In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, avant-garde European artists sought inspiration in esoteric societies and Eastern spiritual practices.  One such artist was a young painter-turned-dancer named Rudolf Laban.

While involvement with “secret societies” represented a rejection of religious and cultural values of the West for artists, occultism was also attractive because it appeared to offer a single key that would solve the mysteries of the universe.

Avant-garde artists and occultists were united by their denial of a world increasingly out-of-control due to the explosion of ideas in the social, political, and natural sciences. … Read More

The psychologist Howard Gardner once proposed a “bodily-kinesthetic intelligence,” characterized as the ability to use one’s body in highly differentiated and skilled ways.  Educator Ruth Foster addresses this intelligence even more directly: “We are in the world through our body, and the basis of knowledge lies in sensori-motor experience, the most intimate way of knowing.”

I’m sure Laban would agree with both statements.  But for him, bodily knowing goes beyond practical concerns to the transcendental realm of “gnosis.”

Gnosis (from the Greek) simply means knowledge.… Read More

Laban noted that “The European has lost the habit and capacity to pray with movement,” contrasting the sedate genuflexions of Christian worshippers with the much richer and more expressive ritual movements of other faiths and cultures.

This observation is based on his visits as a youth to see his father in the Balkans.  There Laban was introduced to rituals of the “howling” Dervish by an Imam under whose protection he traveled. This experience had a lasting influence on his vision of the power of dance.… Read More

Laban recognized that movement is a psychophysical phenomenon involving the whole person.  When Laban’s protégé the dancer Irmgard Bartenieff became a physical therapist, she incorporated this understanding in her work with polio patients.  Activate and motivate became her mantra.

“There is no such thing as pure ‘physical’ therapy or pure ‘mental’ therapy,” Bartenieff wrote.  “They are continuously interrelated.”  Finding ways to keep alive the movement impulse for hospitalized children became central to  her rehabilitative approach.

In his youthful encounter with the “howling” Dervishes, Laban witnessed an even more extreme example of the regenerative power of movement. … Read More

“The dancer moves,” Laban wrote, “not only from place to place, but also from mood to mood.”  Laban recognized that movement is physical and psychological, a phenomenon involving the whole human being.

Beyond this, however, Laban suggests that movement practices can serve as way to unify body, mind, and spirit.  He coined two terms for such practices – “choreutics” (addressing the movement from place to place) and “eukinetics” (delineating the movement from mood to mood).

Laban defines “choreutics” as “the art, or the science, dealing with the analysis and synthesis of movement.” … Read More

Laban’s reputation rests almost entirely on his creation of two tools for the objective study of human movement:  Labanotation and Laban Movement Analysis.  While deservedly useful, these tools overshadow other dimensions of Laban’s oeuvre, notably his deep understanding of the significance of bodily movement.

Laban was a philosopher of movement.  Recognizing movement as a psychophysical and spiritual phenomenon, his study of movement extended beyond analysis to a consideration of the integrative, regenerative, and gnostic aspects of human movement experience.

Laban’s worldview is merely suggested in his writings. … Read More

The dancer Rudolf Laban was asked to improve the loading of a van with small staves at a sawmill.  A dozen strong men, who usually unloaded heavy trees, were sometimes assigned the job, which they executed in a clumsy way with much grumbling and many dropped and broken staves.

Confronted by this grotesque spectacle, Laban visualized a different effort rhythm for the flow of material.  He replaced the twelve men with five women.  One collected the staves from a pile, three stood equally spaced passing the staves from hand to hand with a light swinging action, while the fifth woman arranged them neatly in the van.… Read More

In the upcoming MoveScape Center course, “Effort Mutation,” participants explore how the eight basic actions naturally change into “vision-like,” “spell-like,” and “passionate” expressive movements.

Laban first observed the eight basic actions (Gliding, Pressing, Slashing, etc.) in functional physical labor.  From this foundation, however, Laban elaborated his effort theory to incorporate a broad range of psychophysical states and drives.

Learn how you can expand your dynamic range.  In the new MoveScape Center course, “Effort Mutation,” we start with the basics and then discover how each basic action can be changed into an expressive compound of one of the other drives.… Read More

Laban first perceived effort mutation among the eight basic actions employed while working.  These changes occurred as spontaneous replacements of one effort quality with another, for example, resulting in Punching become Pressing or Floating becoming Flicking.

In studying expressive actions, Laban began to perceive how the motion factor of Flow changed an action.

For example, he writes: “When Flow replaces Weight, the drive becomes ‘vision-like’, because it is now not supported by active weight effort and is therefore reduced in bodily import.”… Read More

Laban’s notions of effort crystallized during the 1940s, through his observations of workers using tools and manipulating materials. While his perspective was that of the third person, objective observer, Laban remained aware of the other side of movement – the somatic, first person perspective.

He also saw a relation between functional and expressive actions and was convinced that the four motion factors and the eight effort qualities were always at play, regardless of the type of activity.

Yet he perceived a difference, writing “while in functional actions the movement sensation is an accompanying factor only, this becomes more prominent in expressive situations where the psychosomatic experience is of utmost importance.”… Read More