Food for Thought

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In 1962, Irmgard Bartenieff was expected to lecture on “Notation in Physical Therapy” for a national conference hosted by the Dance Notation Bureau in New York City.  Instead, she lectured on “Effort Observation and Assessment in Rehabilitation.”

In this historic lecture, Bartenieff clearly differentiates how the structural notation, developed by Rudolf Laban, and the effort/shape notation, developed by Warren Lamb, provide complementary information for those involved in physical and psychological therapies.

Her paper provides much food for thought.  Since November is the month of the Thanksgiving feast, Bartenieff’s observations are the subject for my November blogs.… Read More

Spell and Enchantment

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Just as there are pleasant dreams and nightmares, so too the Spell Drive encompasses a range of moods, depending on the mixture of fighting and indulging effort qualities.  If this transformation drive conjures vampires and evil necromancers, it also evokes fairy godmothers and benevolent elementals.

Here are some pleasant associations:  surrendering to a pleasurable  daydream, gently concentrating one’s attention, weaving a net of enchantment, hanging fascinated on someone’s every word, pointing a magic wand with fine touch, wandering in a magical forest.… Read More

Spell and Will Power

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Spell Drive draws its motivation from the desire to exercise power over something or someone.  Alternatively, it can also arise through a desire to surrender one’s will or to give in to something so fascinating (or terrifying) that time seems to stand still.

A good example of Spell Drive can be found in the classic film Dracula starring Bela Lugosi.  In one scene Dracula is confronted by vampire slayer Professor Van Helsing, and they engage in a battle of wills.  Lugosi seeks to overpower his foe by a concentrated gaze and gesture of Directing, Increasing Pressure, and Binding. … Read More

Spell and Magic

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Obviously Spell Drive has something to do with casting a spell, or being mesmerized. On my effort hunt for examples of Spell Drive, the film The Illusionist has some wonderful scenes with clear instances of Spell Drive.

Set in Vienna in 1889, the film draws on the public interests in magic, hypnotism, and other occult practices that were rampant at the time.   The plot chronicles a love story between an aristocratic girl and her humble lover, who becomes a stage magician in order to rescue his love from her unhappy marriage to a brutal prince.… Read More

On the Spell Drive

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October is the month of Halloween, and so it seems appropriate that my blogs this month focus on the transformation drive Laban named the “Spell Drive.”

In these effort combinations, Flow replaces Time, melding with the stabilizing qualities of Weight and Space.  Spell is the timeless drive that conjures up an inescapable intensity of concentration or fascination.  As Bartenieff describes, “It is comparable to ‘a witch’s spell,’ or the power of an irresistible seduction.”

Spell always seems to me to be the effort drive least suited to contemporary life, in which time is always foreground because everything happens so quickly, or not quickly enough. … Read More

The “Second Form” of the Body

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As he endeavored to paint the human being in motion, Leonardo da Vinci was the first to detect a “second form” of the body.  This “second form” became visible in the circling movement around the body center and that of the limbs around their joints.  Laban called these circling movements “trace-forms.”

Laban stylized Leonardo’s circles, transforming them into rhythmic circles or polygons.  “Polygons are circles in which there is a spatial rhythm,” he explained. “A triangle accentuates three points in the circumference of a circle, a quadrangle four points, a pentagon five points, and so forth.”… Read More

The Body Universal

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For Laban, the body and the space immediately surrounding it are closely related, for the center of the body is also the center of the bubble of personal space called the kinesphere.

Moreover, the body and kinesphere are also related to general space.  While general space may appear to be a “void in which objects stand and – occasionally – move,” Laban asserts that “empty space does not exist.”

Instead, space is a superabundance of simultaneous movements, a matrix of forces and vectors. … Read More

Personal Space

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Just as the body is personal, so is the space it occupies.  “We must distinguish between space in general and the space within reach of the body,” Laban explained.  He called this personal reachable space the “kinesphere.”

The kinesphere is the space surrounding the body whose periphery can be reached by easily extended limbs without taking a step.  Outside the kinesphere lies the rest of space, which can only be accessed when we begin to locomote.

Even when traveling through space in general, the kinesphere is an ever present  extension of the body itself. … Read More

The Body Personal

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Rudolf Laban advocated a wide range of motion, noting that “we should neither have preference for nor avoid certain movements because of physical or psychical restrictions.”  Laban also considered individuality to be an important component of expressive movement.

He observed, “Graceful movements will suit one person more than vital or bizarre movements, or the contrary may be the case.  This is a question of individual temperament; some will prefer narrow and restrained movements, other may like to move freely in space, and so forth.”… Read More

BESS: Looking for the Tie that Binds

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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. … Read More