“God Geometricizes….” Said Madame Blavatsky

Posted on March 3, 2016 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Artistic and scientific circles were not the only circles that overlapped in the fin de siècle period. European artists of the period were also involved in various secret spiritual societies that flourished in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.

For example, the painter Wassily Kandinsky was an ardent follower of Theosophy, one of the occult spiritual movements of the period, and one that was very attractive to artists. As religious historian Mircea Eliade notes, avant garde European artists “utilized the occult as a powerful weapon in their rebellion against the bourgeois establishment and its ideology.”

Novel spiritual practices were not merely a form of rebellion for the European avant garde. The occult revival also gave artists new ways to think about the nature of art as it moved beyond representation and symbolism toward formalism and abstraction. Kandinsky drew upon precepts of Theosophy, such as the quote above by Theosophy guru, Madame Blavatsky, to theorize a spiritual visual art composed of only form and color. By these means alone, Kandinsky wrote, the artist could “cause vibrations in the soul.”

Laban was also attracted to the occult. During his career as a painter (1899- 1919), he supposedly associated with three esoteric groups: the Free Masons, the Ordo Templi Orientis, and the Rosicrucians. The extent of Laban’s involvement is a matter of speculation. Nevertheless, in Choreutics, his treatise on the geometry of human movement, Laban does acknowledge that his subject “necessitates a certain spiritual emphasis.”

What does this mean? Find out more in the correspondence course, “Decoding Choreutics,” beginning March 26.

Was Laban Seeing Double?

Posted on March 1, 2016 by Carol-Lynne Moore

More than any of his other books in English, Choreutics reveals Laban’s dual vision as a dance artist and movement scientist. The forthcoming course, “Decoding Choreutics,” examines Laban’s double vision from more than one angle.

For example, Choreutics and the whole fabric of Laban’s space harmony theory can be seen as a design source for dance. The various scales and “rhythmic circles” can be mined as abstract patterns for movement creation. In this sense, Choreutics is analogous to various design sources utilized by Art Nouveau artists at the turn of the 20^th century.

The fin de siècle was a time when artistic and scientific circles overlapped. In their stylized renderings of natural forms, Art Nouveau artists drew upon scientific illustrations. A case in point is Ernst Haeckel’s Art Forms in Nature. Haeckel (1834-1919) was a biologist-philosopher whose beautiful illustrations of biological forms, ranging from microscopic creatures to sea life, plants, and animals, inspired the artists of his day.

One of the Art Nouveau artists who drew upon Haeckel’s illustrations was Hermann Obrist, with whom Laban studied in Munich. Originally trained as a botanist, Obrist the artist moved progressively from realistic depiction of natural forms to increasingly abstract and geometrical designs. Laban’s own geometricizing of the biomorphic curves of human movement in Choreutics follows a similar trajectory.

Led by the Art Nouveau movement, early 20^th century artists were looking beyond the surface appearance of visual objects to reveal underlying patterns and organizing principles. With the advent of the atomic age, scientists were doing the same. Thus when Laban, the artist, turned his eyes to dance and human movement, he, too, was seeing double.

More Mysteries of Laban’s Masterpiece, Choreutics

Posted on January 21, 2016 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Laban intended for Choreutics, written in 1938-39, to be his introduction to the English reading public. With the outbreak of World War II, Laban was forced to postpone publication. After the war, however, Laban inexplicably abandoned the manuscript altogether.

Choreutics is not the only book that Laban abandoned, but it is the only manuscript that has vanished without a trace from the Rudolf Laban Archive, a vast collection of Laban’s writings and drawings from the final two decades of his career, now held by the National Resource Centre for Dance at the University of Surrey.

The Archive holds other book-length manuscripts. For example, I read Motion Study, a much longer first draft of the work that became Effort. I found multiple drafts of Effort and Recovery, which was slated for publication by MacDonald & Evans near the end of Laban’s life, but never published. I also read a partial typescript of Conflict and Harmony between Man and Woman, a collaborative work by William Carpenter and Laban integrating Jungian typology and effort theory.

