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

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

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

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

Anything a human being can do involves effort.  And because we can do so many different things, human effort appears almost infinite.  Nevertheless, Rudolf Laban detected limits.

These limits have to do with the sequencing of dynamic qualities and combinations.  He notes that “effort follows certain rules, because the transitions from one effort quality to another are either easy or difficult.”

While Laban affirms that “Man has complete freedom in his choice and employment of action-moods,” he also adds that “In ordinary circumstances, no sane person will ever jump from one quality to a complete contrast because of the great mental and nervous strain involved in so radical a change.”… Read More

Laban makes the following observation in Choreutics: “Form is produced by the limbs of the body and is governed by their anatomical structure which permits only certain movements to be made arising from the functions of bending, stretching, twisting, and combinations of these.”

Based on these limitations, Laban identified “four formal elements as a basis for shaping.”  These four linear elements can be found in all alphabets and numerical symbols.  Laban delineates these as straight, curved, twisted, and round.

According to Laban, all trace-forms are built from these four basic shapes. … Read More

Leonardo da Vinci identified a “second form of the human body,” the one created by the limbs as they move through the space around the body.  Laban named these secondary forms “trace-forms.” 

These movement forms are limited both by the mover’s body and by the nature of the space we inhabit.

Bodily limits include joint structure, proportional relations among body parts, and range of motion.  These limitations govern where our limbs can move in the surrounding space.

In addition, we inhabit a gravitation field in a three-dimensional terrestrial space. … Read More

Figure drawing was the core of academic art training when Laban was studying at the great French academy, the École des Beaux Arts around 1900. He was able to employ this training in his later career as a dance and movement theorist in three ways.

First, artist’s anatomy includes the study of joint structures.  These joints bend, extend, and rotate in certain directions, and not in others.

Secondly, while individual bodies differ, there is a normal range governing the proportion of different body parts well-known to artists since the Classical and Renaissance periods.… Read More

In The Future of the Body, Esalen founder Michael Murphy writes: “The inexorable advance of athletic records provides dramatic evidence that the human body has great potential for several kinds of development.”  Rudolf Laban concurs, noting that in every bodily movement “both infinity and eternity are hidden.”

Nevertheless, Laban was fully aware that human movement is not infinite.  It is bound by certain limits.  He was also aware that limitations are not just restrictive, they are also creative.

Laban spent much of his career as a dancer, observer, and movement theorist identifying the underlying factors that limit human movement potential.… Read More