Around 1913, Rudolf Laban abandoned his career as a visual artist to enter the field of dance. At the time, dance was a discipline defined more by what it lacked than by what it offered. Laban focused his energies on altering such conditions.
He championed the cause of dance: as a profession, as a recreative lay activity, and as a mode of education. He created a flexible dance notation system that allows works of various genre to be recorded and restaged. … Read More
Laban intended for Choreutics, written in 1938-39, to be his introduction to the English reading public. With the outbreak of World War II, Laban was forced to postpone publication. After the war, however, Laban inexplicably abandoned the manuscript altogether.
Choreutics is not the only book that Laban abandoned, but it is the only manuscript that has vanished without a trace from the Rudolf Laban Archive, a vast collection of Laban’s writings and drawings from the final two decades of his career, now held by the National Resource Centre for Dance at the University of Surrey.… Read More
Rudolf Laban liked to coin new words to designate the movement theories he was developing. During the very fertile period of his career in Germany (1919-1929) he coined two words: “Choreutics” —dealing with the spatial forms of movement, and “Eukinetics” —dealing with qualities of kinetic energy.
Laban spent the final two decades of his career in England (1938-1958). During this period he Anglicized his movement terminology. His Eukinetic theories were presented under the term “Effort,” and Choreutics became known in Laban training programs as “Space Harmony.”… Read More
The quotation above has always been one of my favorites from Laban’s masterwork, Choreutics. I like Laban’s assertion because it encourages us to think about space in a different way.
“Dead space does not exist,” Laban continues, “for there is neither space without movement nor movement without space.” It’s a little hard to wrap one’s head around this. We are accustomed to thinking of space as a gap between objects that are stable, real, and palpable. Space, on the other hand, is empty and void.… Read More
Choreutics has always been my favorite book by Rudolf Laban, although it is by no means the most accessible of his writings. The text is prone to sudden jumps, from practical movement description to mystical metaphysics. Moreover, other mysteries surround this work.
For example, Laban wrote Choreutics during 1938-39, as he convalesced at Dartington Hall following his timely escape from continental Europe to England. According to his colleague Lisa Ullmann, Laban intended for the book “to introduce his ideas on movement and dance to an interested reading public in Britain.”… Read More
Beginning in March, MoveScape Center will offer a series of Red Thread courses centered on Rudolf Laban’s Choreutics. These courses combine body and mind, delving into the physics and metaphysics of human movement through space and time.
The series opens with a Tetra seminar focused on Laban’s posthumously published masterpiece, Choreutics. Out-of-print for many years, Choreutics is once again available in paperback through Princeton/Dance Horizons Books.
In the opening springtime Tetra, MoveScape goes retro with a correspondence course. Based on an easy schedule, participants will read the Preface, Introduction, and first 12 chapters of Choreutics.… Read More
The wintery month of January is named after the Roman god Janus. Janus had two faces, one that looked back and one that looked forward. Similarly, this time of year invites introspection – reflection on things past and anticipation of things yet to be. In honor of Janus, I look back and forward.
Movement study is not recognized as a discipline in its own right. But someday it will be, thanks to the vision of remarkable people whose work and teachings have laid a foundation for the study of human movement. … Read More
Moving rhythmically, in sync with others, is a peculiar human pleasure. “Muscular bonding” is the term William McNeill has coined to describe “the euphoric fellow feeling that prolonged and rhythmic muscular movement arouses among participants.”
McNeill, a military historian, became interested in muscular bonding as he reflected on his own Army experiences of prolonged marching in close order drill. He recalled that “moving briskly and keeping in time was enough to make us feel good about ourselves, satisfied to be moving together, and vaguely pleased with the world at large.” … Read More
Dance is often viewed as a form of self-expression. But everyone expresses themselves through their bodily movements. These quotidian expressions differ from dance in an important way however, for everyday expressive actions are spontaneous, un-rehearsed, un-premediated and largely unguarded.
Dance movements, on the other hand, are carefully chosen, rehearsed, and controlled. One of the attractions of dance training is not only enhanced freedom of bodily expression, but also increased control. Yes, dancers are control freaks. But they are also optimists. Dance offers the possibility to construct a new self – one that is leaner, stronger, more capable, more sexy — in short, more of whatever attribute a particular style of dance may emphasize.… Read More
Dance is an art that exists in both space and time. In 2016, MoveScape Center will be offering a series of workshops about space, focusing on Rudolf Laban’s Choreutic theories. As 2015 draws to an end, however, I want to focus on time.
Space is multi-dimensional. Time, on the other hand, is uni-directional. It flows in one irreversible direction — from past to present to future.
In reality, we exist only in the present moment. The past is gone; the future may never come. … Read More