However, though the Archivist and I searched, there were no manuscripts of Choreutics, hand written or typewritten, partial or complete. Perhaps they were lost, or sent to the publisher. Perhaps there is a good explanation. But the absence of Laban’s original work makes it impossible to discern how much Lisa Ullmann, as the editor, may have changed the work.

For example, each of the first 10 chapters concludes with a “Fact of Space- Movement.” To me, many of these concluding paragraphs seem more like philosophical speculations than facts. Did Laban see these as facts? Or is this something Lisa Ullmann added?

These are the types of questions to be considered in “Decoding Laban’s Choreutics.” Find out more…..

“Space Harmony” – A Misnomer?

Posted on January 19, 2016 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Rudolf Laban liked to coin new words to designate the movement theories he was developing. During the very fertile period of his career in Germany (1919-1929) he coined two words: “Choreutics” —dealing with the spatial forms of movement, and “Eukinetics” —dealing with qualities of kinetic energy.

Laban spent the final two decades of his career in England (1938-1958). During this period he Anglicized his movement terminology. His Eukinetic theories were presented under the term “Effort,” and Choreutics became known in Laban training programs as “Space Harmony.”

Close examination of Laban’s posthumously published masterpiece, Choreutics, suggests that “Space Harmony” is a misnomer. As presented in this work, “Choreutics” does not deal only with space. It also addresses the body, effort, and shape.

Indeed, only four of the twelve chapters concentrate on spatial form. Three chapters address the body, four chapters discuss effort, and one chapter introduces notions of shape.

When carefully examined, it is clear that Choreutics is a description of movement harmony, not “Space Harmony.” Laban states this clearly in the Preface, where he defines “choreutics” as “the practical study of the various forms of (more or less) harmonized movement.”

In “Decoding Laban’s Choreutics,” the Tetra seminar beginning in March, I take participants on a guided journey through this mysterious book. This journey of discovery can be done without leaving the house, but not without leaving one’s arm chair.

Find out more…

The Mystery of Laban’s Masterpiece, Choreutics

Posted on January 7, 2016 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Choreutics has always been my favorite book by Rudolf Laban, although it is by no means the most accessible of his writings. The text is prone to sudden jumps, from practical movement description to mystical metaphysics. Moreover, other mysteries surround this work.

For example, Laban wrote Choreutics during 1938-39, as he convalesced at Dartington Hall following his timely escape from continental Europe to England. According to his colleague Lisa Ullmann, Laban intended for the book “to introduce his ideas on movement and dance to an interested reading public in Britain.” Laban must have had the ideas in mind for some time, for the subject matter builds on his earlier German book, Choreographie, published in 1926.

Laban worked fervently on the book, and Louise Soelberg, a member of the Jooss Ballet also in residence at Dartington, worked equally hard to make Laban’s English sound English. The work was nearing completion in June 1940, when the onset of the war forced the closing of Dartington Hall and the dispersal of resident artists, including Laban. He gave the manuscript to his Dartington benefactors, Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst, for safe keeping.

The post-war years brought Laban better health and more opportunities for work and development of his ideas. According to Lisa Ullmann, Laban no longer felt the need for a book introducing basic concepts, and so, he abandoned the manuscript for Choreutics.

Ullmann’s explanation is no explanation, because Choreutics is not a basic treatise. It is an important theoretical work that carries forward Laban’s ideas about movement in space, ideas that are not fully expounded in any other of his subsequent publications in English. Why he abandoned any attempt to publish remains a mystery.

Fortunately, Dorothy Elmhirst did not abandon Choreutics. Several years after Laban’s death, she returned the manuscript to Lisa Ullmann and encouraged her to have it published. And in 1966, this masterwork finally became appeared, filling a vital gap in Laban literature.

Decoding Rudolf Laban’s Choreutics: A Year of Guided Study

Posted on January 5, 2016 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Beginning in March, MoveScape Center will offer a series of Red Thread courses centered on Rudolf Laban’s Choreutics. These courses combine body and mind, delving into the physics and metaphysics of human movement through space and time.

