Body, Effort, Space, and Shape have been identified as the four major categories of Laban’s analytic framework. Each factor can be seen as discrete and categorically different. Nevertheless, all four factors are simultaneously manifested in every physical action. As Laban writes in Choreutics, these different movement elements “are entirely inseparable from each other.”
This inseparability led Laban to look for some underlying principles to explain the tie that binds these elements and allows them to seamlessly cohere with undue mental calculation on the part of the mover. This led Laban to hypothesize “affinities,” or naturally-occurring relationships between effort qualities and spatial directions.
His basic model (light movements incline upwards, strong movement downwards, etc.) has a lot of face validity because it takes into account the force of gravity and the limits of bodily structure.
Nevertheless, when participants studied videos of work actions in the recent MoveScape Center course, “Harmonies of Effort and Shape,” a wide variety of effort/space relations occurred – not merely the ones indicated by Laban’s model of affinities.
These observations do not negate Laban’s model. They merely suggest that we continue to search for the tie that binds; that is, the as yet unidentified limits that allow for the seamless cohesion of body, effort, space, and shape in normal physical actions.