The “Laban Prototypes” Project

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In 2008, Professor Madeleine Scott and I ran a choreutics-based research project at Ohio University.  The project examined Laban’s claim that fragments of the choreutic forms (aka spatial scales and rings) compose a fundamental alphabet of human movement.

The examination had two parts.  First, we set out to duplicate some of the choreutic forms that Laban represented as geometrical line drawings.  Motion capture technology is able to produce a similar kind of record, for it captures the dancer’s movement as a linear tracery of light, allowing one to see the trace-forms of the dance without the dancer. … Read More

Decoding Choreutics – Key #2

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As an artist-scientist, Laban is concerned not only with the geometry of movement, but also with its expressive meaning.  This dual vision gives rise to his theory of natural affinities between lines of motion and effort qualities.

Laban’s working out of these correlations, introduced in Choreutics in Chapter 3, is intriguing but not entirely original.  The expressive value of line and form has its roots in theory of empathy propounded by late 19th and early 20th century  psychologists and art theorists.… Read More

Decoding Choreutics – Key #1

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Another example of Laban’s double vision is his concept of the kinesphere and dynamosphere as dual domains of human movement.  To represent both domains, Laban utilizes the cube.

With regard to the kinesphere, Laban uses the cube quite literally.  Its corners, edges, and internal diagonals serve as a kind of longitude and latitude for mapping movement in the space around the dancer’s body.

 

With regard to the dynamosphere, Laban uses the cube formally to represent patterns of effort change.  This shift in how the model should be interpreted is complicated further by Laban’s use of direction symbols to stand for effort qualities and combinations.… Read More

Decoding Laban’s Choreutics I

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Choreutics is in many ways a straight-forward presentation of Laban’s movement theories.  However, more than any of Laban’s other books in English, Choreutics  is colored by Laban’s worldview.

It is recognized now that there is no such thing as pure objectivity; every theory is colored by its proposer’s experiences and beliefs.  Consequently, Laban’s worldview is not irrelevant to understanding ideas set forth in Choreutics.

In this series of blogs, I sketch aspects of Laban’s life and times and their potential influence on his theories of movement. … Read More

Capturing Movement’s Traces in Written Forms

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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

More Mysteries of Laban’s Masterpiece, Choreutics

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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

“Space Harmony” – A Misnomer?

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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

Movement Is the Life of Space

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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

Looking Back, Looking Forward

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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

Keeping Together in Time

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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