Laban’s “Language of Space”

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In Meaning in Motion, I explain that Laban’s notion of the mover’s space has two aspects: one descriptive and one prescriptive.

To better describe movement, Laban created several “geographies” of space. These give definition to the bubble of territory adjacent to the mover’s body, which Laban called the “kinesphere.” Such geographies created landmarks in the kinesphere and make the systematic description of motion in three dimensions possible.

Laban's-language

In addition, Laban designed highly symmetrical sequences of directional change that circle through different areas of the kinesphere. These prescribed sequences of directional change provide a way to explore the kinesphere, to test balance, and to expand the range of motion.

Because Laban’s language of space relies upon geometrical models that must be imagined as surrounding the mover’s body, the spatial aspects of Laban Movement Analysis challenges many students. Consequently, in Meaning in Motion I have incorporated many creative explorations. These address the kinesphere; the Dimensional Scale; the planes; oblique mobility and the Diagonal Scale; and central, peripheral, and transverse movement. More advanced spatial sequences are notated in the appendix.

There is a lot of material in this chapter so that instructors can pick and choose what they want to emphasize in a given course. If the language of space speaks to a student, he or she will also be able to see that there is more movement material to be explored.

Teaching Laban’s Effort Theory

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Laban’s theory of the dynamics of human movement (effort) is deceptively simple. There are only four motion factors (Weight, Time, Space, and Flow) and eight effort qualities. But the theory becomes much richer because different combinations and sequences of effort qualities express very different states of mind.  

Laban's-Effort-Theory

It is difficult to convey this richness in a semester-long course.  And I think that is okay. Students should not believe they have mastered all there is to know about  Laban in only a few weeks.  The key is to spark curiosity and a desire to continue to learn about movement expression.

Consequently, while Meaning in Motion is meant to be an introductory text, there is more material than can be covered in one semester.  For example, the chapter on Effort not only introduces the four motion factors and eight effort qualities.  It also covers all the states and drives, providing suggestions for creative explorations of these more complex dynamic expressions.

In explaining effort as expression, I discuss the psychological correlations that Laban drew with the motion factors and the basic phrasing pattern of preparation, exertion, and recuperation.  These notions are also linked to a reflective movement exploration.

Increasingly I have come to feel that it is important for students to understand relationships between states and drives – how states build to a drive or provide recuperation from a drive.  This is obviously more advanced material, but the adequate explanation is incorporated in the chapter on effort as well as in appendix material to help students begin to “think in terms of effort.”  

This was always Laban’s admonition.  Thinking in terms of effort requires a conceptual shift from focusing on what is done to appreciating how the movement is done.

Laban’s Alphabet of Human Movement

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In the early 20th century, before there were video cameras and smartphones, Laban recognized that dance, like music, needed a notation system to allow choreographies to be recorded.  Developing a movement notation system necessitated two steps. First, the elements that make up the “alphabet of human movement” had to be identified. Secondly, symbols to represent these elements and their combinations and sequences had to be invented.

alphabet-of-human-movement

Like all good theoreticians, Laban wanted to control the number of elements so as to make his notation system as economical as possible.  He had observed that “the dancer moves, not only from place to place but also from mood to mood.”  This observation provided two broad categories for delineating elements of movement: “Choreutics” – where the parts of the body move in the space around the body, and “Eukinetics” –  how energy is deployed as the dancer moves through space.

In delineating Choreutic and Eukinetic elements of movement, Laban’s analytic system becomes more detailed and complex.  Nevertheless, Laban’s alphabet of movement requires the observer to recognize essential similarities among actions that appear rather different.  As I write in Meaning in Motion, the effort quality of lightness “occurs in the tender stroking of a loved one’s cheek and in dusting crumbs off a table top – actions that seem to have little in common.”  Yet they share an essential effort quality.   

It can be a challenge to help college students recognize, as Laban did, that “whether the purpose of movement is work or art does not matter, for the elements are invariably the same.”  But this recognition leads on to the realization that movement is a common denominator of human action.  As life becomes ever more complex, isn’t it worthwhile to know this?

Teaching LMA at The College Level

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Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) requires thinking as well as moving. Whether one is working with performing arts majors or a more mixed population, most students have never thought about movement and its component parts.  In this month’s series of blogs, I explore how to deal with some of the challenges of teaching LMA at the college level.

Besides providing rich movement experiences that highlight key features of movement (Body, Effort, Space, and Shape), it is vital to help students connect these experiences with meaning.  One way is to start with general principles of the Laban system. I identify the following as key notions in Meaning in Motion: Introducing Laban Movement Analysis.

Teaching-LMA

Movement is a process of change. Movement is not a position or even a series of positions.  Movement is an uninterrupted flux.

