Rudolf Laban’s Theory of Movement Harmony
Dr. Carol-Lynne Moore
To my children, Keita Carey Moore and Kiyomi Lynne Moore
CONTENTS Original Artworks by Rudolf Laban................................................................ix Preface ............................................................................................................. xi Acknowledgements ........................................................................................ xv Introduction .................................................................................................... 1
Tracing a Theory: Research Material and Methods ..................... 2 A Beautiful Theory – Movement Harmony ................................... 5 Chapter 1 Laban’s Journey: Art, Dance, and Beyond .............................. 9
Art and Dance: A Study in Contrast .............................................. 9 Laban’s Early Years (1879-1899) ................................................ 10 A Life for Art (1900-1907) .......................................................... 14 Transitional Years (1910-1912) ................................................... 16 Experimentation and Turmoil (1913-1919) ................................. 18 A Life for Dance (1920-1937) ..................................................... 22 Beyond Dance (1938-1958) ........................................................ 26 Laban as “Artist/Researcher” ...................................................... 29 Chapter 2 The Artist/Resear cher at Work ................................................37
Tracing a Research Career ........................................................... 37 Reconstructing a Research Methodology .................................... 39 Laban’s Artwork ........................................................................... 42 Making Art and Theorizing Dance .............................................. 55 Chapter 3 Visual Representation o f Movement : Tradition and Innovation .......................................................... 61
Representing Movement .............................................................. 61 Proportional Theories and Figure Drawing ................................. 63 Use of the Traditio nal Canon in Laban’s Figure Drawings ......... 70 The Impact of Instantaneous Photography .................................. 73 From Photograph to Mental Image: Bergson’s Philosophy of Movement....................................................... 81 Bergsonian Reverberations in Laban’s Choreutic Theory and Notation .............................................................. 84
vi Space, Time, and Proportional Theory in Laban’s Combination Drawings ................................................................................ 86 Art Nouveau and the Mode rnization of Form ............................. 90 Empathy, Expression, and Abstraction ........................................ 93 The Modernization of Form and Expre ssion in Dance ............... 96 Chapter 4 Space: The Outer Domain of Human Movement ................109
The Dancer Moves from Place to Place .................................... 109 Geographies of the Kinesphere .................................................. 110 Lines of Motion and Their Characteristics ................................ 121 Why Laban Preferred the Icosahedron ...................................... 126 From Line to Line Complex: Theorizing Movement Sequences .......................................................... 131 Refining Laban’s Scheme .......................................................... 135 Summary: Taxonomy of Space ................................................. 140 Chapter 5 Effort: The Inner Domain of Human Movement ................147
The Dancer Moves from Mood to Mood .................................. 147 Evolving a Theory of Movement Dynamics .............................. 147 Elements of Effort: The Four Motion Factors .......................... 150 The “Dynamosphere” ................................................................. 155 Landscapes of the Dynamosphere ............................................. 159 Patterns of Effort Change .......................................................... 169 Connecting Mood and Place ...................................................... 171 The “Law of Proximity” ............................................................ 176 Summary: Taxonomy of Effort .................................................. 178 Chapter 6 On Harmony ............................................................................187
Analysis, Synthesis, and the Essence of Movement .................. 187 Harmony as an Analogic Metaphor ........................................... 188 Ratio and Proportion .................................................................. 190 Balance ....................................................................................... 195 Symmetry ................................................................................... 197 Unity of Form ............................................................................. 201 Interrelationship of Elements ..................................................... 204 Individuality ............................................................................... 207 Hidden Harmonies: An Interlude .............................................. 207 A Working Definition of Movement Harmony .......................... 213
vii Chapter 7 Tone, Scale, Interval, and Transpositio n .............................. 219
Chronological Development ...................................................... 219 Choreutic Forms in the Oral Tradition ...................................... 221 Balanced Symmetry and Order in Choreutic Forms..................222 The Standard Scale and the Chromatic Scale ............................ 231 Empirical Correspondences: The Standard Scale and Range of Motion .................................................................. 237 Harmonic Correspondences in the Standard Scale .................... 238 Mixed Seven-Rings and the Diatonic Scales ............................. 244 Transposition..............................................................................248 Harmony of Spatial Forms ......................................................... 255 Chapter 8 Modulation and Harmonic Ph rasing ....................................263
Musical Modulation and the Law of Proximity ......................... 263 Modeling Harmonic Phrasing for Other St ates and Drives .......271 Stability and Mobility in Effort Phrasing ..................................273 Exploring Other Models of the Dynamosphere ......................... 280 Laban’s Vision of Dynamic Space ............................................. 282 Chapter 9 The Harmonic Unity of Form and Energy ............................287
Existing Theory of Effort/Space Affinities ................................ 288 Steps in the Emergent Theoretical Process ................................ 291 Mature Theory of Effort/Shape Affinities ................................. 293 A Shift in Perspective ................................................................ 296 Reconsidering the Theory of Movemen t Harmony ................... 302 Future Horizons ......................................................................... 305 Bibliography
............................................................................................. 311
Index ............................................................ ................................................ 321
Original Artworks by Rudolf Laban [Note: Artworks are identified by the classification system used by the Rudolf Laban Archive, © Rudolf Laban Archive, National Resource Centre for Dance. Used with permission.] Figures
Figures 2-1, 3-2. Anatomical study. L/C/3/14 Figures 2-2, 3-3. Figure study. L/C/3/20 Figures 2-3, 3-4. Figure study variation. L/C/3/18 Figures 2-4, 6-3. Icosahedron and octahedron. L/C/2/119 Figure 2-5. Truncated octahedron. L/C/2/128 Figures 2-6, 8-3. Effort pattern diagram. L/E/53/2 Figures 2-7, 7-31. Octahedron being stretched. L/E/17/16 Figures 2-8, 7-34. Twisted band in hypercube. L/E/12/26 Figure 2-9. Variations of pentagon. L/C/1/87 Figure 2-10. Pentagonal poses. L/C/1/88 Figure 2-11. Dancers in icosahedron. L/C/6/100 Figure 2-12. Architectural sketches. L/C/1/2 Figure 2-13. Caricature. L/C/9/114 Figure 4-15. Directions in kinesphere. L/E/14/54 Figure 4-16. Center, body and kinesphere. L/C/4/7 Figure 4-21. Polygonal trace-form. L/C/5/86 Figure 6-2. Trace-form and figure in dodecahedron. L/C/5/128 Figure 7-32, 9-7. Klein bottle and multi-dimensional forms. L/E/14/34 Figure 7-33. Trefoil knot in tetrahedron. L/E/15/36 Figure 8-2. Working notes, effort modulation. L/E/6/62 Figure 8-8. Proximity model, effort states and drives. L/E/17/48 Figure 9-8. Weight/space shape. L/E/18/62.
x Colored Plates and Photographs
Cover art. Figure in tetrahedral pose. L/C/6/56 Plate A. Superimposed octahedra. L/E/10/16 Plate B. Circuits in icosahedra and dodecahedron. (no reference number) Plate C. Manipulations of pentagons and heptagons. L/E/38/29 Plate D. Pentagonal shapes and poses. L/C/1/87, L/C/1/88 Plate E. Tetrahedral pose. L/C/6/56 Plate F. Unfolding movement in crystals. L/C/7/152 Plate G. Sculptural version of trace-form. L/F/7/68 Plate H. Lemniscatic sculpture. L/F/7/84 Plate I. Seascape. L/C/9/65 Plate J. Crayon portrait. L/C/9/1 Plate K. Figure surrounded by angular trace-form. L/C/5/86 Plate L. Trace-form as biomorphic curves. L/C/6/24 Plate M. Figures in icosahedron. L/C/4/7 Plate N. Cube, dodecahedron, and icosahedron. L/C/4/5 Plate O. Octahedron, tetrahedra, and cube. L/E/4/72 Plate P. Musical tones and signal points of A scale. L/E/4/72 Plate Q. Topological manipulation of octahedron. L/E/17/16 Plate R. Hypercube and effort affinities. L/E/7/35 Plate S. Flow shape. L/C/1/32 Plate T. Time shape. L/C/1/31 Plate U. Space shape. L/C/1/33 Plate V. Weight shape. L/C/1/21
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Preface Rudolf Laban’s work has been highly significant in the development of analytical structures across a number of movement-based disciplines in the twentieth century, from acting, dancing and therapy to work place behaviour. It has been much referred to, with greater or lesser degrees of accuracy and understanding. The interpretation of his ideas has, however, been fraught with problems — partly because of his re-location from Central Europe to England in 1938. As with other artists and scholars who emigrated prior to the Second World War, Laban’s artistic practices lost their context, his papers were dispersed among various personal collections and a few archives, and his written materials needed translation. The spread of Laban‘s ideas across continents as far apart as Australasia and the Americas, again a common diasporic process in the pre-war years, also led to its fragmentation. Groups in different countries chose to emphasise specific parts of his work and used it in diverse contexts. In consequence, this breadth of application, compounded by the depth and range of his theorisation in itself, made it difficult for anyone else to construct a coherent account of the body of his work — a task he never completed himself. The enthusiastic development of isolated areas of his work by others, largely practitioners, whether in the theatre, or in industry, or in therapy and education, can be seen to have led to a loss of coherence. It was perhaps inevitable that his thinking would be distorted in the process, since it was very much a work-in-progress, only partially developed at that time. Moore’s re-visiting shows how partial previous understandings were. Scholarship to date is scant, focussed on education and therapy, and bordering at times on the mystical. A degree of historical and cultural distance is in fact very useful in allowing us to re-position Laban, since reflecting on his significance would have been extraordinarily difficult in the mid-twentieth century. So, while his ideas have inspired movement practitioners in many domains and across many countries over more than half a century, we have had to wait for a thoroughgoing assessment of his
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theory of movement harmony, not just for time to elapse, but also for a practitioner/theorist such as Carol-Lynne Moore to emerge, whose special strengths and knowledge, combined with persistence and long, long familiarity with the materialhave been vital for the insightful development found in this book. Laban’s srcinal writings themselves, as Moore shows, have often been characterised as somewhat obscure, not just from being written in German, but in their content and mode of representation, just as his drawings needed to be seen in the light of then-current biological insights as well as the concerns of the visual arts. The ‘density’ of his material, a word Moore rightly uses, is a real challenge for the reader and, combined with the extraordinary complexity and inter-related character of his ideas, has halted many previous attempts at interpretation. While recognising the diverse and difficult nature of his exploration, Carol-Lynne Moore brilliantly explicates and pursues his lines of argument with great sympathy and clarity. The theory of movement harmony was perhaps one of the most problematic of his pursuits, requiring knowledge from philosophy, physiology, mathematics and the visual arts as well as deep understanding of movement and an intellectual agility not often found in movement scholarship. In bringing this book to fruition, Moore successfully negotiates multiple threads of argument, each extensively expounded, to interweave critical concepts with clarity in this interpretive exercise. Laban’s own ingenuity is matched by hers, and, with the empathy that is equivalent to completing a symphony only sketched by a composer, she moves beyond his to lessLaban’s explicitmaterials, statementsgetting into new territory. She and does more than justice inside his work bringing it to new life in a manner appropriate to our present time. This book reinvigorates Laban scholarship, showing how movement and mind, body and soul, emotion and concept, are one, entwined, inseparable. This deeply difficult task, given the binarynature of language, is successfully achieved. It bears similarity to dance making of the present time. Just as current choreographers re-visit, for example, the themes of Swan Lake, and we see them anew, re-worked, so Carol-Lynne Moore challenges tendencies to value Laban’s notation system and taxonomic
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analysis solely as technical tools, and focuses instead on his notions of the coherence of movement, its elements integrated in ‘meaningful human acts’. Its implications and applications will support the growth of the discipline for years to come. This articulation and further development of Laban’s ‘beautiful’ but ‘analogic’theory of movement harmony makes a unique, srcinal, and impressive contribution to scholarship. Janet Lansdale Emeritus Professor, Dance Studies University of Surrey England
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Acknowledgments My thanks go first to the British Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB) for funding the two-year research fellowship that made this book possible. Generous support from the AHRB allowed me to extend the breadth and depth of my archival research on Rudolf Laban’s unpublished theoretical materials. I also want to thank the Department of Dance Studies at the University of Surrey for serving as host institution. Staff and faculty were welcoming and helpful without exception. Particular thanks go to Professor Emeritus June Layson, who generously shared her own experiences with Laban and also graciously served as a sounding board for discoveries as the research unfolded. The study could not have been completed without the dedicated involvement of the staff of the National Resource Centre for Dance at the University of Surrey. Special thanks to Chris Jones, chief archivist, and Helen Roberts, director, for their expertise, generous assistance, and good will—not to mention the occasional cup of tea when spirits flagged. Production of this book was facilitated by the Herculean efforts of Vivian Heggie, typesetter extraordinaire, who adroitly found a way to integrate Laban’s drawings with my text and translate roughly sketched diagrams into camera-ready illustrations. My husband, Kaoru Yamamoto, has not only steadfastly driven our children to school for weeks on end so that I had time to write, but also provided invaluable editorial support and encouragement. Finally, I would like to acknowledge my teacher, Irmgard Bartenieff (1900-1981). Bartenieff worked with Laban in Germany in the 1920s, but with the rise of National Socialism, she and her family immigrated to the United States. During the final 15 years of her life, Bartenieff introduced a generation of young Americans to Laban’s ideas, not as received wisdom from the past but as theory belonging to the future. Through her life work and, indeed, her very being, she conveyed a sense of the immense potential of movement study. Credit for the hopeful subtext in this study goes to Irmgard.
Introduction
Rudolf Laban (1879-1958) is identified by various encyclopedists and historians as “the multifaceted dancetheorist” whose studies of human movement not only “provided the intellectual foundations for the development of central European modern dance” butalso “unquestionably affected the tradition of classical theatrical dancing.”1 While Laban’s reputation remains closely associated with the discipline of dance, he is an anomaly in the field for several reasons. Only a third of Laban’s career, the period bracketed by the two world wars, was focused single-mindedly on dance. During the first two decades of his professional life (1899-1919), Laban trained and worked as a visual artist. During the final two decades of his career (1939-1958), Laban applied theory developed from dance studies to a variety of novel fields beyond dance. Unlike most significant figures in dance history, Laban is not remembered as a great performer or choreographer. In this most physical of arts, Laban’s contributions are almost entirely intellectual. Today Laban is recognized primarily for two accomplishments. The first is his notation system, which allows dance works of varying genres to be recorded and reconstructed from a written score. The second is the taxonomy of human movement that provides conceptual underpinnings for the notation system by delineating elements of movement that must be recorded. Both notation andaction Laban’s taxonomy provide the either means for for breaking a stream of bodily into component parts, purposes of documentation or for study. Consequently, Laban’s name has become synonymous with movement analysis. However, analysis was only part of Laban’s project, for he was also concerned with delineating how the various elements of movement cohere in meaningful human acts. To date, the integrative aspects of Laban’s theoretical explorations have received little scholarly attention. This book aims to redress this imbalance through discussion of Laban’s final intellectual achievement – his theory of movement harmony.
