Five-rings Anyone?

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choreuticLaban moved into new Choreutic territory with five-rings, and consequently they are fascinating to embody.   Primarily Laban built his space harmony scales around the cubic diagonals.  But the peripheral and transverse five-rings that Cate Deicher and I will be teaching in the Advanced Space Harmony workshop are built around the planar diameters.

The peripheral five-rings create pentagonal shapes around corners of the icosahedron that both match and challenge range of motion for gestures of the arms and legs.

The transverse five-rings trace star-like shapes around corners of the icosahedron.  These shapes stimulate new ways to think about trace-forms and areas of the kinesphere, and they can be fun to embody.

Put some stars in your kinesphere with the upcoming Ico workshop in New York City, December 3 and 4.  But hurry, registration closes November 28.

Choreutic Practice – Healing the Mind-Body Split

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laban movementThe aim of choreutic practice, according to Rudolf Laban, is “to stop the process of disintegrating into disunity.”  In his view, bodily movement “can have a regenerating effect on our individual and social forms of life.”

In our upcoming Advanced Space Harmony workshop, Cate Deicher and I intend to “push the envelope” by exploring new frontiers in choreutic practice.  The workshop focuses on bringing seldom-taught space harmony sequences to life.  This requires, as Laban notes, “integrating the bodily perspective, the dynamic feeling and the controlling faculties.”  In other words, meaningful choreutic practice goes beyond just remembering and doing the scales.  It aims to discover “the unity of movement,” to bring together the physical, emotional, and mental aspects of being human.

These three aspects are often in conflict.  We muscle through fatigue or pain, ignoring what the body is telling us.  We suppress our feelings, in an attempt to be “rational.”  Or perhaps we give way to emotional outbursts that we later regret.

Nevertheless, we all experience moments of grace, when body, heart, and mind cohere and our intentions are seamlessly translated into action. Sports writer John Jerome referred to such moments as “a sweet spot in time – a coming together, a moment when what my mind intended was matched by what my body accomplished.”

Jerome goes on to call this “a momentary healing of the mind-body split… it haunts me still because it was magic.”  Laban agrees: “It is, without doubt, a fact that such a unity existed in ancient times in the paths of gestures which we have called trace-forms.  Because it could not be explained, it assumed a magic significance and it is curious that even now it remains magical, in spite of being analysed.”

Put some magic in your life.  Join us for the Ico workshop, “Advanced Space Harmony:  New Choreutic Forms for Movement Invention,” December 3-4, in New York City.

LMA and the “Vaccination Theory” of Education

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labanIn the Vaccination Theory of Education, students are led to believe that once they have “had” a subject, they are immune to it and need not take it again.

Though Postman and Weingartner proposed the vaccination theory in 1969 as a criticism of educational practices, it is hardly a dated critique.  Courses in higher education and professional training are still arranged as seemingly finite subjects.  Laban Movement Analysis is no exception.

Certainly there is more to movement analysis than can be gleaned in a one-semester course.  Yet far too many students are inclined to feel that they have “had” Laban once the course of study is complete.

For this reason, I have put more material in Meaning in Motion: Introducing Laban Movement Analysis than can be covered in a single semester.  I’m hoping that some students at least will see that there is more to learn about movement.  Four separate bibliographies in Appendix A are also there to show that the field of study is deeper than one slim text.

The textbook is also designed so instructors can tailor courses.  In the next blog, see how Laurie Cameron uses selected parts of Meaning in Motion in her LMA classes for dance majors and non-majors at Pomona College.

Applications of Movement Analysis

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LabanThe Montreal event included a full morning of various presentations on applications of movement analysis for the public.  The formal lectures, delivered in French or English with simultaneous translation, covered a fascinating array of disciplines and approaches, both qualitative and quantitative.

Brigitte LaChance, a Canadian physical therapist, discussed what Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) contributes to her rehabilitative work with seriously injured clients.  Odile Cazes, a French psychometrician, described how she applies Functional Analysis of the Dancing Body (AFCDM) in training osteopaths in hands-on techniques.  Canadian doctoral student Marie Soleil Fortier shared her research involving movement analysis of four musicians – a violinist, a pianist, a guitarist, and a flutist.  French anthropologist Blandine Bril outlined her quantitative studies of posture and selected work movements drawn from various cultures.

In addition, French scientist Giles Dietrich demonstrated his biomechanical approach to analyzing pivot turns in ballet and Korean dance.  Canadian doctoral student Julie Chateauvert shared her research on sign language as an expressive system.

