Laban invokes infinities in the directional variations of the movement of human limbs in the space surrounding the body.  But he also identifies limits to the shapes the limbs can trace in space.

There are two types of limits that impact bodily movements in space.  The first is the gravitational field in which we live.  Due to this force field, only certain spatial trajectories allow us to maintain stability and balance, while other directional pathways are destabilizing, projecting us through space or causing us to fall.… Read More

From a rapid sequence of movements, the camera singles out only one.  The result is a crystallized pose or, in the case of Muybridge’s work, a series of poses.  If these frozen attitudes can be mechanically reanimated, they will give an illusion of movement.

But, as artists and philosophers alike have pointed out, the essential quality of movement is continuity.  The French philosopher Henri Bergson stated this most emphatically — “It is not the single snapshots we have taken along the course of change that are real; on the contrary, it is flux, the continuity of transition, it is change itself that is real.”… Read More

Rudolf Laban and the great Renaissance artists, Leonardo da Vinci and Albrecht Dürer, shared a common interest – how to depict the human figure in motion with a lifelike three-dimensionality.

Through his academic art studies in Munich and Paris in the early 20^th century,  Laban undoubtedly became familiar with the different approaches to representing movement pioneered by Leonardo and Dürer.  Laban’s beautiful figures drawings of dancers testify to his practical grasp of techniques developed during the Renaissance and preserved in academic art training.… Read More

Rudolf Laban remains a prominent figure in the world of dance.  Yet, he spent the first 20 years of his adult life studying and working as a visual artist in Germany, France, and Switzerland.  These years of involvement in the visual arts had a direct, yet largely unrecognized impact on his subsequent career as a dancer and movement theorist.

Laban’s last exhibition of paintings occurred in 1919, yet there are hundreds of drawings in archival papers dating from the last 20 years of Laban’s life (1938-1958). … Read More

I have often thought that Rudolf Laban’s life and career would make interesting reading just treated as a travelogue.  He certainly got around!

As the son of a general in the army of the Austro-Hungarian Army, Laban spent his youth in Eastern Europe – Bratislava, Budapest, Vienna, with holidays in Bosnia/Herzegovina.

His first career as a visual artist took him to Munich, Paris, and Ascona in southern Switzerland.

He sat out WWI in Zurich.  His rise to fame as a dancer occurred in Berlin and other German cities. … Read More

Experimental psychology and Rudolf Laban were born in the same year.

In 1879, a German scientist named Wilhelm Wundt opened the first psychology laboratory at the University of Leipzig.  That same year, Rudolf Laban was born in Bratislava, near Vienna.

Perhaps this is mere coincidence.  Nevertheless, there is a relationship.

Wundt’s aim was to examine connections between physiology and human thought and behavior; that is, between body and psyche. As an artist-scientist, Laban’s aimed to understand body movement as both a physical and psychological phenomenon.… Read More

Studies of repetitive physical labor in British industry during World War II stimulated Laban’s conceptualizations of the dynamics of human movement. Initially, Laban was hired by the efficiency engineer F.C. Lawrence to notate workers’ actions.  Soon they both realized that it was not what was being done, but how it was being done that was significant.

Within two years, Laban and Lawrence expanded the scope of their studies to examine white collar labor in clerical and managerial jobs.  They found that mental activities also required effort. … Read More

For Laban, balance results from “contrasting qualities of mobility.” In space, this means moving in opposite directions. In effort, this means moving with contrasting qualities of kinetic energy.

In addition to effort contrast, however, Laban also discerned a principle of progression that seemed to govern natural patterns of dynamic change. He gave this principle a funny name – the Law of Proximity. Funny or not, Laban’s observation provided him with a means of creating balanced effort sequences.

I have felt for some time that Laban’s notions should be seen as hypotheses about movement that are subject to empirical study and, where necessary, modification.… Read More