Laban Had Two: Choreutics and Eukinetics

According to Rudolf Laban, “The dancer moves, not only from place to place, but also from mood to mood.”  In this beautifully simple statement, he lays out the two broad domains of his movement taxonomy – Space (the movement from place to place) and Effort (the movement from mood to mood).

Laban’s protégé, Warren Lamb, later used the term Shape in place of the word “Space.”  He wrote, “Effort goes with Shape organically… These are the two components of movement.”

Lamb goes on to explain that “Some interpretations of my work make it appear that I invented the concept of Shape, but in fact Laban made it clear that this duality was the basis of his work with his definitions of Eukinetics (Effort) and Choreutics (Shape).”… Read More

Dancing in Utopia

Zweig’s memoir chronicles the descent into dystopia and the multiple displacements triggered by war —  features of the life of his generation that also impacted Rudolf Laban.  Yet there is another side to the history of this period, one captured in Larraine Nicolas’s chronicle, Dancing in Utopia.

The book focuses on Dartington Hall, a rural estate in southwest England purchased by the wealthy Elmhirsts in 1925.  The couple aimed to create a community where industry and agriculture were carried out scientifically and where the arts would be available to all workers.… Read More

Laban’s Times

For an insightful look backwards, I recommend Stefan Zweig’s memoir, The World of Yesterday.  Zweig (1881-1942) was a contemporary of Rudolf Laban (1879-1958).  Both were born and educated in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and both became artists – Zweig as a popular writer in the 1920s and 1930s; Laban as a leading dancer during the same period.

In his final book, written in 1942, Zweig provides a first-person description of peaceful European culture before the first world war and the subsequent violent disruptions of the war, the rise of fascism, and the beginning of the second world war.… Read More

Back to the Future

The month of January is named after the Roman god, Janus.  Janus, the god of doors, gates, and transitions, is depicted as having two faces – one looking back and one looking forward.

This depiction calls to mind Winston Churchill’s observation:  “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

Movement is evanescent, yet by now, movement study has a history, in part due to the seminal work of the 20th century polymath, Rudolf Laban.   Lest we forget this history, this month’s blogs address books that provide insight into the life, times, and career of this pioneer in the study of human movement.… Read More

Santa’s Chimney Hack

MoveScape Center (MSC):  I’m sure readers are eager to know how you manage to enter and leave homes through the chimney. The famous poem by Clement Clark Moore makes it sound easy.

Santa (S):  I know, but it takes more than laying a finger on the nose and nodding to get up a chimney.

MSC:  So what is your secret?

S:  I use Laban’s idea of spatial tension.  He relates diagonal pathways to mobility – I use these to hop in and out of my sleigh. … Read More

Labanotation in Therapy

Bartenieff begins by explaining that Labanotation can capture in every detail “the path and design of a faulty movement,” providing the physical therapist with precise information about what needs to be corrected.

However, as physical therapists are becoming more concerned the emotional elements that characterize biological movement, Labanotation is found wanting.

“No longer can the therapist depend upon a system of notation which deals with quantity, with architectural structure and design,” Bartenieff asserts.  Instead the therapist “must turn to a system which tells how movement takes place.”… Read More

The “Second Form” of the Body

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

The Body Universal

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

Personal Space

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

BESS: Looking for the Tie that Binds

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