideas; all his teaching was oral. Moreover, he didn’t necessarily say exactly the same thing to every disciple. Consequently, many schools of Buddhism have sprung up, each claiming “authority by association.”

A similar thing occurred with Laban. As he studied movement in different contexts, he kept modifying his theoretical ideas, which he conveyed to different disciples at different times.… Read More

The Laban Legacy

Posted on March 5, 2019 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Around 1913, Rudolf Laban abandoned his career as a visual artist to enter the field of dance. At that time, dance was the perennial “poor relation” of the other arts, a discipline defined more by what it lacked than by what it offered.

Traditional and genre-bound in practice, dance depended for its existence on a body to perform it and faded away the minute the performance was done. It was an ephemeral art, like music or theatre. But unlike these arts, dance was exclusively ephemeral, largely lacking in literature, history, scholarship, and theory.… Read More

Choreutics Decoded — More Mixology!

Posted on February 21, 2019 by Carol-Lynne Moore

We also explored mixed 4-rings. These are rectangular forms comingling transversals from two different A and B scales with peripheral edges to connect them. The resulting form is a twisted plane that lies in only one half of the kinesphere.

Mixed 4-rings with steep transversals are confined either to the mover’s right or left. Those with flat transversals lie in front or behind. And those with flat transversals are situated above or below waist level.

Moreover, the mixed 4-rings are not two-dimensional flat planar forms, like the mixed 2-rings.… Read More

Choreutics Decoded — Mix It Up!

Posted on February 19, 2019 by Carol-Lynne Moore

All the familiar space harmony forms are consistently made up of either central, transverse, or peripheral trajectories. In Part 2, however, Laban starts to mix tranverse and peripheral lines of motion to create some really interesting rings.

We explored, for example, mixed 2-rings. This designation is a misnomer, for mixed 2-rings are rectangles (aka 4-rings) arrayed in an interesting way in the kinesphere.

I refer to mixed 2-rings as “tilted planes.” There are 12 of these, each forming 4 sets of interlocking flat, steep, and flowing planes. … Read More

Choreutics Decoded – New Fun Forms

Posted on February 14, 2019 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Some forms in Part 2 of Choreutics are a real departure from space harmony “business as usual.” For example, in all well-known Choreutic forms, Laban avoids using the short and long edges of the cardinal planes. These peripheral and transverse lines are either plumb with the line of gravity or perpendicular to it. Thus they are stable — and to be avoided!

Also, all the well-known Choreutic forms use the cubic diagonals as their axes.

However, in Part 2, Laban begins to employ planar edges in the trace-forms and planar diameters as axes.… Read More

Choreutics Decoded – Beyond “Rhythmic Circles”

Posted on February 12, 2019 by Carol-Lynne Moore

The spatial sequences that Laban presents in Part 1 of Choreutics are “rhythmic circles” – closed polygonal trace-forms that begin and end in the same spatial location. But in Part 2, Laban created open sequences that begin and end in different parts of the kinesphere.

We explored several of these open forms, notably “snakes” and “shears.”

Snakes are taken from the volutes of the A and B Scales – essentially a volute linked to the next point in the scale. They lead on in space and lend themselves to free improvisation in terms of finding a way to complete the sequence.… Read More

Choreutics Decoded – Deflected Directions Rule!

Posted on February 7, 2019 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Everyone who has ever studied Laban Movement Analysis will have encountered the dimensions (prototype of stability) and the cubic diagonals (prototype of mobility). Yet Laban emphasizes that most movements are neither purely stable nor completely mobile, but some mixture of the two qualities.

Consequently, it is the “deflected directions” – the transverse and peripheral lines of motion – that predominate in organic movement.

The material in Part 2 shows that Laban systematically explored transverse and peripheral forms to a much greater extent than contemporary renderings of his work indicate.… Read More

Decoding Part 2 of Choreutics

Posted on February 5, 2019 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Last fall, a dozen brave explorers and I delved into Part 2 of Laban’s masterwork on spatial aspects of movement – Choreutics. We needed to be brave, because this part of the work presents many transverse and peripheral space harmony forms that are seldom taught today. But that is not the only, or most daunting, challenge.

Part 2 is based on a compilation of forms that Gertrud Snell Friedburg prepared as a birthday present for Laban in 1929. By this date, Laban had published the rudiments of his dance notation system.… Read More