My lecture addressed the application of movement analysis in business.  Find out more in the next blog.

International Movement Analysis Encounter

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labanDuring the first week of June, I participated in unique collegial exchange with fourteen other movement analysts from the U.S., Canada, and France. Hosted by the Dance Department of the University of Quebec at Montreal, the seminar provided an opportunity for comparative and comprehensive study of two approaches to qualitative movement analysis: Laban Movement Analysis and Functional Analysis of the Dancing Body, a system developed in France and little known in the English-speaking world.

The purpose of the Montreal seminar was threefold: 1) to renew perspectives and the analytical discourse about the dancing body, 2) to explore movement analysis’s potential to enhance and refine the narration of aesthetics in performing arts, and 3) to open up exchange and discussion on the contributions of movement analysis to the fields of dance, theatre, music, kinesiology, ethnology, nonverbal communication, and therapy.

The brainchild of Montreal dance professor Nicole Harbonnier-Topin, the five-day seminar incorporated various activities:  1) a preliminary report about comparative research on the two analysis systems, 2) movement workshops and collegial discussions, 3) formal presentations on various applications of movement analysis, and 4) a Roundtable open to the general public. In this final session selected movement analysts responded to “Mille Batailles,” an intense duet choreographed by Louise Lecavalier, which was a part of the concurrent Festival TranAmeriques.

In the following blogs I will share various aspects of my experiences as a participant in this unique international encounter.

Diagonal Corridors of Action

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For many years, I have been puzzled by Laban’s emphasis on the cubic diagonals.  He has embedded these oblique internal lines, which connect opposite corners of the cube, in his theories of both space and effort.

Spatially, diagonals represent the most mobilizing lines of motion, the slanted trajectories that lead to flying and falling. In addition, the cubic diagonals serve as axes for all the most familiar Choreutic sequences:  the Primary and A and B Scales.  The girdle, the axis scales, the polar triangles, and transverse 3-rings are all situated alongside or around these oblique lines, forming a variety of movement shapes encompassing an empty corridor of action.

Effort sequences also evolve around the diagonals.  In Choreutics, Laban maps various effort patterns on the cube:  the Standard Scale of the dynamosphere, a knot, a twisted circle, and a lemniscate (see Choreutics, Figures 20, 35, 36, and 38).

Like his Choreutic sequences, these Eukinetic patterns are portrayed as unfolding alongside or around a cubic diagonal.  Although he represents these dynamic phrases on a 3-D model, Laban writes that effort sequences “never have a precise place in three-dimensional space.  They work, as we know, within the movement visible in three dimensions, and are symbolised by diagonals around which they evolve like fluid shadows.”

In this sense, Laban’s use of the diagonal as an axis seems to be analogous to the hub of a wheel.  As the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu observes, “We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move.”  Thus the cubic diagonals provide the center for Laban’s models of spatial and kinetic sequences.  They are the “whole” that makes the person move.

The Octa Is Coming

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In July, the Octa workshop, “Bringing Choreutics to Life” takes Laban’s space harmony theory into practice. This three-day workshop presents key Choreutic concepts in a way that is accessible for participants new to Laban’s ideas as well as experienced movement analysts.

Laban himself admitted that “our mental functions employ geometrical symbols to express orientation in space, but generally our feeling does not comprehend living movement within geometrical plasticity.” In other words, both understanding and embodying choreutics can be steep learning curve!

 

I ought to know. I’ve been teaching choreutics for over 30 years. While I love the material, I am keenly aware that many students struggle.   In the Octa, I plan to demonstate a variety of ways to present Choreutics and to make it lively and meaningful.

 

Find out more….

Oscillations and Deflections

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Untitled design (8)In his masterwork, Choreutics, Laban notes that “oscillations are the means of expression in the two arts, music and dance.”  We found evidence supporting Laban’s observation in the Prototypes project.

Of course, Laban has constructed his prototypic sequences as oscillations, shifting between opposite directions in space.  The simplest pattern, the Dimensional Scale, oscillates between the cardinal directions. So the dancer reaches up, then down; opens the arm sideward, then reaches across the body; finally extends backward, then forward.

For Laban, however, there is more than one way to move up or down, or forward or backward.  For the basic directions “follow one another with infinite variations, deflections, and deviations.”  Thus upward movement can also veer forwards, or to the side, or backwards and across.