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Tra cing a Theor y: Res ear ch Mater ials and M ethods The material in this book was developed from my doctoral and postdoctoral research conducted at the University of Surrey between 1994
and 2002.2 This research was motivated initially by a desire to trace the ideational bases of Laban theory and by so doing to locate Laban more precisely in streams of twentieth century thought and culture. The sheer variety of his activities suggested that there were many different prisms for understanding Laban. Temporal shifts in his professional interests added another layer of complexity to his work; chameleon-like, Laban appeared to change his colors depending upon the period under investigation. And though a tireless champion of dance documentation, his own work paradoxically had been documented haphazardly. As a consequence, situating Laban’s ideas historically, culturally, and aesthetically was neither straightforward nor obvious. In the beginning, biographical research was combined with study of the historical and cultural contexts of Laban’s life. On the assumption that the foundations of Laban’s thinking were most likely to be found in his youth and early career, initial study concentrated on the early decades of Laban’s life: the period from 1879 through 1919, that is, from Laban’s birth to his emergence as a public figure in the dance when he was 40 years old. Focusing on Laban’s early life meant looking at his somewhat undistinguished career as a visualartist. Documentation of Laban’s artistic activities was limited, and I had to work inferentially from existing traces. These indicated that Laban had been close to significant figures and events in emerging modern art movements, notably Jugendstil, Art Nouveau, abstract Expressionism, Dada. Curious about the nature of Laban’s own artwork, I casually and asked to see the drawings in the Rudolf Laban Archive, a vast collection of materials from the final two decades of Laban’s life that is held by the National Resource Centre for Dance (NRCD) at the University of Surrey, England. What I found as a result of this simple query marked a turning point in the initial study. I had accepted the given wisdom that Laban gave up art sometime around 1913, when he began to find his true vocation in the dance.3 Hundreds of drawings, however, were to be found among archival papers dating from 1938-1958, the final years of Laban’s career. The
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subject matter of the majority of these drawings — geometrical shapes, dancing human figures, dancers inside geometrical forms — seemed to explore ideas about motion, form, and space. Discovery of this cache of visual material indicated that, while Laban gave up art as a profession, he continued to draw upon his artistic skills to model ideas about dance. The uncovering of this archival material provided a thematic center and angle of approach for the study as it unfolded. First of all, many hours were spent studying Laban’s drawings in what may be characterized as a hermeneutic approach. Hermeneutic interpretation involves a mobile, somewhat intuitive process in which various relationships of part towhole, or of the interpreter to the tradition from which a text or artifact speaks, are juxtaposed until a congruence can be sensed. I was deeply familiar with Laban’s ideas from my work as a dancer. In studying Laban’s drawings, I assumed that he was modeling these ideas visually and that by looking at the drawings I would be able to apprehend the concepts they represented. The hermeneutic penetration of Laban’s drawings also pointed towards areas of knowledge upon which he might have drawn.My method was to pursue these pointers, reading as much as possible about subject areas such as human anatomy for artists, proportional techniques, photographic studies of human movement, and modernist art theory and aesthetics. In this way various arenas of information were circled, multiplying and deepening angles of understanding until distinct connections to Laban’s work could be made through a process of contextualization. Contextualization allows the historian “to confront what like can a largely unconnected mass ofcertain material” and then “to show looks that sense be made of it by revealing pervasive themes or developments.”4 Such contextual juxtapositions for revelatory and explanatory purposes are in essence narrative structures.5 Thus, the inital study employed hermeneutic and contextual methodologies to construct an intellectual history with reference to unpublished drawings in the Rudolf Laban Archive. This history focused on Laban’s choreutic concepts, the taxonomical elements and harmonic principles that govern movement forms in the dancer’s space. A post-doctoral fellowship funded by the British Arts and Humanities
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Research Board allowed me to extend the initial study in two ways. First, I was able to examine archival materials dealing with Laban’s eukinetic concepts, the taxonomical elements and harmonic principles that govern the rhythmic patterning of energy in dance. Secondly, the fellowship provided time for extended study of unpublished writings on Choreutics and Eukinetics in the Archive. Two things came to light as a result. First, I found that there were just as many drawings tucked away among the files on Eukinetics as there had been in the Choreutics files. The use of figure drawing and geometrical forms in relation to the study of movement forms in space was readily understandable. Laban’s use of a similar technique to model theories about kinetic energy was unexpected, but this discovery revealed that Laban utilized consistent procedures for modeling both domains of his movement taxonomy. While drawing in general was central to Laban’s method of constructing dance theory, over time I began to detect significant differences in the way Laban visually modeled the choreutic and eukinetic domains. He seemed to prefer particular three-dimensional forms for modeling movement in space. In this case, the choreutic models seemed to be literal — to represent actual movement trajectories. However, Laban employed a different set of three-dimensional forms when he modeled Eukinetics. In this case, the forms chosen appeared to be figurative rather than literal, explorations of formal relations rather than depictions of movement pathways. This distinction was a first breakthrough to understanding how Laban constructed his ideas of the harmonic relations of energy and spatial form. As I slowly worked way through fileI after most filled with fragments of writing andmy arcane drawings, kept file, glimpsing Laban’s attempts to connect separate strands of his theoretical work. I could perceive the direction the work was tending — but only in shadowy form, never fully crystallized. This was due in part to the way in which the Archive has been organized. There are overlapping subject categories. This ambiguity, coupled with the fact that several different people sorted materials over a period of years, means that materials exploring a common idea are often filed under different subject headings. By methodically examining all seemingly relevant categories, I eventually located the
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“rosetta stone” documents, and Laban’s mature theory of harmony emerged from the shadows and became comprehensible and coherent. A Beaut iful Theor y — Mov ement H ar mony This book, based upon the first comprehensive examination of unpublished materials in the Rudolf Laban Archive, integrates Laban’s final theoretical explorations with earlier and better known work centered in the discipline of dance and focused on movement analysis. The book takes as its theme Laban’s observation that human movement has a harmonic structure analogous to that of music. This theme guided Laban’s research activities in dance, seemingly from the very beginning, and he attempted over and over again to articulate his perspective. Of all Laban’s ideas, that of movement harmony has received the harshest treatment at the hands of both friends and foes. The idea has, in short, simply been
written off as a fuzzy figure of speech, a by-product of Laban’s mystical world-view, a utopian fantasy in which dance is seen to carry metaphysical significance and magical power. On the basis of my years of research, I have come to believe that Laban was not employing the term harmony in a fuzzy way, to refer to pleasing or attractive aspects of movement or to promote his mystical views. Rather, Laban employs the term “harmony” as an analogic metaphor. Through this controlled comparison, Laban aims to get at the deep structure of movement, elucidating the means through which distinctively different elements of movement cohere in meaningful actions. At its base, Laban’s theory of movement harmony is beautifully simple. Like all truly elegant and abstract theories, however, it is devilishly difficult to explain. Consequently, discussion of the theory of movement harmony is developed in three parts. The first part, Chapters 1, 2, and 3, examines technical and conceptual links between Laban’s first career as a visual artist and his subsequent vocation as a dance theorist. This examination recapitulates Laban’s career, situating his artwork and dance theory in a network of late nineteenth and early twentieth century ideas. The second part of the book, Chapters 4 and 5, deals with Laban’s taxonomy of human movement. While this analytic framework has been
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articulated in Laban’s own writings as well as in many other sources, familiarity with the component parts of his movement analysis system is necessary to follow the subsequent discussion of Laban’s theory of harmony. The final section of the book extends the analogic metaphor of movement harmony. Chapter 6 provides an overview of Laban’s notions of the elements of movement harmony. This is followed in Chapters 7, 8, and 9 by elaboration of specific harmonic constructs such as interval, scale, modulation, transposition, and harmonic relationships. While the ideas belong to Laban, the articulation of these harmonic constructs is my own. There is, I believe, sufficient substance to Laban’s theory to merit this effort at articulation. That being said, no theory ever provides a perfect explanation for a material phenomenon or an actual experience. Each theory is always an imaginary excursion, from the known to the unknown. While Laban’s theory of harmony has the potential to extend understanding of the coherent nature of human movement, it will not fit in all particulars. Where it is found not to fit, new theory can be generated. It is by these means that knowledge is advanced in any field; dance and movement studies should not be exceptions. Thus Chapter 9 also provides a critical reflection on future directions for research. When Laban abandoned a career in art in 1913, dance was an ahistorical and a-theoretical discipline by necessity. Since that time a great deal has been done to alter these deficiencies. Nevertheless, the role that theory can play in enhancing practical and creative movement activity is not fully their recognized, even today. Dance andbemovement studies will never achieve disciplinary potentials and recognized as constituting legitimate bodies of knowledge until theoretical bases are better articulated. It is in the interest of furthering these fields that Laban’s theory of movement harmony is presented here.
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Notes
1. Characterizations of Laban cited are drawn from, respectively, the
2. 3. 4. 5.
entries on Rudolf Laban in the International Encyclopedia of Dance, Encyclopedia Britannica, and Lincoln Kirstein’s seminalDance, 303. Moore, “Choreutic Theory of Rudolf Laban.” This is the perspective taken by the British biographer, PrestonDunlop, in her Rudolf Laban. Walsh, cited in Berkhofer, “Challenge of Poetics,” 142. Barthes, Discourse of History.
C HAPTER 1
La ba n’s J our ney: Ar t, Dan ce, and Beyond Art and Dance : A Stud y in Cont r ast
In 1913, a 34-year-old Hungarian painter named Rudolf Laban (18791958) declared that he was giving up art to pursue a career in dance. By becoming a dancer, Laban confessed that he seemed to have set his heart on “the most despised profession in the world.”1 Indeed, the contrasts between the artistic discipline he was leaving and the one he wished to enter could not have been more obvious at the time. In the early years of the twentieth century, the visual arts in Europe were not only exciting and innovative disciplines, but also prestigious andthe well-established ones, in history, literature, andMasterworks theory. Dance, on other hand, was therich perennial “poor relation.” of painting, sculpture, and architecture outlived their creators and could continue to be viewed, appreciated, analyzed, and copied, while dance existed only for the moment and then disappeared without a trace. Libraries were full of writings about art, for a dense body of theory had been developed over the course of several hundred years, addressing fundamental elements such as proportion, perspective, composition, color, and form. In contrast, little had been written about the history of dance, and there was no substantial body of theory addressing the fundaments of human movement. Dance seemed to be condemned by its ephemeral nature to remain an insignificant art, even a disreputable one. Laban intended to alter these despicable conditions. Over the next twenty-five years, working in Germany and other parts of Europe, Laban labored incessantly to establish disciplinary foundations for the ephemeral art of movement. He developed a notation system that allowed choreographies of different genres to be recorded and re-staged. He wrote and published books about dance. He performed and choreographed. He organized professional dance conferences, and encouraged amateur dance for recreative purposes, often on a large scale. By the early 1930s, dance was becoming a modern art at last, and Laban
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was a leading figure in the European dance avant-garde. However, economic and political problems in Europe effectively ended Laban’s dance career. Like many other modernists involved in the artistic diaspora of the late 1930s, Laban left Germany, and immigrated, first to France, and then to England. When he arrived in Britain, he was nearly 60 years of age, ailing and depressed. With the start of the Second World War, there was little demand for aging dancers, and he was compelled to find another professional outlet for his expertise. Initially he applied his understanding of movement to efficiency studies of manual labor in factories, training women to take on jobs formerly done by the men. After the war, he became involved in other projects: he taught stage movement to actors, supported efforts to embed dance in the national educational curriculum, and explored the use of movement in psychotherapy. Throughout these activities, he continued to write, to teach, and theorize. In these final years his life, it was not merely dance that to occupied Laban’s thoughts, but of human movement in general. As Reynolds and McCormick note, “Laban’s expansive intellect and curiosity would have marked him as unusual in any field, but in dance, where imagination and pragmatism rarely combine in one individual, he was unique.”2 In a life devoted to the study of human movement as a psychophysical phenomenon, Laban’s initial involvement in visual art seems to be an episode of minor importance in a lifetime of more significant accomplishment. Yet the thousands of drawings Laban has left behind stand in silent testimony to his continued involvement in art as a means for theorizing dance. Consequently, this chapter examines Laban’s journey art to dance, outlining biographical contributed to thefrom development of his theories and tracingdata his that career trajectory. La ba n’s Ea r ly Year s (1879-1899)
Laban was born into a bourgeois Catholic family in Bratislava, a minor municipality in the Austro-Hungarian Empire near Vienna. Even today, more than a century later, the historic center of Bratislava retains an old world charm evocative of Laban’s youth. A fairy tale castle sits on a hill overlooking the Danube, corners in the old center are marked by
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elegant Baroque churches and palaces, while pleasant courtyards open suddenly in the maze of narrow streets. In Laban’s day, Bratislava was quite multicultural despite its small size, with a mixed population of German, Hungarian, Jewish, and Slovak inhabitants. In addition, the town was large enough to have a Municipal Theatre where visiting companies performed, as well as a Kunstverein, or artist’s guild, that held local exhibitions. 3 Ullmann’s annotations to Laban’s autobiography, A Life for Dance, report that Laban’s mother, the daughter of a physician, was a “cultured and progressive” woman.4 Laban’s father, a career officer in the AustroHungarian military, had a more conservative orientation.5 With the father’s eventual promotion to the rank of general, the Laban family became ennobled and were allowed to add a “von” to their surname. References in Laban’s autobiography to the family home overlooking the Danube, to hishim grandparents’ music his room and vineyard, and to the servant to when he visited father at the latter’s posting in theavailable Balkans also suggest that the general economic circumstances of Laban’s youth were comfortable. Indeed, his father’s military promotions brought the family close to the Viennese court and imperial culture, with all the attached social responsibilities and privileges. Little is known definitively about Laban’s early education beyond the fact that he was “not a docile pupil.” 6 A few scattered references in Laban’s own writings must suffice as suggestions of formative influences during these decades. Among these influences, experiences with theatre, visual art, and the military are outstanding. Theatre . Laban’s autobiography suggests that he was a fanciful and imaginative boy and that his fantasies had a strongly theatrical element. Laban’s boyish dramatic impulses were further reinforced by his extended family. One favorite uncle, Adolf Mylius, became a prominent actor in Germany. Another uncle with whom Laban spenta lot of time was Antoine Sendlein, city architect of Bratislava. Because his uncle’s responsibilities included making contracts with visiting theatrical companies, Laban reports becoming familiar with the theatre “from the flies to the pits.”7 Although his family rationed his attendance at performances, fearing it would cause his imagination to run riot, Laban’s autobiography indicates
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that he was able to see many operas, operettas, dramas, folk-plays, and circuses. Scenic design should also be mentioned as another youthful interest linking Laban to theOtto theatre. He became friends with son8 of thepainter scene decoration painter, Winterstein, often visiting histhe studio. This was sometimes called upon to decorate halls for festivities and Laban became his assistant in these enterprises. Moreover, when the old painter died, his son took over scene-painting duties and also called upon Laban’s help. An on-going partnership apparently resulted. Visual Art. Scenic decoration was not the only type of art that figured prominently in his youth. By his own accounts, the artistically inclined Laban was befriended by a local painter, whom Vojtek identifies as Eduard Majsch.9 In his autobiography, Laban writes that Majsch, “was the first person to whom I confessed my intention of becoming an artist.” The 10 By age painter took youth Labanto “learn “firmly hand” and forced the somewhat undisciplined realincraftsmanship.” sixteen, Laban 11 recalls, “I counted as quite a reputable painter.” As a student of Majsch, the youthful Laban was able to exhibit his paintings in Bratislava. Laban notes that at this time, “awareness of movement existed only in my subconscious and was strongly linked with the pictorial. It needed a special occasion to open my eyes to the fact that in the ‘moving picture’ lies hidden a tremendously enhanced expression of human will and feeling.”12 The particular occasion which released this awareness again came through Majsch. In 1897, a provincial ruler was due to visit Bratislava for the unveiling of a monument. As part of the festivities, the old painter was asked to design not only triumphal arches but also tableaux vivants, which were to be performed as part of the festivities in the Municipal Theatre. At one rehearsal when the painter was absent, Laban tried out his own ideas. Rather than having the group remain motionless throughout the festivities, Laban directed them to strike a new pose with each new phrase of musical accompaniment. This innovation found favor with Majsch, to Laban’s delight. The experience opened a completely new field of activity. Laban recalls that “I designed hundreds of these sequences and gradually they developed into real group-dance scenes.”13 The Military. If an awareness of movement came to Laban only
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gradually through painting, its role in martial maneuvers was much more obvious. When Laban visited his father in the Balkans, he took part in “training in fencing, shooting, riding and other forms of sport and combat.” He was also able to observe battalion exercises, corps maneuvers, and actual skirmishes. “Horses panted, soldier surged forward and gun carriages bumped over the field. It was as if everyone was flying and tearing about in wonderful designs,” he recalled. Laban admits to being justifiably proud of his father’s role as the commanding officer and deriving pleasure, not only from his own physical exertions but also from the “splendid display of movement” in parades and formal marching processionals. Indeed, Laban later acknowledged that the life of a soldier fascinated him “almost as much as the arts.”14 His father’s posting to various parts of the multi-national AustroHungarian Empire also provided contacts with different cultural groups. In particular, themade timeaspent as impression an adolescent in Bosnia and Herzegovina appears to have lasting on Laban. Through his “tutor,” a Muslim Imam, Laban gained access to the Sufi sects in the area, witnessing their ecstatic dance rituals: “I saw to my ast onis hme nt dervishes, in a state of high ecstasy, driving long needles and nails through their cheeks, and through their chests and their arm muscles, without showing any sign of pain, or even more important, without losing a drop of blood. Afterwards there was no trace of a wound.” 15 Laban appears to have been deeply affected by these rituals, for he was later to remark, “Were the dervishes really immune to cuts? Could dancing really have such a power over man? Belief in a magic that conquers nature was surely 16 wasn’t there just foolishness, a childish immense superstition — but evenit?” so, something great, something hidden behind Despite his interest in arcane and artistic matters, in 1899 Laban entered an Officers’ Training Academy near Vienna at the instigation of his father. It would appear that the unhappy year spent there settled forever the contest between the life of the soldier and the life of the artist. Laban’s military career ended in 1900, never to be resumed despite the occurrence of two World Wars. The life of the artist was the course that would be followed from 1900 onwards.
