Motus Humanus Turns 25!

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In 1991, Charlotte Honda, Kaoru Yamamoto, and I formed Motus Humanus, a professional organization for Laban-based movement specialists. Over Labor Day weekend, we celebrated our 25th anniversary in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with over 30 movement analysts and invited guests.

“Six Conversations about Human Movement” provided the theme for this, our 8th Roundtable on Professional Issues.  In this unique event, each of our six volunteer Board members (David Bauer, Cate Deicher, Alison Henderson, Becky Nordstrom, Kaoru Yamamoto, and myself) invited a special guest for a chat. … Read More

Tensegrity – Did Laban Beat Bucky Fuller?

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In 1975 Buckminster Fuller coined the term “tensegrity” by contacting two terms —  tensional and integrity.  Simply defined, tensegrity refers to “compression elements in a sea of tension.”

“Tensegrity structures,” cantilevered struts held together by strings, appear in photographic records of sculptures created by Rudolf Laban during his convalescence at Dartington Hall (1938-39).  Of course, Laban was modeling Choreutic trace-forms.  But he seems to have happened upon the concept of tensegrity, or more accurately, to have grasped intuitively today’s emerging models of the body as a biotensegrity structure.… Read More

Choreutic Practice – Healing the Mind-Body Split

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The aim of choreutic practice, according to Rudolf Laban, is “to stop the process of disintegrating into disunity.”  In his view, bodily movement “can have a regenerating effect on our individual and social forms of life.”

In our upcoming Advanced Space Harmony workshop, Cate Deicher and I intend to “push the envelope” by exploring new frontiers in choreutic practice.  The workshop focuses on bringing seldom-taught space harmony sequences to life.  This requires, as Laban notes, “integrating the bodily perspective, the dynamic feeling and the controlling faculties.” … Read More

“Summer of Dance” Dissed

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I may think the Denver Art Museum’s “Summer of Dance” is splendid, but the Denver Post’s critic disagrees.  He writes, “As a theme, ‘dance’ is, frankly, thin, a fringe topic that’s wholly without risk and lacks the kind of gravitas that a serious museum has the skill and resources to tackle.”  Other phrases are similarly dismissive:  “escapism,” “light touch,” “fun,” and finally, in response to the display of Anna Pavlova’s tutu – “This year, its feathery fluffiness feels like a metaphor for the whole lineup at DAM.”… Read More

Denver Art Museum’s “Summer of Dance”

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My home town’s major art museum is hosting four separate exhibits on dance this summer.  Art and Dance have many close connections, so I think it’s splendid to see dance featured so prominently in a major museum setting!

My favorite exhibit is “Why We Dance: American Indian Art in Motion.”  This exhibit, assembled by in-house curators, draws upon paintings of traditional dances and displays of dance costumes, drums, and other artifacts.  It also incorporates videotaped interviews with Native American dancers who participate in the yearly powwow held at the Denver Art Museum. … Read More

Dance’s Duet with the Camera Published

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I am happy to announce the publication of Dance’s Duet with the Camera.  This collection of essays, edited by Telory D. Arendell and Ruth Barnes and published by Palgrave Macmillan, “takes on the difficult task of verbalizing how the live aspects of present, sweaty, energy-driven dancers might collaborate with the more staid, focused, and digitally manipulated forms of either 2D or 3D film.”

My own contribution to the book is a chapter on Fred Astaire.  This marvelous dancer’s best work was captured on film. … Read More

The Value of Choreutics Part 2

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In addition to developing physical skills, Choreutic practice also challenges movers intellectually.  It gives us a way to think about space.

Generally, if we think about space at all, we think of it as a void, an empty place. In other words, for us, space is an absence.  Laban, on the other hand, asserts that space is a presence, a “superabundance” of potential movements.  And he provides a geography to help us visualize the many possible pathways our movements may take.… Read More

The Value of Choreutic Practice

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“Why are we learning this?”  Anyone who has ever taught Space Harmony will have heard this question from students.  In fact, many Certified Movement Analysts have themselves struggled with this part of Laban’s work.   But the study of Choreutics is worthwhile, and in blogs across the next two months I will explain why.

To begin with, performing well-known sequences — the Axis, Girdle, and A and B Scales — helps to develop many body-level skills.  These peripheral and transverse sequences follow oblique trajectories in the space around the body.… Read More

“Advanced Space Harmony” Workshop Coming in December

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This year I set out to challenge my own understanding of Laban’s Choreutics.  I learn best when I teach others.  Thus my own Red Thread journey began in March with the Tetra seminar “Decoding Laban’s Choreutics,” a reading and correspondence course.  This close look at Part I of Laban’s mysterious masterpiece yielded new insights into the depth and scope of his theories of human movement.

In July, with the Octa workshop, “Bringing Choreutics to Life,” I took these theories forward into practice. … Read More

Navigating the World of Movement Analysis

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by Kathie Debenham

The wonderful world of Laban Movement Analysis and Bartenieff Fundamentals is  “foreign territory” to most university students who encounter it for the first time as dance majors at Utah Valley University where I have taught Introduction to Laban Studies and Bartenieff Fundamentals for 20 years. I am always on the lookout for resources that can help students enter and successfully navigate the world of movement theory and practice. My goal as a teacher is to provide the students with many opportunities to embody the concepts of Body, Effort, Shape and Space and to make meaning and discover personal application of these concepts in both their “dancing life” and the world beyond the dance studio.… Read More