Generally, we think of surfaces, like a strip of paper, as having two sides. But a strip of paper can be twisted and its ends glued together to create a Mobius strip, a surface that has only one side. This means that if you start tracing a line on the outside of the Mobius strip, you soon find yourself tracing the line on the inside of the strip without having to lift your pencil. In other words, the outer becomes inner and the inner becomes outer.
Rudolf Laban used the Mobius strip as a metaphor for human movement. The inner impulse to move becomes outwardly visible as the body energetically traverses space. Our visible actions – how we move through space – also impact the way we feel inwardly.
For example, I used to wonder why vacuuming always made me angry. Then I became aware of my tendency to vacuum with jerky, forceful strokes. This repeated rhythm of fighting efforts affected my mood. In contrast, a friend of mine liked to iron whenever she was upset. She found the gliding actions were calming.
The forthcoming MoveScape seminar, “Discovering the Dynamosphere,” illuminates the Mobius body/mind and provides multiple opportunities to experience how inner becomes outer and outer becomes inner when we move.