14 A Life for Ar t (1900-1907)
Despite his family’s misgivings, Laban secured a small allowance and permission to pursue his interest in art. His first port of call was Munich, a continental art center second only to Paris in the fin-de-siècle world. Laban situated himself in Schwabing, the bohemian sector where “everyone painted — or wrote poems, or made music, or took up dancing.”17 Here Laban quickly formed two important attachments. The first was to Martha Fricke, a German art student, whom Laban married shortly after arriving in Munich. The second was an acquaintance with Jugendstil artist, Hermann Obrist. Little is known about how Laban made these connections. What can be surmised is that Laban established a personal circle in which making and discussing art were paramount. The art of the moment was Jugendstil, a local manifestation of the much broader international movement known as Art Nouveau. Retrospectively, self-proclaimed “new can betraditions seen as anwere important link in the shift this from representational art,art” whose promulgated by the great European art academies, to non-representational art, which emerged from the various iconoclastic movements of the early 20th century. In the fin-de-siècle period, Munich was a particularly important center of the Art Nouveau movement because developments taking place in German aesthetics and psychological studies overlapped with innovations in the fine and applied arts, making for a heady mixture of theory and practice.18 The visionary Obrist was a pivotal person in the Munich art community, not only due to the attention that his own work attracted, but also because of his extensive public lecture activities and 19
reputation as an inspirational teacher. is not known if Laban and his wife actually studied with Obrist. EvenIt peripheral involvement in his circle, however, would have given them access to some of the most advanced thinking about art at this time. In any case, Laban and his wife did not linger in Munich for long. Late in 1900, the year of the famous Universal Exposition, they moved on to Paris to enroll in the École des Beaux Arts. At this time, between 500-600 students were regularly registered in the École, studying either painting, sculpture, or architecture. Admission to the École was by competition, and advancement was likewise based on competition, the
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most prestigious award being the Prix de Rome , which allowed its recipients to study at the French academy in Rome. While classes and theoretical lectures at the École were free, the more practical side of the arts was taught in the artist’s studio or the architect’s drawing office. And so a system of ateliers, some commissioned by the Académie des Beaux Arts, some independent, provided additional training for which students paid.20 Laban’s own recountings of his educational background indicate that he studied architecture and painting at the École des Beaux Arts during the period of 1900-1907. His biographer, however, has been unable to find records of his enrollment, either at the École or in one of the ateliers. This may be because Laban failed to pass the competitive examination for upper level classes, for only the names of the students in these classes have been retained in the archives of the École. Laban’s wife, however, seemingly didwhere pass and is recorded in 1903 as a student in the School of Architecture, course work included “mathematics, geometry, 21 architectural history, analytical elements and perspective.” One could, of course, learn much about architecture and art outside the walls of the academy. Paris itself was an artist’s textbook. For those of a conventional bent, the city was filled with historical architectural masterpieces in various styles. Art Nouveau designers were also modernizing the look of the city, from the Metro gates created by Hector Guimard to the theatre built on the Paris Exposition grounds by Henri Savage for Loie Fuller, the dancer whose abstract manipulation of fabric and light seemed the very embodiment of Art Nouveau ornament. 22 Historically significant paintings and sculpture were on view in the city’s many museums. Contemporary work was also readily accessible. For academically acceptable painters, there was a well-established system for exhibiting and selling work. Beyond the mainstream, more iconoclastic artists developed their own exhibition opportunites through a number of independent salons. Straddling these worlds, the gallery of Siegfried Bing, L’Art Nouveau, provided a venue where it was possible to see the newest designs in furniture, fabric, lamps, wall coverings, and other decorative arts.23 Surrounded by these riches, Laban eked out a living for his family
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somehow, perhaps by selling caricatures, magazine illustrations, or sidewalk portraits. In any case, this period was brought to a close in 1907 by the tragic early death of Laban’s wife. The two children of the union were sent to be raised by their maternal grandparents, while Laban apparently returned to his paternal home, seemingly passing into a phase of inactivity about which little is known. Concrete information about these first years of Laban’s artistic career is frustratingly scarce.24 Surviving works shown in Chapter 2 and the latter sections of this book demonstrate an understanding of human anatomy, proportion, geometry, and rendering in perspective, indicating that Laban received the rudiments of an academic art education. In addition to familiarity with academic traditions of visual representation, Laban was also immersed in the innovations of Art Nouveau through his contacts in Munich and his surroundings in Paris. A few of Laban’s surviving illustrations to his familiarity Art“new Nouveau.25 Intestify the years leading up to with Worldstylistic War I, features however,ofthis art” was destined to be surpassed by the even greater innovations of abstract Expressionism. And Laban, it would seem, was destined to be back in Munich when this breakthrough occurred. Tr an sitiona l Year s (1910-1912)
In 1910, through contacts within his family circle, Laban met and married Maja Lederer, a singer.After the wedding in Bratislava, the couple moved to Munich, settling down in Schwabing. This bohemian community once again proved important for Laban, “enabling him to inform himself 26 of awhich wide range of current philosophies a fertile in he could try outartistic his emergent ideasand in aoffering practical way.”ground The Labans immersed themselves in the artistic whirl of the district, cobbling together a livelihood of sorts. Maja taught singing while Laban himself worked freelance as an illustrator and caricaturist. As children began to arrive the Labans were often in debt. Yet, they “regularly attended performances throughout the years 1910-1914.”27 Given Laban’s career, presumably they also attended important exhibitions and other art events. As it so happened, the art scene in Munich at this time was quite lively, due to the emergence of the Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider) group. At
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the heart of the Blaue Reiter were the painters Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc. In 1911 the first Blaue Reiter group exhibition was held in Munich, followed by the publication of Kandinsky’s theoretical treatise, Concerning the Spiritual in Art.28 The year 1912 saw the second group exhibition held in Munich and publication of Der Blaue Reiter Almanac, edited by Kandinsky and Marc. This almanac combined an eclectic collection of illustrations with writings on art, music, and theatre. Though “spontaneous in srcin and fragmentary in shape,” the Almanac outlined “a program of modern aesthetics and articulated principles of artistic creativity that are still of current interest.”29 Munich was also the site of creative revolutions in the performing arts. The Munich Artists’ Theatre, under the visionary direction of Georg Fuchs, had opened in 1908. With its advanced lighting system, unique proscenium, and Jugendstil decoration, it was the most modern theatre
in Germany. Productions writersprogram and musici were encouraged, while the whole thrust ofby thelocal theatre’s wasansoriented toward “a nonnaturalistic symbolic theatre.”30 “Spiritual art,” it would seem, was in the air, for Munich also saw the premiers of Rudolf Steiner’s cycle of four Mystery Plays, beginning in 1910. 31 Development of Steiner’s esoteric movement art, Eurythmy, also began during this period, with a premier performance being given in conjunction with a gathering of the Theosophical Society in Munich in 1913.32 Meanwhile, cabaret performers and playwrights such as Frank Wedekind explored the satirical and profane, pushing the limits of what were considered to be socially acceptable topics for stage portrayal.33 Thesefestivities sacred and profaneLent. currents together in the during traditional carnival preceding As acame way to make money the winters of 1911-1913, Laban became involved in staging entertainments for various carnival balls, designing sets and costumes and recruiting amateur performers. From Laban’s descriptions in hisautobiography, these were colossal productions involving hundreds of people. While he complains of the workload, the experience of directing such festivities seems to mark the start of a transition in his professional direction. Sometime in 1912, Laban packed away his paintings to make room for movement classes in his studio, gathering a small group of students. These
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students presumably became his assistants in staging carnival entertainments, helping to train the amateur performers and stepping in for the more demanding dance parts. Laban’s dance inventions were soon so enthusiastically received, he claimed, that “no festivals took place at which we were not present with our dances and other artistic contributions.” 34 Despite these successes, Laban appears to have been dissatisfied with the trivial character of the work and the carnivalesque atmosphere in which it evolved. “For the first time,” he writes, “I became aware of my responsibility for this group of people who put their trust in me.”35 Laban wanted to see “festive moments” filled with a “spiritual attitude.” He longed for his dancers to be able to get out of town: “Alongside the arts they must do a healthy job, preferably farming, gardening or something of that kind, for in both form and content the artistic work must grow out 36
of the community in which I should like to bring them together.” Exper imenta tion a nd Tur moil (1913-1919)
In search of a more suitable environment for his work, Laban visited “Monte Verita” in the spring of 1913. Situated in the southern Swiss town of Ascona, on the Lago Maggiore, Monte Verita had been founded in the early years of the 20th century by a wealthy group of disaffected intellectuals. The area had subsequently established itself as a center “for experimental living according to artistic, spiritual, and anarchistic principles.” 37 Laban secured permission to start a School for the Arts from Henri Oedenkoven, one of the colony’s founders; and arrangements were madeforfor familyseason. and ad hoc group of students and faculty to assemble thehis summer Schwabing was bohemian, but Monte Verita was even more iconoclastic. Its counterculture stance attracted “spiritual and political rebels.”38 For Laban, it provided a rustic yet stimulating environment for experimentation. Having recruited a friend to teach painting, Laban was free to pursue his srcinal ideas about dance. On the theoretical level, Laban began his Herculean labors to develop a notation system for recording choreographies. He also started to frame his harmonic theories. These explorations were supported by practical movement classes with
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the students who began to gather around him. Two of the earliest students, Suzanne Perrottet and Mary Wigman, are of particular importance. Perrottet had been the protégé of Émile Jaques-Dalcroze, the Swiss music professor who39developed a movement pedagogy for musicians known as Eurhythmics. By 1910, Dalcroze had also established an institute in the planned garden community of Hellerau, outside Dresden, which combined training in Eurhythmics with theatrical productions. These music and movement performances, with sets created by the revolutionary Swiss scenographer, Adolphe Appia, attracted the attention of avant-garde theatre artists from all parts of Europe. But it was Dalcroze’s pedagogical work, rather than his theatrical creations, that was significant for Laban. Dalcroze had developed a rudimentary system of movement analysis; Perrottet’s familiarity with this material “allowed Laban to have a direct model against which his own ideas could 40
be seen.” enrollment Other points of contact wereanother no doubt provided by the subsequent of Mary Wigman, Dalcroze student. Wigman became Laban’s star pupil. Her reminiscences provide a picture of the early days of experimentation on the “dance farm” in Ascona: Open air, meadows surrounded by trees, a sunny beach and a small group of rather queer people. How young we were! We moved, we jumped, we ran, we improvised and outlined our first simple solos and group sketches. . . Laban, the painter and designer, showed us how to draw. In invoking our imagination by his own vivid fantasy, his instruction always turned into a lesson in improvisation, and as a final result into dance.41 The outbreak of the First World War brought these halcyon days to an end. Most students left immediately to return to their native countries; only Perrottet and Wigman remained behind. The Laban family, including Laban’s mother and sister, found themselves in difficulty. If they returned to Bratislava, Laban would be drafted and sent to the front. Switzerland offered a safe haven but no immediate means of making a living. With few options, the group decided to stay in the nearly deserted Monte Verita
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colony through winter. In this forced seclusion, Laban started to work intensely on his dance notation, along with his theory of movement harmony. Wigman recalled I became the first victim to help prove his theoretical findings. Each morning he knocked on the door of my room: “Here comes the choreographer!” Laban stood there carrying an old-fashioned valise stuffed full with drawings and notes… This was his great dream to be realized: an analysis of movement and the experiment of translating it into signs… He repeatedly designed, and rejected, always starting again from the beginning… It was also hard work for me! Every movement had to be done over and over again until it was controlled and could be analyzed, transposed, and transformed into an adequate symbol.42 This hard work, however, did not resolve the group’s financial difficulties. With the idea of opening a school, Laban secured premises in nearby Zurich and found a place to live for his mother, sister, wife, children, and Suzanne Perrottet, who had become his mistress. Thus began the period that Laban would later refer to as “the nightmare years.” 43 Haunted by debt, recurrent bouts of ill-health and the possibility of being forced to leave Switzerland, Laban struggled to attract students, to present new choreographic work, and to develop his ideas. Meanwhile, another new art movement was emerging in Zurich. Given a nonsensical moniker, “Dada” erupted at the Cabaret Voltaire in 1916, the joint creation of writers, performers, and artists Hugo Ball, Tristan Tzara, Richard Huelsenbeck, Emmy Hennings, Marcel Janco, and Hans Arp. On the narrow Spiegelgasse, down the street from where the Russian revolutionary Lenin was living, “there were art shows, instrumental performances, singing, dancing, theatre, recitals, poetry readings.” 44 All activities aimed “to stir the bourgeois out of their conventional contentment.”45 Laban found himself linked to the Dadaiststhrough his student, Sophie Tauber, a visual artist who had joined his group at Monte Verita in 1914. Tauber in turn was linked to the Dadaists through her personal and professional relationship with the Dada artist, Hans Arp. Through Tauber,
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other female students of the Laban school found themselves drawn into Dada events, performing at the Cabaret Voltaire and its successor, the Corray Gallery, and forming romantic liaisons with the movement’s male writers and artists. Laban’s attendance at Dada performances is clearly documented, although he does not appear to have contributed personally to the sometimes outrageous proceedings.46 Laban needed places for his dancers to perform, however, and the Dada soirees appearto have provided one such venue. During these nightmare years in Zurich, Laban maintained his contacts in nearby Ascona. These also led to choreographic ventures. One such opportunity came about through Laban’s membership in the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO), an irregular Freemason’s Lodge into which Laban had been initiated in 1914.47 In the summer of 1917, the OTO, under the guidance of Theodor Reuss, organized a Non-National Conference thatmilitaristic aimed “to mobilize kind of force” subversive to patriarchal and society.48 every Laban’s contribution to this event was an elaborate dance drama, “Song to the Sun.” Called an “open-air festival” by Laban, this site-specific outdoor work was performed in three sections, with the first section beginning at sunset, followed by a firelit circle dance at midnight, and concluding with a celebratory ritual of renewal at sunrise.49 Despite the fact that experimental works like “Song to the Sun” were beginning to find an audience, Laban struggled through 1918 and 1919 to carry on his work while providing for his family and his dancers. Eventually, the strain was too much. Laban became seriously ill during the influenza epidemic, and prolonged hospitalization hadAfter disastrous results. He could not keep hishis school together or pay his bills. years of domestic instability, his wife Maja finally had enough. When the war ended, she returned to Munich with their five children. Laban was left alone, depressed, and in debt. Help finally came through Jo Meisenbach, a student from the Munich days. Meisenbach remembered the drawings that Laban had used to decorate his movement studio and arranged for these to be displayed at a post-war exhibition in Nuremberg. Sale of these drawings raised “several thousand marks,” enough cash to clear some of Laban’s debts and get Laban back on his feet again.50
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This final public exhibition marks the end of Laban’s professional career as a visual artist. By October of 1919, Laban was able to leave Switzerland, carrying the manuscript of his first book on movement, Die Welt des Tänzers (The Dancer ’s World). The transition from visual art to dance, painfully navigated through the nightmare years of the war, was nearing completion. A Life for Dance (1920-1937)
The following two decades, from 1920-1937, were periods of frenetic activity as Laban pursued his vision of a meaningful role for dance in modern society. Like many artists, Laban was drawn to post-war Germany, where the toppling of the monarchy and the imposition of democracy held the promise of a new social order. In actuality, the years of the Weimar Republic (1919-1933) and the subsequent takeover of the German government by unrest the National Socialistsinstability. (1933-1945) were timesasofJohn enormous civil and economic Nevertheless, Willett observes, “ just for those few years the arts of the European avantgarde began to have what cultural pessimists . . . normally accuse them of lacking: an audience, a function, a unity, a vital core.” 51 Laban was not immune from the stresses of this period and repeatedly had to find ways to cope with bureaucratic, financial, and political pressures from both within and without the world of dance. Nevertheless, Germany proved to be an extremely fertile environment. Laban’s prodigious efforts, along with those of the eminently talented students he attracted, reshaped ideas about the nature of dance, fostering a revolution 52 in style thatexperimentation. extended well beyond German borders and the initial period of chaotic Laban’s arrival in Germany was not auspicious, however. Post-World War I division of the Austro-Hungarian empire had made Laban’s citizenship ambiguous. Whether he was officially viewed as “Hungarian” or “Czechoslovakian,” he was a man without financial resource, or a readily demonstrable profession. Despite these obstacles, Laban managed to find a publisher in Stuttgart by the name of Seifert, who not only accepted his book but also managed to secure permission for Laban to stay in Germany.53 Publication of the book in 1920 to critical acclaim,
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along with the successful performances of Laban’s protégé, Mary Wigman, established Laban as a leading figure in the emerging Ausdruckstanz (Expressionist dance) movement. With his new partner, a gifted dancer from the Zurich days named Dussia Bereska, Laban began to attract students, who formed the kernel of a “free dance group,” in which the “fundamental means of expression” were to come from the “rhythm of bodily movement and its spatial and dynamic components.”54 On the basis of his growing reputation, Laban secured a position with the Mannheim Opera as guest choreographer for the 1921-22 season. Attempts to integrate his free dance group with traditionally-trained opera ballet dancers proved difficult, and Laban seems to have realized that state institutions were not likely to be conducive to the development of the kind of new dance that he envisioned. With great resourcefulness, Laban found independent financial backing and established a base of operations in Hamburg central Laban school. in 1923, starting a chamber dance group and a This entrepreneurial venture set a patternthat allowed Laban to sustain his dance activities through most of the 1920s. The school, in essence, supported the dance company. The school not only provided training for current and future company members; it also attracted many amateurs. These amateurs also had the opportunity to dance together in a unique dance form known as Bewegungschor (movement choir). An extension of Laban’s open-air festivals in Ascona, the movement choir was intended to be a celebration of community in movement, analogous in function to traditional folk dance, but thoroughly contemporary in style and 55
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meaning. It proved to be extremely popular. Laban was indefatigable in promoting these various dance activities. In addition to choreographing, performing, and teaching, he continued to lecture, to work on his notation system, and to publish his own books along with many articles in periodicals of the day.57 His theoretical work and its practical application proceeded hand in hand. Meanwhile, gifted students scattered through Germany and started their own “Laban” schools, modern dance companies, and movement choirs. 58 In order to control this proliferation, Laban established an accreditation system. Maletic notes that increasingly Laban’s schools
