In recognizing movement as a psychophysical phenomenon, Rudolf Laban also perceived that human movement has two major aspects. One of these is the physical, visible motion of the material body through space. The second aspect is psychological – the thoughts and feelings that motivate the physical action.
The physical motion of the human body is readily perceptible and open to objective study. What motivates physical action is more subtle. We cannot “see” thoughts and feelings. Instead, the psychological aspects of movement must be inferred from how a physical action is performed. Nevertheless, how an action is performed is open to objective description. That is, we can see whether a motion is forceful or gentle, leisurely or abrupt, and so on.
In order to record human movement, Laban had to develop a scheme that captured both the physical and the psychological. Thus the system he built has two parts: one that addresses the visible motion of the body through space and a second that describes how these motions are performed dynamically.
Laban had to call upon all his creative faculties to devise a systematic means of capturing the where and how of human movement. Fortunately, he was working in a time when there was a fertile exchange between art and science. Artists create patterns and scientists look for patterns in nature. Laban literally drew on both art and science to generate models of the physical and psychological domains of human movement. Learn how in my next blog.