The change is patterned and orderly. Body movement is dynamic and ephemeral.  Nevertheless, laws of spatial sequencing and effort phrasing, along with the rhythms of stability/mobility and exertion/recuperation prevent human movement from being chaotic.

Human movement is intentional. Laban observed that human beings move to satisfy needs, both tangible and intangible.  Movement reveals motivation.

The basic elements of human motion may be articulated and studied. Laban identified an “alphabet of the language of movement” that makes it possible to observe and analyze this psychophysical phenomenon.

Movement must be approached at multiple levels if it is to be properly understood. Movement is a dynamic process involving simultaneous changes in spatial positioning, bodily activation, and kinetic energy.  Moreover, movement can be perceived from a variety of perspectives.  It can simply be appreciated through immersion in the physical experience itself.  It can be studied objectively, or it may be approached intellectually.

Find out more in the next blog.

Effort and Human Potential

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“We live only part of the life we are given,” writes Michael Murphy in The Future of the Body.  “Growing acquaintance with once-foreign cultures, new discoveries about our subliminal depths, and the dawning recognition that each social group reinforces just some human attributes while neglecting or suppressing others … suggests that we harbor a range of capacities that no single philosophy or psychology has fully embraced.”

effort-human-potential

Rudolf Laban would certainly agree.  “Preference for a few effort combinations only results in a lack of effort balance,” Laban notes.  “New dances and new ideas of behavior arise by a process of compensation in which a more or less conscious attempt is made to regain the use of lost or neglected effort patterns.”

If we live only a part of the life we are given, it is because we habitually use only a few effort combinations. To me, the great benefit of effort study is to experience, if only fleetingly, other ways of being in the world.

While I was first studying Laban Movement Analysis, I had a profound experience embodying an effort combination of the Spell Drive.  I momentarily became someone else and glimpsed an unfamiliar inner landscape.  This was not a part of the world that I normally inhabit.  Maybe I didn’t really want to live here.  But it was wonderful to discover a new realm of experience and to realize that I could consciously choose to enter this new world simply by moving in a certain way.

To me, the study of effort is the study of human potential, a chance to access a greater range of capacities that are not just physical in nature, but personal, psychological, and perhaps even spiritual.

Effort Relationships

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At its best, human movement flows smoothly and gracefully in organic sequences.  The proportion of our limbs and the structure of our joints determine the way movement sequences unfold in the kinesphere.  As Laban notes, “a movement makes sense only if it progresses organically and this means that phases which follow each other in a natural succession must be chosen.”

effort-relationships

Laban was also concerned with the natural succession of effort moods in the dynamosphere.  Exertion obviously requires effort; Laban found that recovery also involves effort.  Moreover, he discovered that the patterning of this basic shift is far from simple.  As Irmgard Bartenieff explained, “the complexity of phrasing is increased as the Effort factors of the actions include more variations.”

This led Laban to propose a “law of proximity” for effort changes, based on the similarity or dissimilarity of their component effort qualities.  He observed that “in ordinary circumstances, no sane person will ever jump from one quality to its complete contrast because of the great mental and nervous strain involved in so radical a change.”

Laban went on to map organic effort patterns.  These “modulated” phrases are wonderfully fun to embody.  Find out more in the upcoming workshop, “Expanding the Dynamosphere,” July 29-30, in New York City.

Psychological Dimensions of Effort 1

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Rudolf Laban recognized that the four motion factors (Space, Weight, Time, and Flow) characterize both physical and mental effort.  He associated Space with attention, Weight with intention, Time with decision, and Flow with progression.

Laban saw these mental efforts as both preceding and accompanying “purposive actions.”

psychology-dimensions-of-effort

Warren Lamb went on to refine these correlations of physical and mental effort in relation to a decision-making process.  He found that through the careful observation of an individual’s movement patterns, a unique decision-making profile can be discerned. Recent research has confirmed that Movement Pattern Analysis provides a reliable prediction of how an individual will apportion his or her time and energy across the processes of giving attention, forming an Intention to act, and taking that decision to the point of Commitment.

MoveScape Center is offering an “Introduction to Movement Pattern Analysis” this summer. This seminar, limited to six participants, not only covers the core theory and practice of Movement Pattern Analysis (MPA), it also allows each participant to have his/her own profile constructed by the instructor.  

Over the past 75 years, MPA has helped thousands of people work more effectively, both individually and in teams. Find out more….

