According to Rudolf Laban, “The dancer moves, not only from place to place but also from mood to mood.” This simple statement establishes movement as a psychophysical phenomenon. Indeed, Laban was ahead of the embodied cognition theorists, for he recognized that bodily movement happens in two domains – the physical domain of visible space and the psychological domain of thought and feeling.
Thoughts and feelings cannot be observed directly, but they can be inferred from how a particular action is performed. Laban conceived the how of human movement as effort — the application of varying qualities of kinetic energy. He went on to hypothesize relationships between the motion factors that comprise human effort and psychological functions. For example, he related the motion factor of space to giving Attention, noting “the predominant tendency here is to orientate oneself… either in a direct way or in a circumspective, flexible one.”
Laban associated the motion factor of weight with Intention, observing that “the desire to do a certain thing may take hold of one sometimes powerfully and firmly, sometimes gently and slightly.”
Finally Laban linked the motion factor of time with Commitment, commenting that “decisions can be made either unexpectedly and suddenly … or they may be developed gradually by sustaining conditions over a period of time.”
At the upcoming Embodied Decision Making seminar, we explore these intriguing correlations through movement, observation, discussion, and self-reflection. Find out more…