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began to serve a more “integral and complex role in the dissemination of his theories.”59 Leaders of Laban schools had to have a Diploma, which required them to dance, to choreograph, to know choreutic and eukinetic theories, and to write notation. Because, at this time, “the notation was still in flux , and the choreutic and eukinetic theory developing,” school leaders were required to keep up-to-date on theoretical developments by attending vacation courses.60 Success seemed to follow success. With the publication of three books in 1926,61 Laban was invited to establish a Choreographic Institute for notation and dance research in Würzburg. In 1927, this research institute moved to Berlin, along with the central Laban school. Later this same year, Laban was instrumental in organizing a Dancers’ Congress and establishing a dancers’ union. In 1928, major breakthroughs in notation led to publication of Laban’s first book on the subject.62 The notation system was showcased the second Dancer’s Congress, Laban foundeditself Schrifttanz (Written at Dance), a scholarly journal for theand discussion of dance notation, with editor Alfred Schlee. In 1929, Laban reached the peak of his dance career. Following a major lecture tour in Germany, he designed and directed a massive festive procession for handwork and industrial unions in Vienna.63 Three German magazines, Singhör und Tanz, Der Tanz,and Schrifttanz, devoted issues to Laban. The year culminated in a celebration of Laban’s 50th birthday in which former students, now famous in their own right, paid homage to Laban. As Wigman put it, The dancers of today honor in the name “Laban” the beginning of a new epoch in the history of the European dance. Laban was the great inventor and stimulator. He gave us dancers a foundation. He taught the nature of tension, the harmonic relations of swing sequences, and the unity of body and space. Laban freed dance from its reliance on music and returned dance to its self-reliance as an absolute language of art.64 Events beyond the world of dance, however, cast a shadow over these celebrations. Worldwide depression, brought on by the 1929 crash of the American stock market, was eroding the amateur dance market that had
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supported modern dance development in Germany. In the early twenties, “there seemed an insatiable demand among amateurs for instruction in the new art of movement.”65 Studio after studio had been opened, many by former students of Wigman and Laban, until the market was glutted. As the economic crisis worsened, amateur enrollment declined, and schools became unreliable sources of support. Modern dancers began to reconsider the opera house as a potential patron and venue for their art. Laban detected this trend. In 1929, his Central School moved to Essen and merged with the Folkwangschule (Folkwang School) directed by former Laban student, Kurt Jooss. The Choreographic Institute also was moved to Essen in 1930, while Laban himself stayed behind, accepting a post as Director of Movement at the State Opera in Berlin and working on his autobiography.66 Although Laban appeared to have made an adroit and timely career move, he found himself facing thesaddled same challenges had met Mannheim a decade earlier. He was with ballethe dancers frominthe opera who were inimical to his choreographic style. Consequently, his creative work was lackluster, and although he held onto this job until early in 1934, his tenure was marked by controversy. 67 Political pressures on Laban increased when the National Socialists came to power in January 1933. Whatever his views, Laban was holding a state post and this meant that he was working for the Nazis.68 Although his contract with the Berlin Opera was not renewed, Laban’s international reputation made him potentially useful to the regime. In 1934 he was hired as Director of the newly-formed German Dance Bureau under the Ministry of Propaganda. One of his functions in this job was to plan dance festivities in conjunction with the 1936 Berlin Olympics, including an event with movement choirs drawn from around Germany. Had this event proceeded as planned, Laban’s movement choir creation would have been showcased before an international audience. But, after a “fatal dress rehearsal” attended by Nazi officials, Laban’s contribution was cancelled.69 By gradual increments he was relieved of his official duties, investigated, and denounced. Destitute and unable to work, Laban had to find some way to get out of Germany. An invitation to participate in an international dance congress in
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Paris provided an opportunity for escape in the summer of 1937. Laban left Germany with whatever he could carry. Paris proved to be only a temporary solution, however. To stay in France, Laban had to have some means of support. Alas, “no Frenchman wanted Germandance by 1937.”70 With winter coming, Laban checked into a cheap rooming house. Alone, depressed, and destitute, his life for dance, perhaps his life itself, seemed to be over. Beyond Dance (1938-1958)
Deliverance came early in 1938, when Laban was able to enter England on the “strength of a personal invitation from his ex-pupil Kurt Jooss.”71 Jooss himself had lost his state post at the Folkwangschule in Essen shortly after the Nazis assumed power in 1933. After being threatened in the press, Jooss, his family and company barely escaped imprisonment crossing into Elmhirst, the Netherlands and then going toofEngland, where Dorothybyand Leonard progressive patrons the Dartington Hall estate in southwestern England, provided living quarters and work space for the Jooss family and company. The Elmhirsts subsequently extended this generosity to Laban.72 Jooss and his associate Sigurd Leeder had established their own creative and pedagogical direction in the years since they had worked with Laban. They were not eager to resume old roles with the master, and Laban himself was in no shape to dance or teach. In any case, his interests shifted away from the practice of dance to broader philosophical concerns. Dorothy Elmhirst encouraged Laban to write about his philosophy of movement and provided financial support and studio in which to work. Meanwhile, Lisa Ullmann, a young teacher inathe JoossLeeder circle, attached herself to Laban, providing personal care and support. As he gradually recovered his vitality in this supportive environment, Laban began to reconstruct notes, drawings, and models, and to work on the beginnings of a theoretical treatise on spatial form and movement harmony.73 Practical concerns could not be kept at bay, however. With the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the international group of artists whom the Elmhirsts had attracted to their rural estate were forced
27
to scatter. As aliens, Laban and Ullmann had to be moved to an area that was not sensitive for British defense. They found a place to live in Wales, but restrictions were placed on their ability to work and to travel. Fortunately, the Elmhirsts continued to take a personal interest in the fate of Laban and Ullmann. Through the Dartington circle of connections in industry, art, and progressive education, opportunities presented themselves, and Laban and Ullmann pursued these with entrepreneurial vigor. Despite the obvious hardships of the war and post-war years, Laban was able to secure a livelihood and rebuild his reputation with Ullmann’s help. This reputation was not based on work in dance, however, but rather on the extension and application of Laban’s ideas in the areas of education, industry, theatre, and psychotherapy. Education. Ullmann had been working with Jooss in Essen and had come to England with the company in 1934, four years before Laban’s arrival. Beyond her had training work with the professional in the company, Ullmann an interest in amateur dance anddancers had done extension courses in the communities around Dartington, establishing contacts with local education authorities.74 She and Laban were able to make other connections with a handful of English educators, mostly situated in colleges of physical education, who had studied modern dance in central Europe with Wigman or other Laban students. Through these contacts Ullmann was able to secure teaching work during the war.75 Her classes, carefully planned with Laban, attracted interest in progressive education circles.76 When the war ended, Ullmann opened a private school in Manchester, calling it the Art of Movement Studio. Laban contributed to curriculumvalue and classes and supported Ullmann’s efforts to promote thethe educational of movement, publishing a book for parents and 77 teachers in 1948. Their joint efforts met with fruition in 1949 when the Ministry of Education recognized the Studio as a “training college for teachers of movement in schools.” 78 Since teacher trainees received government funding for tuition, this development provided a solid financial basis for the Art of Movement Studio, as well as a means of promoting Laban’s ideas in state education of children. Industry. Wartime employment for Laban also came about through his contacts at Dartington. F.C. Lawrence, a time and motion study expert
28
who had provided advice on efficiency for several rural enterprises at Dartington, was introduced to Laban in 1941. Lawrence was interested in the application of Laban’s notation system in the study of work movement.After collaborating in a trialproject, the two men joined forces. Laban and Ullmann moved to Manchester, where Lawrence’s firm was based. Soon Laban found himself observing manual labor in tire, candy, and textile factories, and giving advice on improving production and worker satisfaction. Laban and Lawrence rapidly moved on from blue collar work to a consideration of white collar labor in clerical and managerial jobs. 79 This empirical analysis of movement to exacting standards in turn stimulated Laban’s theorizing about kinetic energy in human movement. In 1947 he and Lawrence published Effort, a treatise based on their collaboration. Laban and Lawrence drew upon Art of Movement Studio students to help assignments. of these students, Lamb, 80 went with on toindustrial develop this line of workOne independently. LabanWarren and Lawrence continued to collaborate until Laban’s death in 1958, although Laban’s active involvement in consulting assignments seems to have decreased after the Art of Movement Studio moved to Surrey in southern England in 1953. Theatre. Laban had established some contacts in the theatre world through lectures given during the war. After the war, he collaborated on productions with Joan Littlewood, whose innovative Theatre Workshop was near the Studio in Manchester. He also worked closely with Esme Church, teaching for her at the Northern Theatre School and assisting with stage81 movement in productions until exposition the Studio relocated in 1953. This practical work led from to yet1946 another of his movement theory, The Mastery of Movement on the Stage, which was first published in 1950. Psychotherapy. Laban’s entrée into this discipline again came about through the Dartington circle. The Elmhirsts had invested in a private psychotherapy clinic, the Withymeade Centre, run by a husband and wife team of Jungian psychotherapists, Irene and Gilbert Champernowne. Laban had met Irene Champernowne by chance in 1949 when they were both booked to speak on art therapy for a gathering of occupational
29
therapists. “They recognized each other as kindred spirits,” and Laban was invited to visit Withymeade.82 Extended visits to the Centre “focused Laban’s mind on the relationship between his work and that of Jung.”83 Through Withymeade Laban also met William Carpenter, and the two embarked on a joint exploration of movement and psychology, cut short by Carpenter’s untimely death in 1954.84 Nevertheless, Laban pursued research into “personality, stress and intervention techniques” until his own death in 1958.85 Laba n as “Ar tist/Re sear cher ”
Maletic notes that “Laban was a man of great complexity. He made so many seminal contributions in so many diverse areas of dance that it is difficult to label him according to established categories.” 86 Laban’s career is indeed hard to categorize. Unlike most famous dancers, his reputation not rest ontoperformance skills or choreographic creations. Rather, hisdoes contributions dance and movement studies are ideational. As Bartenieff notes, “we have no major publication that summarizes his insights into one philosophical-theoretical statement, but we have three crystallizations of his ways of looking at, analyzing, describing and notating movement: (1) space harmony (choreutics), (2) Labanotation/ Kinetography, and (3) Effort/Effort notation.” These three systems make it possible “to study and work with some extremely elusive phenomena in tangible ways.”87 Such intellectual contributions have led Preston-Dunlop to characterize Laban as an “artist and researcher.”88 Laban the artist is a publicthe figure; Laban more elusive. The next chapter gives elusive figuretheof researcher Laban, the is artist/researcher, greater definition by examining how Laban linked the observation of movement to dance theory through the medium of art.
30 Notes
11. Laban, Life for Dance, 63. 12. Reynolds and McCormick, No Fixed Points, 84. 13. Information about Laban’s early years is particularly scarce. Miklos Vojtek’s paper, “Encouraging Impulses Given by the Native Town,” published in 2006 as part of a conference proceedings, provides some contextual information about Laban’s youthful contacts in Bratislava. Laban’s autobiography,A Life for Dance, was srcinally published in German in 1935 and subsequently translated into English and published by Lisa Ullmann in 1975. It is a fanciful work in which biographical details only emerge in relation to Laban’s choreographies. Laban does not chronicle his career by providing dates of events or names of family, friends, or colleagues. Ullmann’s annotations provide some of these details. John
14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.
Hodgson’s and Valerie Preston-Dunlop’s monograph, Laban, provides an introduction to his life1990 and work, along Rudolf with a chronology. Preston-Dunlop’s 1998 biography, Rudolf Laban, and Evelyn Doerr’s 2008 work, Rudolf Laban, flesh out this chronology. Laban, Life for Dance, 36. Martin Green’s portrait of Laban in Mountain of Truth provides insight into the social and economic circumstances of Laban’s family of srcin. Preston-Dunlop, Rudolf Laban, 4. Laban, Life for Dance, 166. Vojtek, “Encouraging Impulses.” Ibid. Life for Dance, 10. Laban, Ibid., 168. Ibid., 11. Ibid., 13. Ibid., 37. Ibid., 51. Ibid., 52. This was the painter Wassily Kandinsky’s observation, cited in Weiss, Kandinsky in Munich, 3.
31
18. Lynn Gamwell’s treatise, Exploring the Invisible, examines the interrelationships of art and science in the early decades of the 20th century. Studies of sensation and perception in particular influenced psychological and philosophical writings on art, which in turn generated innovative theory and practice in the artistic community. Primary source materials from German aesthetic discourse of this period can be found in Bloomfield, Forster, and Reese, Empathy, Form, and Space. 19. Hermann Obrist originally studied botany, but certain visionary experiences shifted his interest to art. His own work moved from stylization of natural forms, common in Art Nouveau, to genuinely abstract designs. His theoretical writings emphasized the dynamism inherent in natural form, and it is easy to see how Obrist’s ideas would have stimulated Laban’s nascent interests in movement and dance. Milner, Studios of Paris. Preston-Dunlop, Rudolf Laban, 10. Laban does not mention seeing Loie Fuller perform. However, he must have seen images of her work, for as Current and Current note, “Her impact on the Art Nouveau world was so profound that more art representing her was produced than for any other woman up to the present” (Loie Fuller, 343). This comment reiterates the intertwining of art and dance in fin-de-siècle Paris. 23. Borsi and Godoli, Paris 1900. 24. Laban’s autobiography describes the importance of his youthful 20. 21. 22.
apprenticeship tocopy an unnamed painter, but gives technical details of his training. A of a resumé‚ prepared forfew Laban by Suzanne Perrottet is found in the Laban Collection at Trinity Laban in London. It notes that Laban studied art in Munich in 1899 and at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris in 1900. But the people with whom Laban studied and the actual nature of his tuition are not specified. Another resumé‚ prepared by Laban himself around 1951 and located now in the Rudolf Laban Archive, National Resource Centre for Dance, only reports that he was a student of architecture in Paris in 1900. Under “Positions Held” in this same resumé‚ Laban
32
makes no reference to having worked professionally as an artist even in freelance capacity. If Laban did not obscure his background as a visual artist, he certainly chose not to highlight it. 25. A few o f Lab an’s early Art N ouveau styl e wor ks have been reproduced in Hodgson’s and Preston-Dunlop’s monograph,Rudolf Laban, and in Suzanne Perrottet’s memoir, Ein Bewegtes Leben. 26. Preston-Dunlop, Rudolf Laban, 17. 27. Ibid., 18. 28. Concerning the Spiritual in Art sets forth Kandinsky’s belief that “spiritual” art must be like music, non-representational yet expressive. He goes on to outline a theory for abstract art based upon color, form, and movement. Kandinsky’s ideas at the time were strongly influenced by Theosophy, a popular syncretic and esoteric philosophy that proclaimed the coming of a “new age” of 29. enlightenment. Klaus Lankheit, “History of the Almanac,” in Kandinsky and Marc, Der Blaue Reiter Almanac, 35. 30. Weiss, Kandinsky in Munich, 95. 31. Rud olf S tei ner w as th e hea d of t he G erm an s ect ion of th e Theosophical Society and often lectured in Munich. He used these dramas as didactic devices to convey precepts of his own esoteric philosophy, which subsequently became known as Anthroposophy. 32. Siegloch, How Eurythmy Began. Painting and theatre were not the only arts seeking new forms of symbolic and spiritual expression. Steiner developed gestural and locomotor designs to illuminate 33.
34. 35. 36.
human speech through movement. See also, Steiner,An Introduction to Eurythmy. Goldberg, Performance. Wedekind performed satirical ballads in Munich’s first cabaret, “The Eleven Executioners” —a popular gathering place for artists in the Schwabing district. His plays explored sexuality with a frankness found shocking in the early years of the 20th century. Laban, Life for Dance, 81. Ibid., 83. Ibid., 84.
33
37. Preston-Dunlop, Rudolf Laban, 81. 38. Green, Mountain of Truth, 119. 39. Spector, Rhythm and Life. Preston-Dunlop, Rudolf Laban, 22. Wigman, Mary Wigman Book, 33. Ibid., 38, 39. Preston-Dunlop, Rudolf Laban, 37. Fauchereau, Arp, 12. Comments by Dada poet Richard Huelsenbeck, cited in Soby, Arp, 17. 46. Bolliger, Magnaguagno, and Meyer (Dada in Zurich);Doerr (Rudolf Laban); Perrottet (Ein Bewegtes Leben); and Green (Mountain of Truth) all agree that Laban did not involve himself personally in the Dada happenings. Laban’s artistic sensibilities do not seem to 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45.
47.
48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57.
have extended to provocative avant-garde movements like Dada, Futurism, and the politicized Expressionism of the 1920s. Theosophy, Anthroposophy, Free Masonry, the OTO, and other esoteric groups were part of the Ascona landscape. Like many avantgarde artists of the fin-de-siècle period, Laban is known to have been attracted to these world-views. Green, Mountain of Truth, 104. Laban, Life for Dance, 158. Laban sees “Song of the Sun” as a precursor to his later work with amateur community dance. Doerr, Rudolf Laban, 80. Willett, Art and Politics in Weimar, 13. Partsch-Bergsohn, Modern Dance in Germany and United States. Preston-Dunlop, Rudolf Laban. Maletic, Body Space Expression, 6. Toepfer’s Empire of Ecstasy provides an insightful account of Laban’s dance work in the context of the broader “body culture” phenomenon of this period in Germany. In Rudolf Laban, Hodgson and Preston-Dunlop report that by 1924 twelve movement choirs had been established in Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Switzerland. A chronological listing of Laban’s articles in German and English
34
can be found in Preston-Dunlop, Rudolf Laban. 58. For more on prominent students and schools, see Hodgson and Preston-Dunlop, Rudolf Laban, and Maletic, Body Space Expression (Part One, notes 32, 34). 59. Maletic, Body Space Expression, 17. 60. Preston-Dunlop, Rudolf Laban, 111. 61. These books were Gymnastik und Tanz (Gymnastics and Dance), Des Kindes Gymnastik und Tanz (Children’s Gymnastics and Dance), and Choreographie (Choreography). In the first two books, Laban delineates the differing functions of gymnastics and dance. Choreographie introduces Laban’s ideas regarding spatial organization of dance and showcases his preliminary attempts to develop dance notation symbols. 62. Laban, Schrifttanz. 63. Accounts this massive event can Laban. be found in Laban, Life for Dance, andofPreston-Dunlop, Rudolf 64. Wigman, cited in Partsch-Bergsohn, Modern Dance, 44. 65. Manning, Ecstasy and the Demon, 134. 66. Laban, Ein Leben für den Tanz. 67. Laban’s difficulties with the ballet soloists is discussed in Karina and Kant, Hitler’s Dancers. The scapegoating of him by the press is explored in Doerr’s Rudolf Laban. 68. Writers are divided regarding Laban’s motives for collaborating with the National Socialists. See Karina and Kant,Hitler’s Dancers; Koegler, In the Shadow of the Swastika; Preston-Dunlop, Rudolf 69. 70. 71. 72.
Laban; and Doerr’sModern Rudolf Dance, Laban. 93. Partsch-Bergsohn, Preston-Dunlop, Rudolf Laban, 202. Ibid., 204. The well-to-do Elmhirsts were intellectually, socially, and artistically perspicacious. In 1925 they had purchased the dilapidated Dartington estate with the aim of rural revitalization. The estate had a progressive school as well as various agricultural and artistic enterprises. See Partsch-Bergsohn, Modern Dance, and Willson, In Just Order Move.
35
73. This treatise was meant to introduce Laban’s ideas to the English public, but the outbreak of the war interfered with publication. Laban left the manuscript with the Elmhirsts for safekeeping. They only returned the manuscript to Lisa Ullmann after Laban’s death. Ullmann edited and published the book in England in 1966, under the title Choreutics. The American edition, titled The Language of Movement, was published in 1974. This book remains an important exposition of Laban’s theory of spatial order and movement harmony. 74. Preston-Dunlop, Rudolf Laban. 75. Various groups – the English Folksong and Dance Society, Ling Physical Education Association, and Bedford Physical Training College – had shown interest in central European modern dance in the early 1930s. Bedford students Joan Goodrich and Diana Jordan
76.
77. 78. 79.
had studied Mary Wigman in Germany, to promote the with idea of dance in English education.and Thereturned arrival ofeager Laban and Ullmann was fortuitous, for they were able to support this growing interest. Willson, In Just Order Move, and Preston-Dunlop, Rudolf Laban, provide insight into how Laban’s dance ideas, many drawn from his community work with movement choirs, became adopted by progressive British educationists. Laban, Modern Educational Dance. Willson, In Just Order Move, 56. For a more complete history of the Laban/Lawrence collaboration,
see Moore, Movement and Making Decisions. 80. Lamb, Lamb and Turner, Management Posture and Gesture; Behaviour; Davies, Beyond Dance. 81. A brief account of these collaborations can be found in Hodgson, Mastering Movement. 82. Hodgson, Mastering Movement, 75. 83. Preston-Dunlop, Rudolf Laban, 255. 84. More on the Laban /Car penter c olla bora tion can be found in Hodgson, Mastering Movement, along with a summary of their unfinished manuscript on movement psychology.
36
85. Preston-Dunlop, Rudolf Laban, 255. 86. Maletic, Body Space Expression, 27. 87. Bartenieff, “Space, Effort and Brain,” 37. 88. Preston-Dunlop, Rudolf Laban, 232.
