Today Laban is recognized primarily for two accomplishments. The first is his notation system, which allows dance works of varying genre to be recorded and reconstructed from a symbolic score. The second is his taxonomy of human movement, known as Laban Movement Analysis.
Both notation and Laban’s taxonomy provide the means for breaking a stream of bodily action into component parts, either for purposes of documentation or for study. Consequently, Laban’s name has become synonymous with movement analysis.
However, breaking a movement apart into its various body, effort, shape, and space elements was only part of Laban’s theoretical project. In meaningful human acts, these elements cohere. Laban wanted to explain how this miraculous coherence occurs – seemingly without conscious calculation.
Harmony is the metaphoric term Laban chose for his theoretical explorations of the integrative aspects of movement experience. Harmony matters because the unity of space, time, and energy is the most fundamental yet mysterious aspect of voluntary movement.
In fact, movement harmony is ubiquitous in effective and expressive voluntary actions. Nevertheless, it is a complex melding of mind and body, intention and action, perceptual and motor functions.
What happens when the natural harmony of voluntary movement is disrupted by injury? Find out more in the next blog.