Laban and Range of Motion

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laban danceLaban’s Choreutic forms both mirror and challenge the natural range of motion of the human body.  As Laban was designing these movement sequences, he drew upon his first career as a visual artist.  It’s clear from his figure drawings that he had studied anatomy.  And he applied this knowledge in theorizing the shapes the moving limbs can trace in space.

As I note in The Harmonic Structure of Movement, Music, and Dance, Laban does not distort the proportion of the body itself.  His figure drawings faithfully adhere to a classical canon and his drawings are realistically anthropometric.

I’ve always been fascinated by this.  Laban’s first career in art straddles three modern art movements – Art Nouveau, abstract expressionism, and Dada.  Realistic representation of the human body does not characterize these movements.  Why then was Laban so faithfully realistic?

Quite simply, Laban was interested in the relationship between the body and space.  If he distorted the body’s proportions, he would also distort the trace-forms of moving limbs.  To capture the shapes of trace-forms accurately, he had to preserve normal bodily proportions and grasp joint structure and function.

Irmgard Bartenieff came to appreciate Laban’s anatomical grounding when she started to work as a physical therapist.  As she noted, “Laban’s exploration of spatial possibilities deeply affected the way I worked to stretch my stiff patients.”

There is still much to be learned from Laban’s exploration of spatial possibilities.  That is why MoveScape has offered a series of Red Thread programs this year.  The final workshop is Advanced Space Harmony workshop,  December 3 and 4.  There is still time to register.

Moving in Three Dimensions

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laban movementHuman beings have big heads, and biomechanically speaking, this is a headache.  Standing up freed our arms and hands and opened new spatial horizons.  But it also means we must cope with balancing our heavy heads against the constant pull of gravity.

Irmgard Bartenieff always felt that homo sapiens are still working out the possibilities of movement in three-dimensional space.  Evolution has given us greater potential than we have figured out how to use.  And this is where Laban’s Choreutic theories come in.

The scales and rhythmic circles Laban prescribed take the mover out of safe territory – they are off-vertical, de-stabilizing, and challenging in terms of balance and range of motion. I see his Choreutic forms as puzzles to be solved at the body level.

The forthcoming Advanced Space Harmony workshop presents some of Laban’s little known Choreutic forms and invites participants to engage with these both functionally and expressively.  The aim is to create an environment for exploration of new territory.   All those who love a puzzle are welcome!

Seven-rings R Us

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laban movementLaban’s Mixed Seven-rings are an important extension of his theory of movement harmony.  But they are not just important theoretically – they are quite challenging to perform.  And, because of their harmonic analogies, they offer novel approaches for movement invention.

In the forthcoming Ico workshop, Cate Deicher and I draw upon Laban’s unpublished writings to facilitate learning and embodying the mixed seven-rings.  Because these trace-forms are drawn from the better-known axis and girdle scales, we will start with reviewing these forms.  Then we move on to exploring how Laban conceived the mixed seven-rings as combinations of arabesque and attitude shapes.

Laban constructed the mixed seven-rings to be analogous to the diatonic scales that form the basis of common melodies and harmonies in Western music.  This suggests novel ways to approach creating movement phrases and sequences.

Want to find out more?  Join us for the Advanced Space Harmony Workshop December 3 and 4.

Snakes in Space?

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kinesphereRudolf Laban thought so; he found them in the kinesphere!  “Snakes” are one of the seldom taught space harmony forms that Cate Deicher and I will be exploring in our “Advanced Space Harmony” workshop, December 3-4, in New York City.

Our aim in this workshop is to introduce new Choreutic forms and demonstrate how these can serve as a design source for movement.  Unlike most of the familiar space harmony scales, snakes are not rhythmic circles. That is, they do not begin and end at the same point in the kinesphere.  Instead, they are open forms that lend themselves to development and movement invention.

We promise that Laban’s snakes don’t bite.  Don’t take our word for it — find out for yourselves in the upcoming Ico workshop.

“Advanced Space Harmony” Workshop Coming in December

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This year I set out to challenge my own understanding of Laban’s Choreutics.  I learn best when I teach others.  Thus my own Red Thread journey began in March with the Tetra seminar “Decoding Laban’s Choreutics,” a reading and correspondence course.  This close look at Part I of Laban’s mysterious masterpiece yielded new insights into the depth and scope of his theories of human movement.

Untitled designIn July, with the Octa workshop, “Bringing Choreutics to Life,” I took these theories forward into practice.  During this intimate three-day workshop, we reviewed well-known Choreutic sequences to illuminate their rational structure and to explore how Laban’s ideas can be transformed into rich kinesthetic and expressive experiences, integrating body and mind.

In December, the journey of discovery continues with the Ico workshop, “Advanced Space Harmony: New Choreutic Forms for Movement Invention.” In this two-day seminar in New York City, Cate Deicher and I will be teaching little known Space Harmony forms from Part II of Choreutics.  Intriguing forms such as mixed seven rings, five rings, tilted planes, diminished three rings, snakes, and shears challenge mind and body, providing rich ideas for movement invention.

Find out more…

Movement Harmony – Fact or Fiction?

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MoveScape CenterLaban’s assertion that human movement has a harmonic structure analogous to music has vexed scholars ranging from Suzanne Langer to Lincoln Kirstein. In general, the notion of movement harmony has been viewed as an artifact of Laban’s mystical philosophy. In my view, however, harmony is a useful theoretical construct for explaining certain empirical aspects of human movement.

For example, aestheticians have categorized the arts as either spatial or temporal. However, dance is a hybrid art. The dance unfolds in both space and time, both for the dancer and for the observer. By extension, the same holds true for all human movement. In reality, space and time combine.

For analytical purposes, Laban divided his theory in two parts – Choreutics addresses the spatial aspects of movement while Eukinetics deals with temporal factors. Yet Laban freely admits this is an artificial division, for in reality spatial form and dynamic stress “are entirely inseparable from each other.” And this is where the notions of harmony comes in.

Harmony brings things that are different into accord by allowing parts to be related to the whole or to one another. In normal human movement, body, effort, and space cohere in meaningful action. Unless disease or injury interrupts this coherence, voluntary body movement occurs automatically, without constant, conscious intervention.

Human movement is a psychophysical phenomenon, an integration of mind and body. This is its most remarkable feature. While we cannot fully explain the mechanisms through which this integration occurs, it is a fact, not a fiction.

“Harmony” is the term Laban chose for describing the seemingly natural coherence of body, space, and effort. He envisioned movement study as an integration of art and science, analysis and synthesis. The study of movement harmony was meant to “stop the process of disintegrating into disunity.” For in Laban’s eyes, movement “with all its significance for the human personality, can have regenerating effect on our individual and social forms of life.”

The forthcoming college text, Meaning in Motion: Introducing Laban Movement Analysis incorporates discussion of Laban’s fundamental notions of movement harmony.