The series opens with a Tetra seminar focused on Laban’s posthumously published masterpiece, Choreutics. Out-of-print for many years, Choreutics is once again available in paperback through Princeton/Dance Horizons Books.

In the opening springtime Tetra, MoveScape goes retro with a correspondence course. Based on an easy schedule, participants will read the Preface, Introduction, and first 12 chapters of Choreutics. A set of study questions will be provided for each reading assignment. When each reading assignment has been completed, participants will receive a commentary that I have prepared, providing background context and elaborating on Laban’s themes. Think of this as a “great books” course designed to move participants beyond the surface of Laban’s mysterious masterpiece.

MoveScape follows the Tetra with an Octa workshop in the summer of 2016. The Octa provides a movement review of well-known space harmony forms. Ways to meet the challenges of embodying these demanding sequences, approaches to teaching space harmony, and creative ways to bring this material to life will be explored.

The Choreutics series culminates with the Ico course in the autumn. In this course we move beyond the well-known space harmony forms to embody seldom taught forms such as tilted planes, five and seven rings, and knots.

The Tetra, Octa, and Ico may be taken individually, or, ideally, as a series. Red Thread Certificates of completion will be given to participants at the successful conclusion of each step along this journey.

Keeping Together in Time

Posted on December 10, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

Moving rhythmically, in sync with others, is a peculiar human pleasure. “Muscular bonding” is the term William McNeill has coined to describe “the euphoric fellow feeling that prolonged and rhythmic muscular movement arouses among participants.”

McNeill, a military historian, became interested in muscular bonding as he reflected on his own Army experiences of prolonged marching in close order drill. He recalled that “moving briskly and keeping in time was enough to make us feel good about ourselves, satisfied to be moving together, and vaguely pleased with the world at large.” He concluded that keeping together in time by marching, dancing, singing, or chanting rhythmically provides a basis for group cohesion, one that has been of great evolutionary value — for rigorous selection favors groups that are in synch with one another.

Anthropologist Edward Hall concurs, noting “it can now be said with assurance that individuals are dominated in their behavior by complex hierarchies of interlocking rhythms.” Hall undertook a program of interethnic research in northern New Mexico, where three cultures (Native American, Spanish American, and Anglo-American) intermingle. He filmed various interactions and used frame-by-frame technology to analyze the films. “Unfolding before my eyes was a perpetual ballet,” he recalls. “Each culture was choreographed in its own way, with its own beat, tempo, and rhythm.”

Synchrony has also been discovered at the individual level by nonverbal researcher William Condon. Through painstaking frame-by-frame analysis of filmed conversations, Condon discovered a “oneness and unity between speech and bodily motion in normal behavior, ” a phenomenon he called self synchrony. Moreover, Condon found that when people converse, there is not only self synchrony but also interpersonal synchrony. Entrainment is the term he coined for the process that occurs when two or more people become engaged in each other’s rhythms, meshing like gears in Swiss watch.

Whether at the macro-level of muscular bonding or the micro-level of subtle entertainment, euphoric group feeling and interpersonal rapport depend upon these subtle rhythms of keeping together in time.

Body Usage – The Japanese Bow

Posted on November 19, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

I have long been fascinated with the ritual of bowing in Japan. Clerks in a hotel bow when you enter the lobby. They bow when you finish checking in. Conductors bow when entering a train car. They bow again when exiting. Groups of friends, particularly if they are older, with bow deeply when parting.

I can’t pretend to grasp the ins and outs of the etiquette of bowing. But bowing seems to serve as a boundary marker, delineating the beginning and ending of many social interactions. It is a sign of acknowledgement and a sign of respect.

Because I feel inept and somewhat embarrassed about trying to bow, I made a point on this trip to analyze the bow. It wasn’t easy. Bows seem to occur unexpectedly and they are often rapidly performed. Sometimes I caught myself imitating what I saw (when I had no reason for bowing). In any case, here is my rough analysis.