The Dynamosphere: Effort Maps in 3-D

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The “dynamosphere” is a three-dimensional model of effort relationships. Laban chose a cube for depicting effort kinships. Cate Deicher and I will be exploring these relationships in the forthcoming workshop, “Expanding the Dynamosphere.

efforts-map-in-3D

Many people are familiar with the way Laban positioned the eight basic actions (floating, gliding, pressing, punching, etc.) at each of the eight corners of the cube. Whimsically, Laban likened this effort model to a “town with a good many cross-roads and squares between houses in which the effort microbes live.”  He goes on to add, “It is a curious peculiarity of this city that near relatives dwell nearer to each other than more distant relatives, and these live nearer than strangers or enemies. Hostile effort microbes, who have no effort constituents in common, live at diametrically opposite sides of the city.”

Laban’s dynamospheric action map depicts these relationships.   But effort theory goes well beyond the eight basic actions, to incorporate the three transformative  Drives (Passion, Vision, and Spell), as well as six “incomplete actions” or effort states (Dream, Awake, Near, Remote, Stable and Mobile) and the four elemental motion factors (Weight, Time, Space, and Flow).  Laban also used a different cubic model to depict kinship relations among all these elements and effort combinations.

This little-known cubic model not only summarizes Laban’s whole effort theory, it also maps organic transitions between effort moods.  It is a wonderful resource for building effort phrases.  Find out more in the forthcoming Red Thread workshop.

Effort Range: Home Base and New Territory

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“A healthy human being can have complete control of his kinesphere and dynamosphere,” according to Rudolf Laban.   This suggests that a wide range of motion is both desirable and achievable.

And yet, each of us has effort and shape preferences that define our way of being in the world. These familiar movement patterns anchor us; they provide a “home base.” 

On the other hand, it’s fun to move beyond this comfort zone and experience novel dynamic moods and places.  This summer, MoveScape Center workshops provide both — a chance to revel in the comfort of home base and/or the opportunity to explore unfamiliar movement landscapes.  

home-base-new-territory

In the “Introduction to Movement Pattern Analysis” three-day seminar, you will have your own movement profile constructed.  You will learn more about your unique effort and shape range and how these movement patterns relate to decision-making processes.  This seminar draws upon the work of renowned movement analyst, Warren Lamb, to illustrate how movement study enhances the understanding of self and others.

In the “Expanding the Dynamosphere” two-day workshop, you will explore new movement territories, visiting the lands of Action, Passion, Vision, and Spell.  The emphasis is on awakening movement imagination, expanding your dynamic range, and finding new paths for greater expressivity.

It’s your choice – the comforts of home?  New frontiers?  Find out more ….

Flow Changes Everything

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When flow takes the place of another motion factor, Laban wrote, “the expression is more intense” and the whole configuration “gains new meaning.” In the Mastery of Movement correspondence course, we tested Laban’s assertion.

Readers were asked to choose one of the transformation drives – either Passion or Vision or Spell. They were to work out the eight effort quality combinations of that drive and then embody each mood.

Group of contemporary dancers performing on stage

The Vision Drive combines the motion factors of Space, Time, and Flow (the motion factor of Weight is latent). Cate Deicher, who will be co-teaching the July workshop, “Expanding the Dynamosphere,” with me, explored the Vision Drive. She has graciously allowed me to share her descriptions of what each combination felt like…

I went to a Merce Cunningham exhibit this past weekend and saw footage of Merce dancing. His movement seemed to be a lot about Vision Drive. Those images have stayed in my mind, so I chose that drive.  I’ve also been thinking about Iceland. I was there 40 years ago and will be going back soon.  So this is a combination of Merce + Iceland.

1) free+indirect+decelerating:  I take pleasure in leisurely exploring the incredible, charmingly, unfamiliar landscape.

2) free+ direct+decelerating:  I see an unusual patch of color in the stony landscape, and want to get a closer look.  As I approach it I take my time to enjoy how the shading of color changes with the movement of the clouds.

3) free+indirect+accelerating:  In the harbor, a strong gust of wind scatters a flock of seabirds in the sky above. I try to keep track of all of them as they circle about.

4) free+direct+accelerating:  I scoot quickly, gleefully away from Geyser as it begins to bubble up.

5) bound+indirect+decelerating:  We’re entering an ice cave.  The ground is icy, but there is otherworldly light that is reflected all around.

6) bound+direct+decelerating:  I’m approaching Geyser.  It’s a stunning display, but I’ve been told that sometimes you can feel and observe fissures starting to form in the earth.  I’m careful about this, I also want to be able to flee if I start to feel the ground rumble. Still, I’m fascinated by Geyser; my whole body is trained upon this spectacle.

7) bound+indirect+accelerating:  I know there are no birds here, so I feel a bit threatened by something that just flew by me from out of nowhere.  Where did it come from?

8) bound+direct+accelerating:  I shudder and dash to the shelter of the bus stop as the cold, heavy rain begins to fall.