C HAPTER 2
Th e Ar tist/Resear cher at Wor k Tra cing a Res ear ch Car eer Three sources provide insight into how Laban developed his theories of dance and movement: his published writings, reports of colleagues, and unpublished archival materials. Nevertheless, many aspects of Laban’s working methodology are unspecified. Like many individuals who break new ground in a discipline, Laban was not formally trained in research protocols. While he claims his formulations are based upon empirical evidence, his published writings report the results of inquiries but not the methods through which his theories were formulated. These
must be reconstructed through a process of triangulation comparing published works with reports of close associates and archival papers. Of these sources, the latter provide the most unguarded glimpse of the workings of this artist and researcher and serve as the focus of discussion in this chapter. Lacunae in our understanding of Laban’s methods of inquiry are all the more remarkable in light of the fact that he established two research organizations over the course of his long and varied career. The first was the “Choreographic Institute” for dance research, launched in Würzburg in 1926. From its inception, the Institute had lofty aims: “to form a new dance aesthetic and theory of dance within a two-part rfamework of theory and practice.”1 Finding the necessary financial support to pursue these aims proved difficult, however. The Institute was moved to Berlin in 1927, and then to Essen in 1930, where it subsequently ceased operations, “a victim of politics.”2 During its brief existence, members of Laban’s staff were appointed to pursue research along three lines: Choreutics, Eukinetics, and Notation. In actuality, the Choreographic Institute seems to have served primarily as an umbrella for Laban’s variegated professional activities. It is difficult to document what was studied or to identify clear research outcomes beyond Laban’s own publications at the time, notably Choreographie (1926), Gymnastik und Tanz (1926),
38
Des Kindes Gymnastik und Tanz (1926), and Schrifttanz (1928). Laban had a second chance to establish a research center, however. In 1953, through generosity of the Elmhirst family, the Art of Movement
Studio was given premises in the countryside near Addlestone, Surrey, and the Laban Centre was set up as the affiliated research branch of the Studio. 3 Laban and Ullmann relocated, with Ullmann continuing to oversee the Studio. Laban increasingly devoted his final years to writing 4 and research, collaborating with various Studio staff members. Nevertheless, when Laban died in 1958, “there were no outstanding thinkers waiting to step into Laban’s shoes, and no university or learned body, or enlightened corporation, poised to invest heavily in treading all or even some of the new paths he had already laid down.” 5 Laban only managed to publish one book after this research center was established in 1953. This was a short treatise, Principles of Dance and Movement Notation (1958), undertaken to re-establish his copyright on the notation symbols. However, Laban left all his personal papers — a huge collection of writings and drawings — to Lisa Ullmann. This was perhaps not the happiest choice of heir, for as Willson critically reports, Ullmann “showed little interest in Laban’s research during his last years at Addlestone; nor does a reading of the surviving archives reveal any sense of her having shown, in the same years, much drive for or grasp of the possibilities of an amalgamation of all Laban-related enterprises.”6 Ullmann did, however, “hold on grimly to every chance of controlling activities associated with Laban work.”7 As a consequence, the fruits of Laban’s final years of writing and research were not available for scholarly
scrutiny untilRudolf after Ullmann’s deathto in the 1985, when trustees ofCentre her estate donated the Laban Archive National Resource for Dance (NRCD) at the University of Surrey. By the time the NRCD opened in 1989, more than 30 years had elapsed since Laban’s death. It is somewhat difficult after three decades to pick up the strands of inquiry that Laban was pursuing. Nevertheless, these archival traces provide valuable insight into Laban’s working methods when considered in relation to his published work and accounts of his close associates.
39
Reconstr ucting a Resear ch M ethodol ogy Published works, unpublished personal papers, and the reports of colleagues provide differing views of Laban, the artist/researcher. One
point of agreement, however, is that he had a keen eye for movement. In the early years of his visual art career, Laban claims to have made a point of seeking out varied settings to observe movement, so as to acquaint 8 himself “with hitherto unknown social strata and conditions.” This seems to have been a kind of rite of passage that he undertook to redress an idealistic naivety, but people-watching developed into a genuine interest and talent.9 In later years, Laban’s penetrating powers of observation became legendary among his students and colleagues, for “he saw people with a startling clarity.”10 He sometimes expressed his perceptions in quickly drawn but not always flattering caricatures: “Like a glaring flashlight they pointed out your own weak spots to you, and this in a more direct and convincing way than any other criticism could have done.”11 Nevertheless, Laban’s perceptiveness was more often used benignly, to draw out the best in his students, for, according to Wethered, “he had 12 an uncanny faculty of knowing how to handle people.” Wigman attributed this uncanny faculty to Laban’s penetrating grasp of movement: “with a flicker of an eye he seemed to take in every funny detail of a movement, a picture, a person or a given situation.”13 Hutchinson-Guest described the scope of Laban’s movement observation skills in the following way: “Laban could see the detailed and also the thing as a whole. And he was interested in both, and particularly in relationships, 14
howThese one aspect affected or modified another.” accounts indicate that Laban studied movement as a naturalist would. His vocation, of course, provided ample opportunity to observe moving people in situ — in classes, rehearsals, theatres, factories, clinics, and other venues. These wide-ranging observations of movement behavior, amassed over a lifetime, must have provided the empirical basis for Laban’s broad theoretical concepts. This point is underscored by Ullmann’s assertion that Laban’s formulations of the inherent laws of natural movement “gradually came to light in the author’s [Laban’s] professional activity as a dancer and dance-teacher.”15
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If Ullmann’s remarks are correct, then Laban’s research method can be construed as a naturalistic inquiry that generated “grounded theory.” As Glaser and Strauss describe, this type of research process srcinated in sociology, where the study of human behavior in complex social settings does not lend itself to the experimental method. Experimental research starts with the generation of a hypothesis that is based on a priori assumptions. This hypothesis is subsequently tested under controlled conditions to prove or disprove thetheory. In contrast, naturalistic research does not begin with the formulation of a hypothesis. It begins with collecting data through observation in the field. Preliminary explanations are formulated through the analysis of the data. Then new observations are collected, and hypotheses revised accordingly. There is a doubling back and forth between observing and theorizing in which the processes of induction, deduction, and verification intermingle in a non-linear way. As Glaser and Strauss delineate, “generating a theory from data means that most hypotheses and concepts not only come from the data, but are systematically worked out in relation to the data during the course of the research.” 16 The grounded theory is completed only when theoretical sampling of field data no longer reveals anomalies that require explanatory adjustments. 17 Laban is known to have made constant adjustments in his theoretical formulations. Colleagues acknowledge that he was not a man who “was satisfied with the extent of his knowledge.”18 Gleisner observes that Laban “never rested, he always moved… on and on.”19 Jooss concurs, explaining that “it was characteristic of Laban’s teachings never to give concrete 20
answers.” Thornton has hypothesized that Laban was reluctant to give a concrete answer because such definition might result in a restriction “instead of a constant expansion of his ideas.”21 Preston-Dunlop reiterates this observation, stating that Laban preferred to leave “the foundations of his work” in a “state of liquidity.” 22 Based on her study of Laban’s published works in German and English, Maletic has mapped the development of various aspects of Laban theory chronologically. 23 This study documents periodic changes in terminology and concept. These changes correspond withshifts in Laban’s
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sphere of activities, and indicate that he engaged in theoretical sampling of movement behavior at different times and in different settings. This chronology supports the perception of close associates — Laban never really considered his theoretical research closed, but continued to modify concepts based on ongoing observations. These conceptual modifications are consistent with procedures used to generate grounded theory. However, Laban was ahead of his time, and in many instances, ahead of his associates.24 As Thornton notes, “by never giving a definite solution, Laban left the door open for research, but he also left it open for confusion.”25 Possessed by a creative energy, he seemed to be always “rushing ahead with ideas before executing them.” 26 His theoretical shifts and conceptual modifications gave colleagues the impression that Laban “was against any system in his work.”27 There is such agreement among his close associates on this point that one must accept this reluctance to systematize as a salient characteristic of Laban’s research methods. However, Laban’s personal papers from the final two decades of his career (the ones bequeathed to Lisa Ullmann and now held by the National Resource Center for Dance) present a different picture. It is true that this is a vast and disorderly collection of often fragmentary writings accompanied by drawings and rough sketches. Many piecesin the Archive are undated, making it difficult to ascertain chronological lines of inquiry and development. Nevertheless, conceptual themes can be discerned in Laban’s repeated explorations of particular topics. The drawings that accompany theoretical writings shed further light on his methods of generating movement behavior. visual models demonstratemodels a muchof more consistent approachThese to theoretical development than most colleagues credit Laban with employing. In this context Littlewood’s observations appear perspicacious. She notes that while Laban “did not want his work intellectualized,” paradoxically “he spent his life on system research.”28 The theoretical work that Laban was unable to publish in his lifetime bears witness to this systematic research. And nowhere is this more obvious than in Laban’s artwork.
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Laba n’s Ar twor k Laban’s involvement in the visual arts during the first two decades of the 20th century positions him in a network of modernizations, ranging
from the Art Nouveau and early Expressionist movements to the Zurich Dadaists’ experiments in performance art. Laban himself downplayed this aspect of his career. While, as Hodgson and Preston-Dunlop point out, “the only formal professional training Laban ever had was in art,” 29 actual details of this training remain vague. Only a fraction of Laban’s drawings have been published. A sample of his early work appears in Suzanne Perrottet’s memoir and in the catalogue from an exhibition of 30 early modern art mounted in Frankfurt in 1995. Laban did the illustrations for his autobiography, and other drawings from the early and middle decades of Laban’s career have been published in biographies by Hodgson and Preston-Dunlop. The artwork used in this study is drawn from the Rudolf Laban Archive (National Resource Centre for Dance, University of Surrey) and dates from the final two decades of Laban’s career. A small sample of these works has been published posthumously in various sources.31 These published examples represent only a fraction of the works held in this Archive. The author’s research has surveyed over 1200 drawings and photographs of models held as a special category of material. Under other categorical headings in the Archive there are literally hundreds more drawings and sketches. Taken altogether, these materials not only represent the breadth of Laban’s graphic work, they also demonstrate how Laban systematically drew upon his first career in visual art to develop theoretical models of human While not equally represented, themovement. following types of works are found among Laban’s personal papers: figure drawings, geometrical sketches, drawings that combine human and geometrical forms, photos of threedimensional constructions and models, and miscellaneous works such as architectural sketches, landscapes, portraits, and caricatures. Descriptions and samples of these types of work follow. Figure Drawings . As a youth, Laban excelled in figure drawing and received early recognition for his talent within his family circle. This talent was cultivated through his formal art training. Hodgson and Preston-
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Dunlop affirm that “Laban studied human muscle, sinew and bone structure, and began to put together a ‘notebook of anatomical sketches,’ many in colour, expressing a detailed observation and understanding.” 32 An example of Laban’s basic grasp of artist’s anatomy can be seen in Figure 2-1, which is a study of torso flexion and extension.
Figure 2-1. Anatomical study. Rudolf Laban Archive L/C/3/14 ©NRCD.
The majority of Laban’s drawings of the human figure are not as anatomically detailed as in this example. Rather, a few simple lines are used to capture the human form in motion. Motion, rather than anatomy, is accentuated. To portray movement in his figure drawings, Laban utilized a variety of approaches, often working and reworking a pose many times. materials in the Rudolf Laban Archive, there is one pose that hasAmong been rendered eighteen times, with each black and white version handled differently. Two examples are shown here. In Figure 2-2, the dancer is rendered realistically. The form is outlined in pencil and contouring shadows are created by short, straight, fine lines. In Figure 2-3, the same pose is portrayed with a heavy, continuously curved outline. The pattern of light and dark on the body is reversed from the pattern in the previous example. In this sketch there are flat areas of heavy shadow, and the whole figure is much more stylized and abstract. These two examples show how Laban played with pencil markings, varying among
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Figure 2-2. Figure study. Rudolf Laban Archive L/C/3/20 ©NRCD.
Figure 2-3. Figure study variation. Rudolf Laban Archive L/C/3/18 ©NRCD.
continuous, short, curved, angular, fine, or heavy strokes and experimenting with the patterns of light and shadow. This play of light and shade, which testifies to Laban’s familiarity with techniques used in Art Nouveau design, reverses figure and ground relationships. This may have been a graphic technique Laban employed to help himself perceive different relationships between the forms of moving figures and the form of space through which the bodies are moving. Despite stylized rendering, Laban does not distort the proportion of the body itself. In general, his figure drawings faithfully adhere to a classical canon of human proportion and, in this sense, his figural representation remains realistically anthropometric. Geometrical Form s. These works demonstrate Laban’s grasp of solid geometry, his ability to construct and de-construct skeletal and solid shapes, and his capacity to visualize movement unfolding within a threedimensional geometrical grid. There are literally hundreds of these types of drawings in the Rudolf Laban Archive. Most are done in pencil, pen, or colored pencil. In the last instance, a simple palette is used and the choice of color seems to serve less as an aesthetic device and more as a code for identifying or highlighting certain parts of the forms.
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The geometrical drawings primarily represent the five regular Platonic solids – tetrahedron, octahedron, cube, icosahedron, and dodecahedron. For instance, in Figure 2-4 two regular polyhedra are depicted. The left form is an icosahedron (some of the edges of faces are missing) and the right form is an octahedron. Drawings of stellated and truncated solids are also found, along with sketches of semi-regular solids such as the cuboctahedron. Sometimes the geometrical forms are set squarely with reference to the picture frame; in other instances the forms are tilted. For example, in the colored pencil sketch shown in Plate A (center section), an octahedron is rotated towards and away from the viewer around its horizontal axis, while being tilted slightly on its vertical axis. Five different views of the octahedron are presented, with each view overlapping the others. These various representations indicate Laban’s grasp of perspective. His fine handling of stereographic technique can literally make the octahedron seem to vibrate and dance.
Figure 2-4. Sketches of icosahedron and octahedron. Rudolf Laban Archive L/C/2/119 ©NRCD.
In other sketches Laban elaborates upon polyhedral forms by highlighting certain edges to create circuits that are three-dimensionally symmetrical. The spatial complexity of the circuit varies, depending upon the polyhedron chosen and the number of links or edges utilized in the circuit. For example, Figure 2-5 shows a fairly complex circuit traversing edges of a truncated octahedron. This semi-regular solid has eight
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Figure 2-5. Symmetrical tracing of edges of truncated octahedron. Rudolf Laban Archive L/C/2/128 ©NRCD.
hexagonal and six square sides. The circuit appears to snake its way around edges of six of the eight hexagonal faces, returning to its point offour srcin. In many drawings Laban leaves out the polyhedron itself and simply represents the circuit, as in Plate B. Here circuits of increasing circumference are angularly traced along the edges ofa small icosahedron nested within a dodecahedron which is nested in turn within a large icosahedron. The polyhedral forms themselves are invisible. Such drawings become relatively abstract. A mathematician would recognize what Laban is doing, however. Each of the inner and outer brown shapes is a Hamiltonian circuit, a pathway that visits each of the twelve corners of the icosahedron once and ends at the same corner where it began. Laban drew these types of circuits over and over again. These sketches appear merely to depict a linear shape situated in a particular geometrical grid. For Laban, however, these designs capture a “trace-form” or a series of circular movements that traverse the space around the dancer. Each circuit has been carefully constructed to be symmetrical in three dimensions. In this sense, these drawings are explorations of choreutic theory, Laban’s systematic examination of therelationship between bodily range of motion and the types of designs a dancer can trace in the surrounding space. Laban used a similar technique to visualize sequences of kinetic
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energy change, which are articulated in his eukinetic theories. These drawings represent formal relationships rather than actual movements in space. An example of this type of drawing is shown in Figure 2-6.
Figure 2-6. Formal diagram of effort pattern. Rudolf Laban Archive L/E/53/2 ©NRCD.
Most of Laban’s sketches explore pattern through symmetry operations. However, in the series of drawings shown in Plate C, Laban manipulates an angular pentagon and flexible heptagon, bending and linking them three-dimensionally in various configurations. These drawings suggest that Laban was experimenting with topological manipulations of form, in which a shape is imagined as being rubbery and capable of being bent, stretched, and twisted. Another example of this type of topological transformation can be seen in Figure 2-7, in which an octahedron is stretched and twisted to become more icosahedral in
Figure 2-7. Octahedron being stretched. Rudolf Laban Archive L/E/17/16 ©NRCD.
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shape. Other shapes of interest to topologists, such as lemniscates, knots, and Klein bottles, are also found among Laban’s sketches. For example, in Figure 2-8 Laban has situated a twisted band in a hypercube, a fourdimensional cube. Laban began to explore complex geometrical models such as these in the last decades of his career.
Figure 2-8. Twisted band in hypercube. Rudolf Laban Archive L/E/12/26 ©NRCD.
Combinations of Geometrical and Human Figures . Laban’s geometrical drawings would stand as anomaly were it not for the combination drawings in which abstract and human forms are integrated. Here Laban’s concern with geometrical space and the moving human figure come together. The set of drawings in Figures 2-9 and 2-10 reveal how Laban linked these two subjects. In Figure 2-9 one finds various manipulations in the form of five-sided polygons. In Figure 2-10 Laban
has sketched movement to fit within these various polygonal shapes. Plate D shows how theseposes geometrical forms have been used to generate the figural shapes. A similar approach can be discerned in Plate E. Here a more finished figure has been posed so as to fit within a tetrahedral shape. The dancer’s hands and feet mark the four corners of this simple Platonic solid (note — two edges of the form are not drawn in). In other instances, Laban appears to start with the movement and derive the geometrical form from the figural constellation, as in Plate F. Each figure depicts a momentary position in a movement sequence that progresses from crouching to arching, twisting, and advancing. Laban
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Figure 2-9. Variations on a pentagonal shape. Rudolf Laban Archive L/C/1/87 ©NRCD.
Figure 2-10. Poses designed to fit within pentagonal shapes. Rudolf Laban ArchiveL/C/1/88 ©NRCD.
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has used the dancers’ heads, extended arms, and feet to generate a complex cluster of stellated shapes. It is as if the dancers’ poses represented subsequent stages in the growth of a cluster of crystals. In the pencil drawing shown in Figure 2-11, three figures pose asymmetrically within a skeletal icosahedron. Only certain edges of the icosahedron are represented by the twelve-sided symmetrical circuit that surrounds the dancing trio. A number of similar compositions exist in which parallel segments in the snake-like line that surrounds the movers create a pattern of reflective symmetry, contrasting the dancers’ poses and revealing Laban’s deep fascination with symmetry and asymmetry.
Figure 2-11. Group of dancers surrounded by icosahedral shape. Rudolf Laban Archive L/C/6/100 ©NRCD.
