In the United States, we celebrate Thanksgiving in November, feasting with friends and family.

While the day is often focused on material blessings, I would like to acknowledge other blessings from my life in movement.

First, I am grateful that Rudolf Laban studied visual art before he became involved in dance. If this seems strange, let me explain.

Laban had the rudiments of a late nineteenth century academic art education, which drew on centuries of theory and practice, as well as the study of classic and renaissance masterpieces. … Read More

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.”… Read More

For each motion factor, Laban identified two contrasting qualities – one more “indulging” and the other more “contending.”  Consequently, for each drive consisting of three motion factors, there are eight different effort combinations.

This is a very parsimonious scheme for conceiving the enormous range of dynamic expression in human movement behavior.  Nevertheless, Laban’s scheme captures not only obvious movement moods, but also more subtle ones.   This is because the indulging and contending effort qualities are combined in differing proportions.

Find out more about this aspect of effort chemistry in the next blog.… Read More

The combinations of Space, Weight, and Time in the Action Drive were the first examples of effort chemistry that Laban identified.  Flow is the missing, or latent, motion factor.  When Flow replaces either Space, Weight, or Time, it changes the movement mood from one of practical action to an entirely different way of being in the world.

For example, when Flow replaces Weight, a whole new movement mood results.  It is not simply that the combinations of Space and Time are performed with greater or lesser control.… Read More

Effort chemistry depends on adding and subtracting kinetic ingredients.  For example, Laban delineated four effort “drives” – each of these is a combination of three of the four motion factors.

For example, the Action Drive is a combination of the motion factors of Space, Weight, and Time.  Laban observed these effort combinations in work with material objects, in which the appropriate focus, application of pressure, and speed of the action were critical to getting the job done right.

We can look at the Action Drive in terms of what is combined. … Read More

The ingredients in Laban’s “effort” theory are simple enough – only four motion factors and eight effort qualities.  But these motion factors and effort qualities can be combined in a variety of ways to describe a wide range of movement dynamics.

Laban used the metaphor of effort “chemistry” to describe how different effort combinations are transformative.  For example, bread is made with only four ingredients: flour, water, yeast, and salt.  Each ingredient has its own flavor, but when combined and baked, bread has a flavor all its own.… Read More

We know that human movement is incredibly varied, both in its visible spatial forms and its dynamic nuances.  Nevertheless, there are natural limits to physical movement and the flow of thoughts and feelings.

Having studied artist’s anatomy, Laban recognized that joint structure, range of motion, and bodily proportion define the kinds of trace-forms that the dancer’s limbs can create in the kinesphere.  These are natural limits.

Through his theory of effort drives, Laban provided a map of the inner landscapes of the dynamosphere. … Read More