Why Study Choreutics? Reason #1

Posted on September 6, 2018 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Students of Rudolf Laban’s work seem to fall into two camps:  those who like effort and those who like space harmony (aka Choreutics).  Or perhaps more accurately, there are those who love Choreutics, and those who loathe it.

Yet there are many reasons to study Choreutics.  Reason Number 1:  Effort and space go together.

Warren Lamb puts it quite simply:  “We cannot move in making an Effort without an accompanying movement of Shaping.  These are the two components of movement…  Laban made it quite clear that this duality [effort and space] was the basis of his work.”… Read More

Looking for Brave, Embodied Explorers

Posted on September 4, 2018 by Carol-Lynne Moore

“Choreutics” is the term Laban invented to describe the spatial aspects of human movement. The term is a combination of two Greek words —  “chor” meaning circle and “eu” meaning “good.”  According to Laban, embodying the “good circles” that he designed  “can have a regenerating effect on our individual and social forms of life.” I’m looking for a few brave explorers to put Laban’s claims to the test.

In the forthcoming MoveScape Center seminar, “Decoding Choreutics: Part 2,” I reconstruct Choreutic forms that Laban developed in the 1920s. … Read More

Decoder’s Dilemma

Posted on August 22, 2018 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Admittedly, Part 1 of Laban’s Choreutics is pretty tough going for readers. But Part 2 is even tougher for several reasons. While Laban wrote Part 1 in 1938-39, Part 2 was compiled by Gertrud Snell Friedburg ten years earlier, in 1929. When Lisa Ullmann edited Laban’s Part 1 manuscript, she decided to add Part 2. So, the tone of the writing changes. But that’s not all!

The “basic movement scales and configurations” that are discussed in Part 2 do not use the Labanotation direction symbols  Instead, Friedburg used an earlier system of numbers and letters to notate the pathways through space.… Read More

Dancing Art Nouveau

Posted on August 15, 2018 by Carol-Lynne Moore

In his first career as a visual artist, Laban was closely involved in the Art Nouveau movement.  Literally meaning “new art,” Art Nouveau was a self-consciously modern movement focused on the applied arts rather than the fine arts.  The movement expressed itself in innovations in architecture, furniture, fabric, dishes, lamps, jewelry – redesigning the everyday objects that people use and the spaces they inhabit.  

In short, Art Nouveau aimed to break with tradition and change the shape of the modern world.… Read More

Laban’s “Deflected Direction” Hypothesis

Posted on August 8, 2018 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Dimensions = stability and diagonals = mobility. Yet, according to Laban, “neither pure stability nor pure mobility exist.”  Natural human movement “is a composite of stabilizing and mobilizing tendencies.”

What is going on here?  Laban has taken a lot of trouble to delineate the dimensional and diagonal lines of motion.  And every Laban student, whether in a basic or advanced course, practices dimensional and diagonal sequences over and over again.  

Then Laban surprises us with the “deflected direction hypothesis.”  All of a sudden, he observes that “the deflected or mixed inclinations are more apt to reflect trace-forms of living matter.”… Read More

Stability and Mobility

Posted on August 1, 2018 by Carol-Lynne Moore

“Stability and mobility endlessly alternate,” Laban writes in Choreutics. This basic pattern underlies all movement through space. For instance, in a turning leap, spinning while flying through the air leads to a temporary loss of equilibrium. But when the feet touch the floor, there is a return to quietude and relative balance.

According to Laban, “movements containing dimensional tensions give a feeling of stability.” These fundamental lines of motion – up and down, across and open, backwards and forwards – are Laban’s stable prototypes.  … Read More

Decoding Choreutics: The Next Step

Posted on July 19, 2018 by Carol-Lynne Moore

I’ve read the first part of Laban masterpiece, Choreutics (also known as The Language of Movement) many times.  And I’ve even developed a correspondence course designed to help other readers with this rich but difficult text.

However, I have to admit that reading Part 2 is a real challenge. Lisa Ullmann edited Laban’s manuscript, which makes up the first part of the book, several years after Laban’s death.  She added Part 2, which is based entirely on a compilation of “basic movement scales and configurations” made by Gertrud Snell Friedburg and presented to Laban for his fiftieth birthday in 1929.… Read More

Lifetimes Spent Studying Movement

Posted on July 18, 2018 by Carol-Lynne Moore

At the closing banquet of the LIMS 40th Anniversary Conference, three Lifetime Achievement Awards were presented to Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Peggy Hackney, and myself.

I’m sure I speak for the other two recipients when I say that it is a great honor to have one’s efforts recognized by colleagues. For all of us, the encounter with Rudolf Laban’s ideas and our studies so long ago with the remarkable Irmgard Bartenieff have been truly life-changing. Though our journeys have gone in different directions, they spring from the same roots.… Read More

Films of Irmgard Bartenieff

Posted on July 12, 2018 by Carol-Lynne Moore

One of the opening events of the Laban Institute’s 40th Anniversary Conference included a couple of films of Irmgard Bartenieff leading a movement session with a young dancer. The rough footage probably dates from the 1960s. Several movement analysts who worked with Irmgard in the early days were asked to comment on the films.  An excerpt of my comments are posted below.

“Irmgard had very expressive hands. For such a slender and fragile looking woman, Irmgard’s hands always gave an impression of being larger than one would have expected. … Read More

A Bird’s Eye View of the LIMS Conference

Posted on July 5, 2018 by Carol-Lynne Moore

A bird flying over Manhattan in early June would have detected several hot spots of movement activity and collegial exchange. Sites for the Laban Institute conference ranged from Hunter College on the upper east side, to midtown near Bryant Park, to Washington Square Park in the West Village.

With as many as four sessions running concurrently and over 200 participants, it is impossible to provide an encyclopedic report on the conference as a whole. Some highlights for me were the following sessions.… Read More