In these so-called “combination” drawings Laban brings the full range of technical skills as an into play, demonstrating his appears command of his anatomy, proportion, andartist rendering in perspective. Laban to have developed an interest in this subject matter early in his career. Works dating from around 1912-1918, held by the Kunsthaus Zurich in Switzerland, bear a striking similarity to works created after 1938, such as the figures shown in this section. This visual evidence suggests that Laban pursued certain themes in his movement studies using consistent methods across his research career. Th ree-dimen sional Constructions. With the exception of a very few surviving models, this category of work exists only in photographic form,
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due to the fact that Laban worked with simple, rather fragile materials such as string, sticks, wood, cardboard, and clay. These constructions were designed as models, typically of three-dimensional geometrical forms. In some cases, these are simply mathematical shapes: solid forms, such as tetrahedra and octahedra; skeletal shapes, such as icosahedra in which the solid sides are removed, with only the edges left as the visible “bones” of the form; truncated forms such as tetrahedra whose corners have been cut off to create extra sides; and stellated forms in which a star-like point has been added to each side of a simpler shape. Because Laban utilized solid geometry in his notation system to create a coordinate system for mapping movement, these types of models presumably were built to assist with the development of the notation. In addition to these rather straight-forward models, Laban also constructed more complex shapes such as cubes with collapsed sides or icosahedral shells that have been cut apart and twisted. The purpose of these constructions is more obscure, although Laban appears to be exploring the topological deformation of shape, a theme that becomes salient in his later theoretical study. For example, the dynamic deconstruction of regular polyhedra and their transformation into new forms is a theme that also appears in some of Laban’s geometrical drawings, as in the figure of an octahedron coming apart to become an icosahedron, shown earlier in Figure 2-7. Laban also created dynamic constructions that cantilever obliquely in space. These models reveal inner axial lines of support that are used to stablilize a seemingly unstable structure through countertension, countertension being another important concept in his theoretical exploration of balance in dance. In Plate G Laban has constructed a lyrelike structure in which to display one of his so-called movement “scales.” The zigzagging shape suspended from the strings of the lyre is a carefully designed trace-form similar in pattern to the Hamiltonian circuits depicted in brown pencil in Plate B. Finally, Laban explored various curvilinear forms such as knots, twisted bands, and lemniscates in sculpture as well as drawings. An example of this type of construction is shown in Plate H. Here a thick clay band loops its way around four diagonal axes that jut downward, to
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support, and outward, to project. The photographic record of Laban’s sculptural works testifies not only to his ability to generate and transform shapes in space, but also to his proficiency in solid geometry. For example, in building a skeletal icosahedron, the relationship of edges and internal rays must be in the correct proportional ratio or the resulting polyhedron will not be regular; that is, it will not have sides that are all the same regular shape and corners that are equidistant and congruent. Building these models is one way to understand the laws that govern their beautiful symmetries. The three dimensional constructions that Laban created may also have served as visual and tactile devices to help him understand form, space, and movement. Building physical models of geometrical forms provides a very practical knowledge of their characteristics. For example, when these three-dimensional geometrical forms are constructed from paper or cardboard, as Laban’s were, they typically start as a twodimensional grid. Polygonal faces that will be adjacent in the threedimensional form must either be left joined or cut apart if the solid is to lie flat on the sheet of cardboard from which it is being made. To construct the solid form, the grid is cut out and the joined faces are folded to create edges. Then the faces that have been cut apart are glued together. By these means, a flat sheet of paper can be made to encompass space, creating a three-dimensional shape. Various motions are inherent in this transformation: the flat grid encapsulates the movements of separating, spreading, and exposing. Construction of the solid form utilizes the opposite actions of joining, closing, and enfolding space. Thus,in an artist’s hands, geometrical concepts become tactile experiences, and shapes areabstract not merely static entities but the culmination of carefully selected actions that impart form to the chosen medium. Architectural Sketches. A small number of architectural designs are found in the Rudolf Laban Archive. Published and unpublished designs suggest that Laban favored polygonal structures with dome-like roofs. Many of these feature a crystalline scaffolding that resembles the geodesic structures of Buckminster Fuller.33 Figure 2-12 is typical. The function of these structures is not obvious. Laban did, however, have an interest in designing theatres. In particular, he wanted to create an appropriate
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space for viewing dance, one that would allow the choreography to be seen from all sides rather than only from the front. A few surviving designs show beehive-like structures that are faintly reminiscent of Greek 34
amphitheatres. In contrast to Laban’s geometrical designs, the curved lines of these structures seem to draw inspiration from the biomorphic forms used in Art Nouveau architecture.
Figure 2-12. Architectural sketches. Rudolf Laban Archive L/C/1/2 ©NRCD.
Landscapes. Most of the landscapes found in the Rudolf Laban Archive are executed in color and appear to have been done in the 1940s and 1950s, when Laban was on holiday. The seascape shown in Plate I is an example of this type of work. Familiar aspects of Laban’s style can be detected here, notably the way the pencil strokes are used rhythmically to create forms and light and dark masses. The landscapes are of interest because of what they reveal about Laban as a colorist. Many of Laban’s sketches are black and white. Work in color is often done with colored pencil. Unlike working with paint, colored pencil offers limited opportunity to mix color or layer hue on top
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of hue. Thus in many of Laban’s line drawings, a very simple palette is used. The majority of Laban’s landscapes, however, combine colored pencil and what appears to be colored crayon or perhaps oil pastel. The colors are layered over one another and sometimes worked, possibly with water or solvent. This technique allowed Laban to create unique colors. At the same time, he could work with the white of the paper, often leaving it or merely partially coloring over it, much as a watercolorist would. This particular use of media and technique is repeated over and over again in the landscapes. Perhaps Laban could afford the slightly more leisurely technique when on holiday. At any rate, he seldom used this approach in his other types of work, except for portraits. Portraits. Although few portraits exist, those that have survived are usually color works, executed in either oil paint or crayon, as in Plate J. Certain common stylistic features may be detected. The canvas focuses attention on the head, as little of the rest of the body is visible save a portion of the shoulders. The background is either dark or very sketchily drawn. The eyes, whether open or closed, are given compositional importance, as are the contours of the face and line of the chin. Laban achieves a dramatic quality in these portraits by understating the context and allowing the character of the subjects to stand out. Caricatures. As noted earlier, Laban had a gift for movement observation and utilized this in the caricatures he drew. Most of this work has been dispersed, because “this was thekind of drawing he [Laban] made for friends” or sold to magazines in the early years of his career. 35 A surviving example is in Figure 2-13. As is often the case with caricature, the sketch appears to have done using only abasic pencil. There is an economy in the use been of line andquickly, shading. Laban’s grasp of human anatomy, clearly demonstrated in his figure drawings, allows his cartoon sketches to exaggerate body parts with a swift sureness and a humorous touch. In addition to the types of work described above, there are pastels and monoprints among Laban’s output. Pastel was utilized primarily in landscape work and monoprint for figural work. Only a few samples of such works remain.
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Figure 2-13. Caricature. Rudolf Laban Archive L/C/9/114 ©NRCD.
Mak ing Art and Theor izing Dance Laban’s choice of media is of interest. He worked primarily in pen and pencil. In the latter case, he used either black or colored pencil, with occasional use of some sort of colored crayon. One finds few works in other media. There are only a few oil paintings, pastels, and prints. Threedimensional work is also made with simple materials — string, wood, cardboard, or clay. Laban seemingly did not work in enduring materials like stone or bronze. Thus, there is a certain economy in the materials Laban chose to work with — an economy of time as well as cost. Painting, particularly with oils, requires an extended duration. Colors must be applied and then allowed to dry before more paint can be applied. An oil painting cannot be completed in one sitting. Sketching in pencil, pen, or crayon has much more immediacy. Work can be completed rapidly, with readily available materials and little special paraphernalia. Moreover, the materials Laban chose to work with were relatively inexpensive. In many cases he did not even bother to sketch on artist’s paper, but used whatever was at hand.
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Among the papers from the final two decades of his career, there is even a small sketch on a paper napkin. Economy of time and cost in relation to the materials Laban worked with correlates with what is known about the intended audience for his work. Laban’s so-called modern paintings were packed away around 1913 when Laban gave up visual art. In 1919 these artworks were retrieved and exhibited as a part of a group show in Nuremburg. They proved to be “colourful working designs of his [Laban’s] thoughts on the relationships of bodies and space.”36 The aim of Laban’s participation in this exhibition was financial; he needed funds. Apparently the designs proved marketable even though “they were never made with the intention to sell as art works.”37 Much of the same is true of the hundreds of drawings done after 1938 and now housed in the Rudolf Laban Archive. There is no record that Laban produced these works for sale or exhibition. Moreover, Ullmann has indicated that none was intended for publication. Seemingly Laban did the work for personal pleasure or “to re-create some of his lost study notes and to assemble the necessary material for the continuation of his inquiry into the phenomenon of movement.”38 Ullmann’s comments draw a definite link between Laban’s practice of visual art and his study of movement. Moreover, her remarks suggest that the practice of visual art was for Laban both an act of remembrance as well as a means of extending his theoretical work. Hodgson and Preston-Dunlop concur. They observe that the practice of art proved to be “only a further means of developing skills he [Laban] would later use in a related field.”39 Once Laban abandoned visual art as a career, drawing became tool with whichthe to explore can thought as a moving apicture in which body is dance. viewedDance against thebecanvas ofof space itself. Skills and techniques drawn from academic training and exposure to modern styles proved relevant to Laban in exploring themes with which he was preoccupied such as the geometry of the moving body in relation to the geometry of space, time, and energy. The hundreds of drawings of polyhedra also echo Laban’s preoccupation with developing three-dimensional forms for theorizing dance and movement. This work reflects Laban’s ability to represent three-dimensional shapes in a two-dimensional sketch, revealing also
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his understanding of perspective and proportion. But the really intere sting feature of Laban’s geometrical drawings surpasses the fact that he could represent such forms realistically — Laban not only could draw these forms accurately in perspective, he also could manipulate the forms. He could make them stand on an edge, tilt, rotate towards and away from the viewer, start to come apart in space, and metamorphose into other forms. These manipulations could be represented without distorting the forms graphically. Thus Laban was capable not only of capturing polyhedral forms but also of transforming them graphically; indeed, transformation appears to be a theme in many sketches. The geometrical drawings also reveal Laban’s interest in pattern and symmetry. Here Laban shows himself not only as an artist but also as something of an amateur mathematician. One way to approach what Laban appears to be doing in drawing after drawing is by analogy. The Islamic artists who created richly textured tile mosaics displayed a very practical grasp of the mathematics of two-dimensional space, for “there are only 40 certain kinds of symmetries which our space can support.” The symmetrical circuits that Laban drew explore similar patterns in threedimensions rather than two. Just as the Islamic artist used a flat network of polygons to generate a pattern, so Laban used a three-dimensional network of polygons (the faces of various polyhedra) to generate threedimensional patterns. These abstract symmetries are then correlated with the actual forms created by moving bodies. The drawings of human figures posed within polyhedral structures or circuits reveal Laban’s graphic explorations of the interface between movement form and spatial form, an interface that basis ofin his choreutic theory.his Hismodeling graphic understanding ofcomprises symmetry the operations design alsoinforms of eukinetic theory. Ultimately symmetry in the broadest sense became a powerful conceptual tool for Laban’s explorations of movement harmony. Laban’s drawings, then, can be seen as an important tool in his theoretical study of dance and movement. Since these artworks were not produced for the public, they have largely escaped scrutiny and, consequently, their seminal role in the development ofLaban’s movement theory has been overlooked. Even when examined, Laban’s artworks are elusive. The more abstract geometrical pieces are obscure. The more
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representational pieces suggest that Laban was not a great or innovative artist, but merely a competent one. Such works are easy to dismiss. But competence in the representation of form, both human and geometric, rests upon visual traditions and artistic theories. It will be shown in the following chapter that these traditions and theories, coupled with the innovations in visual representation that occurred at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, provided the additional conceptual tools that Laban utilized to develop his notation system, his taxonomy of human movement, and his theory of movement harmony.
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Notes 11. Maletic, Body Space Expression, 18. 12. Partsch-Bergsohn, Modern Dance, 29.
13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.
10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.
Willson, In Just Order Move. Hodgson and Preston-Dunlop, Rudolf Laban. Willson, In Just Order Move, 94. Ibid., 1 18. Ibid., 119. Laban, Life for Dance, 40. According to Diana Jordan, “Laban’s real interest was people. He once said, ‘to look at movement is to study people.’” Cited in Thornton, Movement Perspective, 124. Thornton, Movement Perspective,12. Wigman, Mary Wigman Book, 33. Wethered, cited in Thornton, Movement Perspective, 14. Wigman, cited in Thornton, Movement Perspective , 17. Hutchinson-Guest, cited in Thornton, Movement Perspective, 13. Laban, Language of Movement, 108n. Glaser and Strauss, Discovery of Grounded Theory, 6. For more on this research methodology, see Denzin, 1978; and A. Strauss, 1987. Thornton, Movement Perspective, 18. Gleisner, cited in Thornton, Movement Perspective, 18. Jooss, cited in Thornton, Movement Perspective , 19. Thornton, Movement Perspective, 19 Preston-Dunlop, cited in Thornton, Movement Perspective, 132. Maletic, Body Space Expression. Naturalistic and qualitative methods of research, used to generate grounded theory, were not developed by social scientists until the 1960s. These procedures have only gradually been accepted by the research community as appropriate modes of inquiry . While Laban’s research methods must be viewed as informal, he nevertheless seems to have been a pioneer in applying naturalistic methodology to the study of human movement behavior.
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25. 26. 27.
Thornton, Movement Perspective, 19. Maletic, Body Space Expression, 28. Lamb, cited in Thornton, Movement Perspective, 19.
28. 29. 30.
Littlewood, cited in Willson, In Just Order Move, 40. Hodgson and Preston-Dunlop, Rudolf Laban, 158. Perrottet, Ein Bewegtes Leben; Henderson and Loers, Okkultismus und Avantgarde. A Vision of Dynamic Space consists of writings and drawings from the Rudolf Laban Archive that were selected by Lisa Ullmann and published by Falmer Press in 1984, shortly before Ullmann’s death. This work was republished in a French translation by SchwartzRemy as Espace Dynamique. This 2003 work also included other previously unpublished selections from the Rudolf Laban Archive, as well as chapters from Choreutics.
31.
32. 33.
35. 36.
Hodgson and Preston-Dunlop, Rudolf Laban, 161. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) was an American architect whose geometrical designs aimed to reshape the urban environment. While Fuller’s “geodesic domes” are well known today, it is doubtful that Laban would have been familiar with such work. Since Fuller only became known internationally in the 1960s, Laban’s geometrical designs probably represent srcinal explorations of a similar theme. Designs for dance theatres appear in Laban, Life for Dance, and Hodgson and Preston-Dunlop, Rudolf Laban. Hodgson and Preston-Dunlop, Rudolf Laban, 169. Preston-Dunlop, Rudolf Laban, 24.
37. 38. 39. 40.
Ibid., 54. Vision of Dynamic Space, 79. Laban, Hodgson and Preston-Dunlop, Rudolf Laban, 158. Bronowski, Ascent of Man, 174.
34.
C HAPTER 3
Visua l Repr esentat ion of Movement : Tr ad ition an d Inn ovat ion Representing Movement The challenge of movement representation is shared by visual artists and dancers, albeit in differing ways. Artists grapple with the problem graphically, for they must be able to depict the human form in a variety of still poses that nevertheless convey actions of all sorts. Dancers grapple with the problem mnemonically, for they must be able to remember and reproduce the steps, gestures, rhythms, and spatial patterns of a choreography. When Laban turned his energies to dance, he was not merely
concerned with the cognitive construction and preservation of muscle memory; he was also determined to develop a graphic notation of movement that would allow dances to be recorded and reproduced from a written score. In tackling this problem, Laban drew upon traditions and innovations in the graphic representation of movement with which he was familiar from his experiences as a visual artist. The fin-de-siècle period when Laban came of age as a visual artist was a particularly provocative epoch, for tradition coexisted uneasily with innovation. The great European art academies were still functioning. These institutions made it possible for young artists to become familiar with classical traditions of realistic representation that had been rediscovered andwas perfected during Renaissance. Traditional areas in which an artist expected to bethe knowledgeable included human anatomy, proportion, and rendering in perspective. Artists also learned practical techniques that had been developed over time to facilitate realistic depiction of form, figure, and motion. The fin-de-siècle was also a restless period, when artists chafed against many of the conventions of representation that were associated with academic art. The “blossoming of a sense of modernity in European culture” that occurred between 1880 and 1914 gave rise to a robust search for new forms of artistic expression. 1 The development of photography
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during this time raised questions about the purpose of painting and the need for realistic depiction. One avant-garde movement followed another — Impressionism, Symbolism, Art Nouveau, Futurism, Cubism, Expressionism, Fauvism, and Dada. Each new art impulse gave rise not only to new modes of expression but also to new theories. These rapid evolutions in form and concept had wide-ranging effects beyond the visual arts, in many cases spawning related movements in literature and the performing arts. Laban was situated in this vortex of cross-currents. This chapter examines how he drew upon streams of tradition and innovation in the graphic representation of movement, adapting these approaches to the study of dance. The first traditional area to be examined is proportion. Initially, proportion appears to be a visual design element with little obvious relevance to dance. Yet theories of proportion, which focus on the mathematical relations of part to whole, have been particularly important in visual art for the realistic representation of the human body in motion. That is, theories of proportion lead to theories of movement for the simple reason that proportion, together with anatomical structure, dictates range of motion, and range of motion in turn dictates the spatial forms the moving body can create. It will be shown, through the analysis of Laban’s figure drawings, that Laban was thoroughly conversant with classical theories of proportion as perpetuated by late 19th-century academic art training and used this knowledge to develop both his dance notation and his choreutic theory, which addresses spatial aspects of dance design. The impact of instantaneous photography on long-standing conventions in the artistic of human movementthat is the second area to be discussed. Thesedepiction photos captured movements could not be seen by the human eye, provoking intense philosophical and artistic debate and altering the way in which artists represented movement. Reverberations of this debate can be detected in Laban’s writings on dance and provide an underlying rationale for the dual perspectives — one analytic, the other wholistic — that inform his theoretical work in dance. The final area to be discussed is Art Nouveau theory and practice. There are only a handful of surviving works by Laban executed in what
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could be called “Art Nouveau style,” and these all belong to his early work as a visual artist. Later works do not superficially reveal any debt to this style. Laban appears to have drawn upon his familiarity with Art Nouveau more indirectly, appropriating design techniques and ideological and theoretical positions. Significant concepts to be discussed include the modernization of form, the theory of empathy,Art Nouveau techniques of pattern generation, and thetension between biomorphic and geometrical design elements. Laban’s appropriation and adaptation of visual art theories and practices became the foundation for his construction of dance theory. This chapter explores the way Laban mobilized knowledge from one field in the service of another. Proportional Theories and Figure Drawing
Proportion has been defined in various ways. The Dictionary of Art calls it “the quantitative relationship of the parts of the human body to each other and to the whole body.” 2 This follows the classic definition put forth by Vitruvius: “Proportion is a correspondence among the measures of the members of an entire work, and of the whole to a certain part selected as a standard.”3 Lawlor expands this description as follows: “A proportion is formed from ratios, and a ratio is a comparison of two different sizes, quantities, qualities, or ideas, and is expressed by the formula a : b. A ratio then constitutes a measure of difference, a difference to which at least one of our sensory faculties can respond.” 4 Other sources refer to proportion as an organizing feature, “a mathematical concepta that hasnorms acquired great importance visual arts, having supplied set of corresponding to thoseinofthe meter in 5 music and poetry.” Hogarth elaborates, noting that “the canon of proportions of the human figure is equivalent, so to speak, to the footrule in measurement, the axiom in geometry, the polestar in navigation. It proclaims the universal human norm, the ideal criterion of discipline in art.”6 Critchlow takes the concept even further. Proportion is both an idea and a reality. It is the significant relationship between things, and therefore it is inherent in natural
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law, as we live in a cosmos — a cosmos being a profound balance between various forces, events and elements. Proportion in the broadest sense is concerned with this balance, harmony and relatedness between things: between body and mind, nature and humanity, illusion and reality.7 Proportion, then, is a very broad subject, drawing upon mathematical concepts of measurement and ratio to prescribe certain relationships of part to whole in such a way that the resulting form is not only representationally realistic but also beautiful as a unified whole. The search for a proportional canon that can meet these criteria has occupied artists since the time of ancient Egypt. Yet, despite such a long history of development, there are only a handful of key theoreticians and theories of proportion. From classical civilizations come Pythagoras, Polyclitus, and Vitruvius; from the Middle Ages, the Byzantine and Gothic canons; and from the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci and Albrecht Dürer. The use of geometrical schemas to assist the artist with the depiction of bodily proportion and movement are common to all these theories. The Egyptian, Byzantine, and Gothic approaches reduce the human figure to a twodimensional stylization. More realistic three-dimensional depictions are found in Classical and Renaissance art. The theories underlying these works are the ones most relevant to Laban’s adaptations for dance. To achieve greater Classical and Renaissance Approaches. faithfulness to the organic measure of the human figure and the visual experience of three-dimensional space, Classical and Renaissance approaches to proportion utilized whole number ratios. Pythagoras, the famous Greek mathematician of the sixth century B.C., established the basis of this approach. First, Pythagoras recognized that certain harmonies known to the Greeks derived from a string’s being divided into sections, with strictly defined relationships between the lengths of the sections. By so doing, he “proved that the world of sound is governed by exact numbers.”8 He went on to do the same thing regarding the world of vision. Pythagoras’s recognition that number underlies sound, space, and form was applied by Polyclitus, a fifth-century B.C. Greek sculptor. Although his canon has not survived, it is known to have been bothfractional (based
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on whole number ratios) and anthropometric (based upon actual measurement of the human body). Consequently, it marked a significant departure from the modular system used by Egyptian artists. As Panofsky explains, when Polyclitus described the proper proportion of finger to finger, finger to hand, hand to forearm, forearm to arm and, finally, each single limb to the entire body, this meant that the classical Greek theory of proportions had abandoned the idea of constructing the body on the basis of an absolute module, as though from small, equal building blocks; it sought to establish relations between the members, anatomically differentiated and distinct from each other, and the entire body.9 The only canon surviving from the Classical period is that of Marcus Vitruvius Pollio. Vitruvius was a Roman architect and engineer living in the first century B.C. In his Ten Books on Architecture he described principles of symmetry, harmony, and proportion in architecture. It was in his chapter on temple architecture that the canon of human proportion was introduced as the paradigm for the preciserelations between members that lead to a well-shaped human figure or a well-shaped building. Vitruvius uses simple fractions to express these relationships. For example, the head (from chin to crown) is 1/8 of the total length of the body, from the pit of the throat to the hairline is 1/6, and so on.10 In addition to numerical ratios, geometric devices were employed to study bodily proportion. For example Vitruvius describes how the body may be inscribed in a circle and a square. For if a man be placed flat on his back, with his hands and feet extended, and a pair of compasses centered at his navel, the fingers and toes of his two hands and feet will touch the circumference of a circle described therefrom. And just as the human body yields a circular outline, so too a square figure may be found from it. For if we measure the distance from the soles of the feet to the top of the head, and then apply that measure to the outstretched arms, the breadth will be found to be the same
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as the height, as in the case of plane surfaces which are perfectly square. 11 This geometic inscription can be seen in Leonardo da Vinci’s illustration of Vitruvius’s idea, as shown in Figure 3-1.