Arms at the side, cast the eyes down, hinge at the hips and tilt forward, softening slightly through the chest and tipping the head. All these actions should be performed almost simultaneously, returning immediately to an erect posture.

On this trip I also noticed what I call the “modified bow.” This is basically a head nod with a little bit of chest involvement. It is used to acknowledge someone (say, on entering a shop) or to express thanks at the end of a transaction or interaction.

The modified bow has many uses. For example, our daughter became exasperated when my husband raised his hand to thank a waiting driver as we used the pedestrian crossing. “They won’t know what that means,” she scolded. “You should have nodded.”

Personal Space in Japan

Posted on November 17, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

It is helpful to have a malleable kinesphere in Japan, because one often finds oneself in a crowd. For example, I have made a close and practical study of how to weave through a crowd while dragging a suitcase. Shape flow growing and shrinking is of little use (the suitcase, after all, has a fixed shape). Instead, one needs to watch for openings and slip through in a timely manner, or detect a stream flowing in your direction and go with the flow.

I’m a child of the American West. I prefer wide-open and under-populated spaces. But if I ever have to live in a densely populated place, I will choose Japan. This is because Japan is a civil society in which consideration for others still matters. We seldom experienced or witnessed pushing or collisions in the many crowded places we visited. We saw only one public argument. In contrast, we frequently saw young people give up seats on trains and buses to the elderly and women with children.

We couldn’t get reserved seats on a train for Kariuzawa (a resort outside of Tokyo) because it was a holiday weekend. Consequently, we had to wait in a long line on the platform to get into a car with unreserved seats. The line was so dense I was sure we would never manage to get onto the train. But we did. All the seats were taken, but my husband and daughter clambered into a niche by the restrooms with their suitcases, while I was jammed into the aisle of the car, near the door. Unbelievably, even more people got on the train at the next stop. We all stood cheek to jowl for the next 90 minutes. But it was quiet. There were no complaints. A few seated passengers even managed to squeeze through those of us standing in the aisle to go to the restroom and back to their seats again.

And so it went everywhere. People crowded onto buses and trains until they were quite packed. But everyone remained stoic and patient. I sometimes experienced a moment of silent panic, facing an oncoming mob when crossing the street. But I always got across, and no one ran into me.

Our daughter thinks the Japanese are magic. They can tolerate damp cold in the winter, they don’t sweat in the humid summer, and Japanese women can ride bikes in high heels. But above all, they remain polite, even when jammed together.

Space in Japan – Small Is Beautiful

Posted on November 12, 2015 by Carol-Lynne Moore

General space is a commodity not to be wasted in Japan. Heavily forested mountains cover most of the archipelago of islands. Flatland suitable for habitation and cultivation is precious. Wherever we have traveled in Japan, small rice fields, gardens, and orchards are sandwiched between a jumble of residential, commercial, and industrial buildings.

Personal space must also be used economically. Each time my husband and I checked into a new hotel, we had a moment of consternation – the room was so small! Often there was no chest of drawers — suitcases had to be opened on the bed and then stowed away. Sometimes there was no closet – only a rail and some hangers on the wall.

Yet, clever design and consideration of human needs made these rooms habitable. There was always a small refrigerator, a pot for heating water, a hair dryer, clean bathrobes and slippers, a TV and free wifi. The bathroom, though tiny, always had a shower/tub combo; toothbrushes and small tubes of toothpaste; shampoo, conditioner, and body wash; and an automated toilet (Japanese toilets deserve a blog of their own!). There were towel racks and hooks for hanging things, a retractable clothesline over the tub, and an infinitesimal waste basket capable of holding perhaps three used Kleenex.

The first time my husband and I went to Japan twenty-five years ago, our son was 18 months old. We made quite a spectacle of ourselves, for we traveled with a portable crib, a large suitcase of clothes and diapers for our son, small suitcases for ourselves, and the baby in a backpack. In contrast, all the Japanese traveled with a compact suitcase smaller than a carryon bag.

Now you know why!