For Laban, human movement unfolds in a sphere of space surrounding the body.  He called this orb of movement space the “kinesphere.”  Then, to provide landmarks in this trackless sphere, Laban gave it a familiar geometrical form.

Or I should say, forms.  For in Choreutics, Laban’s discussion of the kinesphere proceeds from a cubic model to an octahedron, a cuboctahedron, and then the icosahedron.

This is a logical progression, but also one with deeper meaning.  For cubes, octahedrons, and cuboctahedrons occur naturally in lifeless, inorganic crystals. … Read More

This month I am taking a page from H.L. Mencken, the journalist and humorist.  In the 1920s he penned an essay “On Being an American,” noting that “There are those who find it disagreeable – nay impossible.”  In the rest of the essay, Mencken explains why he remains in the United States, “wrapped in the flag,” while other intellectuals set sail for fairer lands.

There are those who now find it disagreeable to be a Laban Movement Analyst.  Yet here I stand, wrapped in notation symbols, devoted to movement study through a Laban lens.… Read More

Everything we do requires effort.  And since human activities seem limitless, it would also appear that human effort is equally without limits.  But not according to Laban.

In examining patterns of effort change, Laban detected what he called a “Law of Proximity” or what could perhaps better be termed degrees of similarity and difference.  He writes that certain “action-moods” (combinations of effort qualities) are closely related, some are loosely linked, while “others are diametrically opposed.”

This leads Laban to make the following observation: “Man has complete freedom in his choice and employment of action-moods. … Read More

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