Figure 3-1. Leonardo: man in circle and square.
Renaissance artists not only rediscovered the fractional and geometrical approaches used by their Classical precursors, but also carried proportional theory forward. Refinements in the techniques of rendering in perspective, so as to create an illusion of depth, increased artists’ sensitivity to problems of foreshortening in the representation of the human body in motion. Foreshortening is problematic because, depending on the spectator’s point of view, the characteristic shape and dimension of a part or parts of the body can appear distorted. For example, “a headon front view of the human body would not be considered foreshortened.”12 If the viewpoint is not head-on, however, or if the body itself is in motion, some foreshortening will occur. Artists were looking for systematic ways to replicate these visual distortions. Leonardo da Vinci is one of the prominent Renaissance artists who tackled this problem. According to Panofsky, he embarked upon a systematic investigation of those mechanical and anatomical processes by which the objective dimensions of the quietly upright human body are altered from case to case, and thereby fused the theory of human proportions with a theory of human movement. He determined the thickening of the joints
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while flexing or the expansion and contraction of the muscles which attend the bending or stretching of the knee or elbow, and ultimately managed to reduce all movement to a general principle which may be described as the principle of continuous and uniform circular motion.13 The study of proportion during the Renaissance culminated in the work of the German painter Albrecht Dürer, whose treatises on human proportion were published posthumously in 1528. 14 Dürer reported that he first learned about proportion from the Italian painter, Jacopo de Barbari, who “showed me how to construct a man and a woman based on measurements. I was greatly fascinated by his skill and decided to master it. But Jacobus, I noticed, did not wish to give me a clear explanation. So I went ahead on my own and read Vitruvius.”15 However, Dürer departed from the Vitruvian tradition of proportion in two important ways. First, he studied proportions of different types of figures, male and female, as well as children, with the consequence that there emerged from his work no single canon of beauty.16 Secondly, Dürer combined the study of proportion with the study of perspective, working out his own approach to the problem of foreshortening through the use of stereographic techniques. In this approach, geometrical forms are superimposed on the organic curves of the body. These simpler geometrical shapes can then be tilted, rotated, etc. and redrawn in proper perspective to establish the visible changes in proportion that arise when the body is posed in various positions. In a way, Dürer’s incorporation of geometric form in relation to proportion resembled the work of the medieval French architect Villard de Honnecourt. Villard’s approach superimposed shapes such as triangles and pentagons on the human figure. 17 As a result, the organic proportion was somewhat deformed, but the system did successfully set contours and directions of movement. However, Villard’s work only yielded two dimensional representations while Dürer’s system moved from flat to solid shapes that allowed examination of foreshortening, facilitating realistic three-dimensional depiction. While Dürer’s work can be seen as the pinnacle of Renaissance proportion studies, it also marks its crisis. The impact of individual
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differences and the almost infinite changes in foreshortening arising from movement frustrated attempts to measure the body visually and to lay down general rules guiding realistic proportional representation. Nevertheless, how artists grappled with these problems is instructive. As noted earlier, Leonardo combined the study of proportion and anatomy to outline a theory of human movement. His reasoning went something like this. Space is the medium in which movement occurs, and space is a continuous quantity that is divisible ad infinitum. Similarly, human action is also infinite, for every movement is a “continuous succession of phases.”18 Since a circle is both infinite and continuous, Leonardo “perceived in the shape of the circle a correct pattern of movement for the human body that gave it a ‘second form,’ which became visible in the circling movement round his own centre and that of his limbs round their various joints.”19 The treatise that Leonardo intended to write on this theory of movement was never completed. However, his ideas were sketched out in a methodical way by an unknown student in the Codex Huygens (ca. 1570). Using a system of circles and epicycles to represent the forms traced in space by the limbs of the moving body, this student was able to portray “figures enacting successive stages of one and the same movement.” 20 The significance of Leonardo’s circular scheme can best be understood in contrast to the ideas of Dürer. The latter’s “painstaking efforts to rationalize movement in the same way he had tried to rationalize proportion did not get beyond the systematic survey of various definite stationary situations which, by ingenious geometrical methods, could be transformed orvery rather converted into other noleft less definite and 21 ones, with the principle of ‘transition’ out.” This ledstationary Dürer to attempt “to facilitate the construction of unrestricted postures by dissecting the whole figure into a number of units which were inscribed into such simple stereometrical bodies as cubes, parallelepipeds and truncated pyramids; by shifting these around in space any number of poses could be produced in what may be called a synthetic fashion.”22 However, Dürer seemingly could only conceive of movement as “abrupt transformations of crystallized ‘poses’,” and his proportional theory stopped short of progressing to a general theory for the representation of movement. 23
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While Leonardo and Dürer pioneered practical techniques in representing human movement that are still used, further developments in proportional theory did not occur. Over the ensuing centuries, artistic sensibilities shifted away from realistic depiction to emphasize “the subjective conception of the object in preference to the object itself.” 24 Nevertheless, the contrasting approaches of Leonardo and Dürer provided an analytic foundation for the representation of movement that Laban subsequently utilized in his dance notation and theory. Academic Influences. While practice in the field turned away from anthropometric proportion and prescribed canons of human beauty, the classical theories were preserved by the art academies that were formed in the 16th century. These academies were organized as professional institutions “with a view to providing training, theoretical debate and exhibiting opportunities.”25 During the 17th century, the academic idea spread through much of Western Europe, the most influential academy being the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, founded in Paris in 1648. Its curriculum and educational methods were so widely followed that “the prescribed progress of drawing from drawings, drawing from casts, and drawing from life formed, with local variations, the basis of the training of artists in the European tradition until well into the 20th century.”26 Although the Académie Royale was disbanded during the French Revolution, it was quickly replaced by the Académie des Beaux Arts, which administered the École des Beaux Arts as its school. This is, of course, where Laban supposedly studied. The best testimony to Laban’s familiarity with academic techniques of figural liesadhere in his drawings themselves. It can be seen that figuresrepresentation drawn by Laban almost obsessively to traditional proportional canons, methods of foreshortening, and the use of strokes to delineate anatomical landmarks and muscle groups. Laban’s proportion is always excellent, even if his draftsmanship is not. Even in seemingly casual sketches, Laban had to have been working carefully with a caliper or some other kind of measure to keep the proportion correct.27
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Use of the Tr aditional Can on in La ban ’s Figur e Dra wings The canon explicated here is based upon the author’s own practical study of proportion and axial-skeletal drawing derived from the European
tradition of academic art training.28 The training begins with measuring a skeleton, plaster casts, and male and female models to develop ratios for parts of the body identified by various skeletal landmarks. From this measuring and averaging of anatomical parts, the student is able to rediscover and validate the anthropometric proportional canon as follows: a) The face (from the mandible or jaw to the cranial apex or hairline) is used as a standard, with other body parts represented as either fractions or multiples of this unit. b) The depth of the skull and the length of the skull are roughly equal. c) The sternum is one face length. d) The rib cage is roughly 1½ face lengths. e) The clavicle is one face length, with the shoulder girdle being about two face lengths wide. f) The upper arm is 1½ face lengths while the lower arm is just less than 1½ face lengths. g) The hand is one face length. h) The upper leg is two face lengths, while the lower leg is slightly less than two face lengths. i) The foot is one face length. Understanding of these proportional relationships provides a foundation. A further aspect of axial-skeletal technique involves using skeletal landmarks to set, as as to adjust, proportional for realistic foreshortening inwell various poses. Then the actual relationships pencil strokes delineating the figure are used economically, each stroke having a single anatomical referent, usually that of the long axis of a muscle or muscle group. Thus, axial-skeletal technique brings together knowledge of anatomy, proportion, and movement. Laban’s work in Figure 3-2 demonstrates his grasp of the concepts underlying axial-skeletal technique. Here the crest of the ilium is indicated by a small upside down V, a technique often used by artists to set certain proportional landmarks. In this case, it is the measure from the iliac crest
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a b
Figure 3-2. Anatomical study.
c
Rudolf Laban Archive L/C/3/14 ©NRCD.
a
to the greater trochanter of the thigh that is being set, a measure that corresponds to one face length, even though Laban has not completely sketched the face of this figure. Although the drawing technique is rough, the strokes representing muscles are not drawn idiosyncratically, but are oriented in very particular directions. For instance, the line indicating the deltoid muscles of the upper arm (a) run along the muscle’s long axis, as do the strokes delineating the latissimus dorsi muscles of the back (b) and the gluteus muscles (c) as they wrap around the derriere. Thus, these lines are carefully deployed to represent the axes of the muscles to which they refer. In Figure 3-3, basic proportional relationships are again observed in Laban’s sketch. As noted by Leonardo da Vinci, “from the sole of the foot to the lower edge of the knee is one fourth part of man; from the lower edge of the knee to the beginning of the penis is the fourth part of the man.”29 These ratios can be seen in Laban’s drawing. Moreover, Laban follows Leonardo’s prescription that the foot is one seventh of the total height, as is the distance from the top of the chest to the hairline. Thus, the raised foot in Laban’s drawing corresponds in length with the neck and the head. Similarly, the face and upper right arm have a standard
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proportional relationship of x to 1½ x. In addition, even though the strokes seem hasty and random, they actually follow the longitudinal axes of the muscle groups. For example, note the strokes for the latissimus dorsi (a), the gluteus muscles (b), the gracilis on the inner thigh (c), the gastrocnemius on the upper back of the calf (d), and the tibialis anterior (e) on the front of the calf.
a
b
c
d
e
Figure 3-3. Figure study. Rudolf Laban Archive L/C/3/20 ©NRCD.
A more abstract version of this same pose is seen in Figure 3-4. Although this figure drawing is highly stylized, the proportional ratios are intact, and Laban continues to abide by the rule that each stroke have a single anatomical referent. Along the contour of the right side of the torso three strokes are used to represent the latissimus dorsi (a), the ribs (b), and the external obliques (c). See, too, the long curve of the fascial band along the thigh (d), as well as the two strokes rendering the inside contours of the lower leg, revealing the gastrocnemius (e) and soleus (f). Care is also taken in the rendering of the raised leg to indicate the patella (g) and the kneeling point (h).30 Thus, Laban’s adherence to the classical proportional canon can be seen in this sample of his figure drawings, which are all believed to have
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ba
Figure 3-4. Figure study variation. c
Rudolf Laban Archive L/C/3/18 ©NRCD.