We found corroboration of Laban’s two observations in one of the improvisations recorded for the Prototypes project.  The dancers were asked to play with the concept of stability and mobility.  Marina Walchi’s spontaneous creation on this theme revealed an interesting pattern of oscillation.  If she moved up, this was followed by a movement down.  If across, by an opening action, and so on.  The oscillation might occur after a sequence of directional changes, such as down-open-across, across-up, across-down.  Nevertheless, an underlying vibratory pattern appeared.

In addition, the directional changes were not merely dimensional. Rather the shifting pattern was often deflected toward corners of the vertical, horizontal and sagittal planes or towards the diagonals.

Though only a single case, this example is intriguing.  So here is a simple challenge – while talking with a friend, watch his/her hand gestures.  Can you detect a pattern of directional reversal?  Of deflections from the cardinal directions?  Is it possible, as Laban asserted,that “between the harmonic components of music and dance there is not only an outward resemblance, but a structural congruity, which although hidden at first, can be investigated and verified, point by point?”

The Geometrical Alphabet of Space Movement

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The Geometrical Alphabet of Space Movement“We can understand all bodily movement as being a continuous creation of fragments of polyhedral forms,” Laban claimed.  We set out to test this in the Prototypes project.

As I note in The Harmonic Structure of Movement, Music, and Dance, Laban’s polygonal rings are best thought of as “spatial ‘prototypes’ from which dance sequences can be constructed, just as musical scales are ‘model’ tonal sequences from which melodies and harmonies are composed.”  Just as only part of a scale may be found in a musical composition, Laban asserts that fragments of his polygonal prototypes can be found in choreographed movements.

Laban’s assertion was first tested by Valerie Preston-Dunlop.  In 1979 she found fragments of choreutic forms in Martha Graham’s Lamentation and Diversion of Angels and in Jose Limon’s Choreographic Offering.

We found fragments of Laban’s prototypes in a technique class combination choreographed by OU faculty Travis Gatling.  In this sequence, he traces the front edge of the horizontal plane with both arms, then swings the right arm in what at first seems to be a cycle in the sagittal plane.  Closer examination reveals this to be a fragment of a peripheral five-ring, for the arm veers out of the sagittal plane to side high, right back middle, and side low before coming to rest in forward middle.  This fragment of a five-ring captures the normal range of motion for the arm more accurately than a purely sagittal cycle.

We also found fragments of Laban’s prototypes in improvised movement.  As OU faculty Tresa Randall repeatedly tilted and turned, her arms traced slanted circles identified by Laban as “girdles.”   From these tilted spins, Tresa also stabilized temporarily by stretching along a diameter of either the sagittal or vertical plane.

Unexpectedly, we found further corroboration of Laban’s observations in Marina Walchi’s improvisation.  Find out more in the next blog.

Laban’s Idealized Kinesphere

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The sphere is Laban’s model for the space adjacent to the mover’s body.  The center of gravity of the body is also the center of the kinesphere, which extends equally in all directions, establishing a boundary based on the areas of space that can be reached without taking a step.

According to Laban, “all points of the kinesphere can be reached by simple movements, such as bending, stretching, and twisting, or by a combination of these.”

Laban’s choreutic prototypes exploit this spherical movement space using symmetrical trace-forms that oscillate up and down, from side to side, and in front and behind the body.

Since this perfect sphere extends equally in all directions from the center of the body, theoretically there is as much movement space behind the body as there is in front.  However, our Prototype Project motion capture and video records indicated that the actual kinesphere is not a perfect sphere but a more lopsided bubble that extends farther in front of the body than behind.

This stands to reason, because the construction of our limbs makes it harder to reach behind the body.  Laban certainly was aware of this.  But he was an idealist.  His kinesphere and his highly symmetrical choreutic trace-forms represent human movement potential.  Even our well-rehearsed dancers were not fully able to actualize this potential range of motion (although this was partly because the motion capture suit made footing uneven due to sensor attachments on the dancer’s feet).

As the accompanying photo shows, reaching deeply behind the body is possible, if something of a virtuoso feat.  Is Laban’s idealized kinesphere meant to foster virtuosity?  No, he merely wants us to be well-rounded.  As Laban stresses, “ A healthy human being can have complete control of his kinesphere.” He goes on to note that some restrictions in free use of areas of the kinesphere can be caused by lack of exercise, weakness, anxiety, or timidity. However,“the essential thing is that we should neither have preference for nor avoid certain movements [or areas of the kinesphere] because of physical or psychical restrictions.”