Dancers move through space as fish move through water. In the seemingly vacant sea of space, Laban identified central lines of motion that extend through the dancer’s body outwards into the surrounding area, making what appears to be empty tangible.
Angiola Sartorio, one of Laban’s early dance students, explains it this way:
“Try to visualize that the directions in space are everywhere, and when you activate a pathway, you align with a network that already is there for you to find. … Read More
An analogy can be drawn between Laban’s maps of the kinesphere and the geometrical grid cartographers employed to create state boundaries in the western United States.
If the boundaries of the western states followed the natural watersheds, the states would be rounded and irregular in shape rather than having the squared off and block-like shapes they have today.
Similarly, while Laban knew that most bodily movements follow curved trajectories, he chose to stylize these as straight lines and angles. By imposing a regular geometrical structure on the globe of the kinesphere, Laban identified spatial pulls and their directional vectors.… Read More
North American Indians are said to have marvelous “topographical” memories. According to Lucien Levy-Bruhl, “it is quite enough for them to have been in a place only once for them to have an exact image of it in their minds.”
The natural landscapes of North America have many memorable landmarks. On the other hand, there are no visual landmarks in the very personal territory of the kinesphere.
Fortunately, pioneering movement analyst Rudolf Laban created maps of space to enable the mover visit new places and enjoy fresh kinesthetic experiences. … Read More
Welcome to your movement home – the kinesphere. It’s prime real estate. It’s always around you and very convenient. You can reach every part of it without even taking a step!
What’s that? The kinesphere just seems empty to you? Nonsense. As Rudolf Laban said, “Empty space does not exist. On the contrary space is a superabundance of simultaneous movements.”
Intrigued? Find out more in “Exploring your Kinesphere: A Personal Journey,” beginning August 30.
Choreutics is often referred to as “space harmony.” But there is also effort harmony, and three of the chapters in Laban’s masterwork Choreutics address consonant and dissonant effort sequences.
These effort sequences, however, are easily overlooked, because when Laban wrote Choreutics he had not yet invented effort notation. He amends direction symbols with a small “s” to represent effort qualities and combinations of qualities. Consequently, effort sequences can be mistaken for spatial sequences….
That is why Choreutics needs decoding. Find out more in my upcoming hybrid course sponsored by LIMS, Decoding Laban’s Choreutics.… Read More
Laban affirms that there is not only a superficial resemblance between the harmonic life of music and dance, but a “structural congruity.” He means what he says, and the Primary or Standard Scale is an example.
In the upcoming hybrid course, Decoding Choreutics, I demonstate how Laban constructed the peripheral Primary Scale to be analogous to the Chromatic Scale in Western music. Just as the Chromatic Scale provides the foundation for musical composition, Laban’s Primary Scale can be mined to create many different harmonic dance sequences and melodies.… Read More
Attention Labanistas! It is vital to learn about movement by moving, but reading about Laban concepts also enhances and extends kinesthetic understanding.
Go to the source! Laban devoted his life to ensuring that dance could have a history, a theory, and a literature. He wrote prolifically. Fortunately for English readers, three of Laban’s most important works were written in English during the final decades of his career.
Want to know more about movement harmony? Find out what the inventor of LBMS had to say in Decoding Choreutics, starting at the end of this month.… Read More
Around 1913 the Austro-Hungarian painter Rudolf Laban declared he was giving up art for dance. When a fellow responded with insulting remarks about dancers, Laban became involved in a scuffle, knocking out his opponent. Afterwards he was inwardly tormented, not only for fighting, but also for having set his heart “on the most despised profession in the world.”
In the early years of the 20th century, visual art was a rich field. Masterworks of art dating from previous centuries could be studied.… Read More
In the upcoming hybrid course, jointly sponsored with the Laban/Bartenieff Institute, I guide readers and movers through one of Laban’s most difficult books, Choreutics. Across six weeks, we read and discuss all twelve chapters written by Laban.
These readings are arranged by themes: space and body, space and effort, spatial scales and effort sequences, with side discussions on Laban’s philosophy of movement.
Questions are provided for each chapter, to help readers identify key ideas. Movement prompts are also given to link theory with physical practice. … Read More
The inspirational passages in Choreutics can obscure the systematic way in which Laban introduces and develops a rational geography of space.
To help the mover orient in the trackless kinesphere, Laban begins with simple, readily recognizable trajectories and moves by gradual steps to more oblique and nuanced trajectories.
First Laban introduces the cardinal directions (up/down, across/open, back/forward). Next he moves on to the cardinal planes (vertical, horizontal, and sagittal), and then to the pure diagonals.
The pure diagonal lines of motion connect opposite corners of the cube – a familiar shape related to the rectangular rooms we mostly inhabit.… Read More