d
g h
e f
been drawn after 1938, when he was no longer an aspiring visual artist but rather an established movement theorist. Although the drawings themselves vary considerably in style and finesse of execution, the adherence to the classical proportional canon attests to Laban’s early academic art background. His continued allegiance to the canon, however, points to its relevance for the study of movement. To repeat a point made in the introduction of this chapter, anatomical structure and bodily proportion dictate range of motion. Range of motion governs the shapes that can be traced by the mover in the surrounding space. These shapes are part of what must be captured in any form of dance notation. Any exaggeration of proportion tends to deform the shape of the movement being depicted visually. The shape of movement, or what Leonardo called the “second form of the human body,” was what Laban was studying. Consequently, it was important to Laban that bodily proportion be rendered accurately. The Imp act of Instantaneo us Photo grap hy Despite technical advances during the Renaissance, the almost nfinite i variety of human movements frustrated the efforts of artists to develop a
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general theory. With the subsequent waning of interest in proportion as a theory, the problem of depicting human movement realistically was also sidelined. Certain representational conventions arose, particularly in academic figure drawing, that were not challenged until the late 19th century, when innovations in photographic techniques provided new insight into human and animal motion. However, the earliest photographs did not successfully capture movement, due to the extremely long exposure times that were necessary. In order to get an image that was clear, the subject had to hold still, and hold still for quite a while. Consequently, when moving subjects were photographed, these subjects tended to disappear. In early photographs of street scenes, the moving people and objects became faint blurs, rendering a scene that seemed somewhat uncanny in its appearance of being uninhabited.31 The first time moving subjects were successfully captured in motion was in the stereoscopic street scenes produced in the 1850s and 1860s. Improvements in exposure time, coupled with the fact that the camera was placed at some distance from the scene, populated these street scenes with clear images of moving figures for the first time. However, the attitudes in which these moving subjects were captured aroused both surprise and consternation. For example, the American doctor and writer Oliver Wendell Holmes used stereoscopic street scenes to study human walks, research meant to help him in designing artificial limbs for American Civil War veterans. As Newhall notes, “Holmes found the attitudes in these pictures startlingly different from the conventions that had been used for centuries.”32 Like many early commentators, Holmes was impressed by the contrast between painting and“traces photography; what the latter revealed, he felt, was the infinite ly detailed of real things” unmediated by the artist’s editorial eye. 33 If stereoscopic photos flaunted artistic conventions, then subsequent systematic attempts to photograph animals and humans in motion proved even more shocking. The first, and perhaps best known, such attempt was the photographing of a trotting horse by Eadweard Muybridge. In 1872 Muybridge was hired by Leland Stanford, a wealthy American railroad magnate, to photograph a trotting horse, supposedly to prove Stanford’s contention that the horse had all its feet off the ground during
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a moment of the gait. However, Muybridge’s first attempts were not successful, due partially to the very slow speed of the wet plates he had to use. When Muybridge resumed work in 1877, he was assisted by John D. Isaacs, one of Stanford’s engineers. “With a battery of cameras lined up along a track and with special shutters operated either electrically or by a clock, he [Isaacs] made it possible for Muybridge to take a whole series of properly timed instantaneous pictures of the trotting horse.” 34 These photos were so successful that Stanford commissioned Muybridge to photograph other animals inmotion, including humans. By 1879, “these photographs of animals in motion were known throughout the civilized world.” 35 Among those who became familiar with Muybridge’s work at this time was the French physiologist Etienne-Jules Marey, who had himself been studying both human and animal movement. The two men apparently established contact after Marey saw Muybridge’s photos in the French science journal, La Nature. Then, when Muybridge came to Paris to lecture in 1881, his first public appearance was held in Marey’s home. 36 While Marey’s enthusiasm for Muybridge’s work was genuine, he also recognized some technical flaws. For example, when Muybridge’s photos were viewed in a zoetrope, “the horse stayed in the same place and the scenery ran by.”37 Moreover, Muybridge did not keep the temporal interval between snapshots equal. Muybridge “could freeze the individual moments in series, but he could not integrate the crucial variable of time. His images were spatially distinct but temporally blurred.” 38 These difficulties spurred Marey to develop his own device, a photographic gun, inroughly 1882. This instrument allowed to keep the time between exposures equivalent, resulting inhim multiple images of an action on a single plate. Marey christened his invention “chronophotography.” Although his first experiments were somewhat disappointing, Marey continued to work and to refine his techniques in various ways. “He clothed men in black, painted white lines along their arms and legs, and had them run or walk against a black background while moving exposures were made on the same plate.”39 The result was a linear graph of the motion of the arms and legs. Later, Marey “devised a camera with a
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moving plate, so that each exposure was a separate picture.” 40 Like the work of Muybridge, Marey’s photos became well-known, being widely published in his own books and in popular scientific journals of the day. While Marey labored to perfect chronophotography, Muybridge was hired by the University of Pennsylvania in 1883 to carry on his photographic research on movement. This research resulted in multiple volumes, most notably Animals in Motion (1887) and The Human Figure in Motion (1901). Muybridge aimed with these studies to “create an atlas for the use of artists, a visual dictionary of human and animal forms in action.” 41 Muybridge was assisted in his work at theUniversity of Pennsylvania by Thomas A. Eakins, a painter and master anatomist with a deep interest in movement. Eakins experimented with instantaneous photography himself, preferring, like Marey, multiple exposures on a single plate. It was Eakins’s contention that this approach allowed the sequence of movement to be followed more easily by relating one shape to another throughout the entire action. Eakins’s interest perhaps led Muybridge to anticipate “a great demand by artists who would substitute photographs for live models.”42 However, the reaction of the rest of the art world to what instantaneous photos revealed about human and animal movement was much more mixed. Artistic Reactions to Instantaneous Photographs. Shortly after Muybridge’s lecture at the home of Marey, a second soiree for the photographer was held by Ernest Meissonier, a well-known French historic painter and expert on thehorse. Two hundred luminaries of French cultural life attended theHis gathering, and Muybridge’s “caused an overnight sensation. photographs were hailed appearance as conclusive proof that all four hooves left the ground during gallop, and his zoetropic device signaled the first dramatic example of the photographic synthesis of movement.”43 Meissonier himself was not so enthusiastic about Muybridge’s photos, as they showed errors in his own painted portrayal of horses. Nevertheless, Meissonier based all his later work on photographic find ings . 44 Other artists were also quick to adjust conventional methods of portraying the horse in motion. For example, the American painter Frederic Remington, is known to have adopted “a
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mode of representing a horse in motion that bore a remarkable resemblance to a Muybridge photo.” 45 However, Muybridge’s work met with disbelief as well. The photographer Paul Henry Emerson found “nothing more inartistic than some position of a galloping horse, such as are never seen by the eye, but yet exist in reality, and have been recorded by Mr. Muybridge.” 46 Others argued similarly, proclaiming that instantaneous photos were “untrue and artistically incorrect” when portraying men and animals in strange attitudes that could only be seen “if the scene were illuminated by a flash of lightning.”47 Thus, what could be seen as an asset — that instantaneous photographs revealed what normal vision could not perceive in rapid movement — was also seen as a liability by some artists and even some photographers. How valid was it, they asked, to paint a pose or to preserve an attitude that the eye could not even perceive? From this question, another objection was raised having to do with whether or not the instantaneous photos really transmitted an image of movement. As Daval observes, the photographs were “scientifically accurate and went beyond the limits of optical perception, revealing what the human eye is incapable of grasping; but they produced a curiously static impression…. [L]ifted from the context of its before and after moments, the snapshot may be disconcerting.”48 In this sense, the disruption of the natural flow of action actually destroyed the impression of movement. The sculptor Auguste Rodin is known to have reacted strongly to this aspect of instantaneous photography. For example, in one conversation with Rodin, the writer Paul Gsell commented that when an artist portrays“he movement so alters as to contradict the mechanical accuracy of photography, evidently truth.” “‘No,’ replied Rodin, ‘it is the artist who is truthful and it is photography which lies, for in reality time does not stop, and if the artist succeeds in producing the impression of movement which takes several moments for accomplishment, his work is certainly much less conventional than the scientific image, where time is abruptly suspended.’”49 The basis of Rodin’s objections to the static quality of instantaneous photos of movement is made clearer by his definition of movement as “the transition from one attitude to another.”50 Whether in sculpture or in
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painting, what the artist sees in a movement is its transformation and displacement. To capture the quality of this movement, the artist “restores its continuity on canvas, pieces together the sequence of moments which recreate movement in its continuity.”51 This is what Rodin claims is done in sculpture. The sculptor compels, so to speak, the spectator to follow the development of an act in an individual. In the example that we have chosen [i.e., Francois Rude’s 1853 statue of Marshall Ney] the eyes are forced to travel upward from the lower limbs to the raised arm, and, as in so doing they find the different parts of the figure represented at successive instants, they have the illusion of beholding the movement performed.52 Rodin also illustrated this point with his own sculpture of St. John. The figure appears to be vigorously striding, yet both feet are on the ground. As Rodin points out, an instantaneous photo of a model making the same movement would have one leg off the ground, but such a position gives the appearance of a man suddenly stricken with paralysis and petrified. Rodin explains this appearance of paralysis in the following way: “if . . . in instantaneous photographs, the figures, though taken while moving, seem suddenly fixed in midair, it is because, all parts of the body being reproduced exactly at the same twentieth or fortieth of a second, there is not progressive development of movement as there is in art.” 53 Daval points out that Muybridge and Marey were conscious of the curiously static impression their work produced, “so much so that they devised independently, a systematic montage of snapshots in order to transcribe movement.” 54 These devices, of course, were among the forerunners of cinematogaphy.55 Influence of Instantaneous Ph otography on Avant-Garde Artists. Reaction in the artistic world did not divide itself merely into admirers and detractors, into those who imitated new views of movement in their representational work versus those who ignored photographic evidence. A third group of various avant-garde artists responded to scientific photos, not for the advantages they offered for correcting conventional
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representation, but for the new kinds of images they introduced. These groups included the Cubists, Futurists, and Dadaists: “those movements in modern art which, taking advantage of the freedom offered by the fragmentation of the perceptual image, proceeded to evolve forms of art determined by either the imagination or the fancy.”56 Among these movements, the Futurists were the most overt in their focus on movement. The 1910 Futurist Painting: Technical Manifesto proclaimed that all things move and change and “this dynamism is what the artist should strive to represent.” 57 As Read points out, an emphasis on dynamism began with the Impressionists, but they never solved the problem of representing movement in painting and sculpture. In contrast “the Futurist solution was somewhat naive: a galloping horse, they said, had not four feet but twenty, and their motion is triangular. They therefore painted horses, or dogs, or human beings, with multiple limbs in serial or 58
radial arrangement.” Whether naive or not, it was clear that some of the Futurists drew their inspiration from the work of Marey. For example, “some of Giacomo Balla’s paintings were almost literal transcriptions of these photographs.”59 Another artist who drew inspiration from Marey’s images was Marcel Duchamp, whose Nude Descending a Staircase (1912) is known to have been inspired by chronophotography.60 Read notes that the artist himself explained that Nude is not really a painting: “it is an organization of kinetic elements, an expression of time and space through the abstract presentation of motion.” 61 Indeed, as regards capturing movement in painting, Read gives Cubism, Futurism, and Dadaism a mixed review: “In so far as by they to represent motion, these pioneers were to be overtaken theattempted cinematograph; their paintings remain plastic symbols for motion rather than representations of motion.”62 Both Futurism and Dadaism ultimately turned away from painting with its virtual representation of movement, focusing instead on the actual incorporation of movement in performance art or cinematography. 63 However, one artist associated with the Italian Futurists was notable for his experimental representations of movement, namely Anton Giulio Bragaglia. In 1911 he first began producing photographic images of movement, for which he coined the phrase, “Photodynamism.” The
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official debut of Photodynamism occurred slightly later, with the publication of his manifesto in an Italian newspaper in 1913. Bragaglia claimed that Photodynamism was a new art form, distinct from both painting and photography; he specifically dissociated it from chronophotography and cinematography as well. In Bragaglia’s opinion chronophotography could be compared to a clock on the face of which only the half-hours are marked and cinematography to one on which the minutes too are indicated.64 Both of these mechanical media scanned and broke up the movement, shattering the action. Photodynamism, on the other hand, “marked not only the seconds, but also the intermomental fractions existing in the passages between the seconds.”65 Consequently, the photodynamic pictures aimed to evoke the sensation of movement by capturing its continuity. The effect was achieved through long exposure while the subject moved. This resulted in multiple images of the figure, as in the work of Marey and Eakins, but with the addition of a kind of blurring of the moving body parts, which served “to link up each successive phase of the overall movement.” 66 The images, usually of a single subject, fell into two groups. There were figures carrying out specific actions, such as typing or sawing, along with images of transitional actions, such as rising from a chair, walking, bowing, etc. Bragaglia himself made much of transitional moments and his photos “represent an interesting complement to the painters’ attempts to capture the essence rather than the appearance of movement.” 67 Bragaglia’s work establishes a countertension to other instantaneous photographs. Muybridge and Marey exploited what the camera could do, revealing of purposes. human andTheir animal movement never seen, ostensibly foraspects scientific works provoked twobefore antithetical reactions within the art world. On the one hand, some artists embraced the unique views of action provided by the photographs and incorporated this new realism into their paintings. Other artists rejected the photographic images, preferring to express movement rather than demonstrate it. The attitudes the latter artists gave their figures may never have existed, “but they are the more convincing because they translate as actual time-sequences.” 68 Bragaglia, identifying with the Futurist emphasis on dynamism, pursued the evocation of movement through
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photographic means. But unlike the Futurist painters, he was not content to simply replicate the fractured images of chronophotography. Rather, Bragaglia’s work critiques the images of instantaneous photography by pointing out what is missing — transition and continuity. His emphasis on this omission parallels the philosophical discussion that also surrounded these instantaneous views of movement. Fr om Photogra ph to Menta l Ima ge: Ber gson’s Philo sophy of Movement At the center of the philosophical discussion of movement and change was the French writer Henri Bergson, “the most popular and most widely translated philosopher of his day.”69 His lectures at the Collège de France, where Marey was a colleague, “became so crowded that a larger room had to be found to hold the overflow.”70 With an audience that cut across 71
disciplines, radiating “far beyond academic and literary circles,” Bergson seemed to have opened “an outlook forwhich his age had been thirsting.”72 And what was that outlook? Bergson himself acknowledged that “a philosopher worthy of his name has never said more than a single thing.”73 According to Masur, “change was, for Bergson, the one single thing.”74 By centering his ruminations on the experience of change in contrast with the conceptualization of change, Bergson had to grapple with space, time, and movement. He returned to these subjects over and over again in his writings. It is in such discussions that Bergson’s views on instantaneous photography can be detected, for, as Rabinbach noted, Bergson’s colleague Marey “is often invoked though rarely mentioned 75
by name.” For example, in Creative Evolution, Bergson proposes to portray the marching past of a regiment. Now, one could attempt this portrayal by constructing little jointed figures, Bergson suggests. But such puppets would scarcely reproduce the suppleness of live marching. Alternatively, one could take a series of snapshots of the passing regiment and project these instantaneous views rapidly one after another, as in cinematography. Bergson concedes that this would reconstitute the mobility of the marching group. However, he goes on to note that “if we had to do with the photographs alone, however much one might look at them we should
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never see them animated: with immobility set beside immobility, even 76 endlessly, we could never make movement.” In other words, instantaneous photography and cinematography take a lfowing movement sequence and break it apart into snapshots. If these frozen attitudes can be mechanically reanimated, they will give an illusion of movement. However, real movement is something altogether different. Bergson illustrates his analysis of why instantaneous photography (or cinematography) fails to be truly mobile and lifelike with an example in Matter and Memory. He proposes to move his hand from point A to point B, noting, “my consciousness gives me the inward feeling of a single fact, for in A was rest, in B there is again rest, and between A and B is placed an indivisible or at least an undivided act, the passage from rest to rest, which is movement itself.”77 On the other hand, as the movement traverses space, it inscribes a line AB78“and this line, likeall space, may be indefinitely divided,” Bergson admits. However, if the movement along this line is then represented as successive positions lying along this line, a series of imaginary halts are substituted for a flowing and indivisible whole. What Bergson goes on to point out is that this conceptual model of movement is incongruent with our lived experience of movement. We know movement as a flowing, indivisible whole, but we think of it as a series of immobile positions, infinitely divisible. In other words, our intellect seems to work on the flowing wholeness of lived experience very much like a camera works on movement. Moreover, just as photography and cinematography break up the spatial coherence of movement, theyofalso disrupt its temporal continuity, segmenting the enduring wholeness time into separate moments. When the snapshot-taking mind is focused on temporal change, “the understanding breaks it up into successive and distinct states, supposed to be invariable.” 79 This view “neglects the fact that these states are themselves changing and that each is related to its predecessor and its successor not as externally related things, but as interpenetrating linked experiences.” 80 This inability to perceive movement as an indivisible transition and time as a continuum of flowing change leads to a misapprehension of the essence of life. As Bergson points out, “it is not
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the ‘states,’ single snapshots we have taken once again along the course of change, that are real; on the contrary, it is flux, the continuity of transition, it is change itself that is real.” 81 Consequently, Bergson adds an interesting conceptual dimension to the problem of representing movement, particularly as that problem is illuminated by instantaneous photography. What Bergson recognizes in these snapshots is a metaphor for how the intellect handles movement and change. His critique of chronophotography demonstrates that the snapshots will not serve the “scientific” study of movement because both space and time have been broken apart and consequently the indivisible continuity of movement that is its essence has been lost. “In these juxtaposed views one has a substitute for time and movement,” he concedes, but “time and movement are something else.” 82 Ontologically speaking, Bergson’s critique is more far-reaching, for it is this very snapshot-taking aspect of the mind that interferes in the apprehension of a reality in which everything flows, everything endures and changes, and life is mobility itself. But unless one can “reverse the normal direction of the workings of thought” through intuition, one will not be able to grasp this.” 83 In Bergson’s view, then, movement (and, by extension, being itself) may be known in two ways: intellectually and intuitively. In the first case, the mind works analytically, approaching the movement event from outside, like a camera. The representation of movement that arises from this kind of knowing is like that of instantaneous photos: movement becomes a series of positions and its temporal duration becomes a string of moments corresponding to each this of the positions. While not a very dynamic or lifelike representation, manner of conceptualizing is unavoidable when one needs to think about movement so as to act on it. As Bergson describes, “there is, between our body and other bodies, an arrangement like that of the pieces of glass that compose a kaleidoscopic picture. Our activity goes from an arrangement to a rearrangement, each time no doubt giving the kaleidoscope a new shake, but not interesting itself in the shake and seeing only the new picture.”84 Intuition, on the other hand, knows the movement from within, as a continuous whole traversing space and flowing through time. In fact,
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what distinguishes intuitive knowing from intellectual knowing for Bergson is the apprehension of time, not as a spatialized series of moments, but as an uninterrupted continuity that flows, connecting past, present, and future, much as a melody takes its being from individual notes but links them into an indivisible whole that is the tune itself. Intuition is the means through which one recognizes that “movement is reality itself.”85 The image of movement that one gra sps intuitively is not a snapshot-like view but one of a flowing continuity fluctuating endlessly.86 Ber gsonian R everb era tions in Lab an’s Chor eutic Th eor y and Notation Many echoes of Bergson will also be found in the introduction to Laban’s posthumously published treatise, Choreutics .87 For example,
Laban refers to the “snapshot-like perception of the mind which is able to receive only a single phase of the uninterrupted flux,” noting that “the sum of such snapshots is, however, not yet the flux itself.” 88 As for the omnipresent reality of movement, Laban notes that “today we are perhaps still too accustomed to understanding objects as separate entities, standing in stabilized poses side by side in empty space. Externally, it may appear so, but in reality continuous exchange and movement are taking place. Not for a moment do they come to a complete standstill, since matter itself is a compound of vibrations.”89 These particular observations closely parallel those of Bergson in Matter and Memory. There Bergson points out that it is useful to fix a thing at a precise point, establishing a clear limit, and making action separate from the thing. Neverthele ss, there is a different realitysomething hidden beneath such arbitrary images, for even “the solidity and the inertia of atoms dissolve either into movements or into lines of force.”90 The way in which Laban describes space is also very similar to Bergson’s characterization. Bergson argues that space is not a fixed, homogeneous ground onto which movement is posited, “rather it is real motion that deposits space beneath itself.” 91 Laban similarly argues for an interdependent relationship between space and movement: “we must not look at the locality simply as an empty room, separated from
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movement, nor at movement as an occasional happening only ... space is a hidden feature of movement and movement is a visible aspect of space.”92 Thus, various observations in Laban’s introduction to his treatise on Choreutics strongly reflect an intuitive view of movement that can be seen as Bergsonian, for Laban affirms that movement is a continuous flux, an omnipresent part of life, and interdependent with a space that is not empty but alive with the uninterrupted waxing and waning of things in motion. Nevertheless, Laban’s observations also reflect a Bergsonian recognition that a snapshot view of movement is of practical use. Noting that a movement makes sense only if it progresses organically, Laban goes on to assert that “it is, therefore, essential to find out the natural characteristics of the single phases which we wish to join together in order to create a sensible sequence.”93 In other words, Laban is suggesting that the snapshot-like perception of the mind can be utilized to study movement, to compare individual phases within a movement, and to ascertain the “natural order” governing the sequencing of motions as they organically develop in space.94 Bergson, of course, points out that whenthis snapshot-like perception is focused on movement, the temporal experience is translated into a geometrical form, typically a line seemingly traced by the moving body on the space surrounding the body. Laban does not take issue with this observation; he simply appropriates it. Movement, writes Laban, “is made up of pathways tracing shapes in space, and these we may call ‘traceforms’.” 95 Notation makes use of trace-forms to record movement sequences. symbols break the along flowing apart, representingDirectional single “spatial appearances” theaction “definite path” of 96 the movement. Through this sequence of snapshots, the flowing unity of the movement may then be reconstructed from the notated score. Thus it can be seen that Laban’s allegiance to Bergson is twofold — he affirms the continuously flowing nature of movement but he is not loathe to make use of the instantaneous photographic views by which mental perception divides the flux and makes it available for analysis, documentation, and reconstruction.
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Space , Time, and P r opor tional Theo r y in L aba n’s Combination Drawings Bergson complained that when movement is depicted as a line in
space, it loses the temporal dimension of dynamic development and continuity. Laban was obviously sensitive to this problem. His combination drawings, which portray dancers surrounded by geometrical forms, provide insight into how he grappled with this issue. To begin with, an analogy may be drawn between these works and Rodin’s sculptural approach. Rodin’s approach, it may be recalled, consisted in compelling the viewer to follow the development of an action within the sculpted figure itself. Various phases of a movement were transcribed onto different parts of the sculpted body. The viewer’s eye was then directed, through compositional means, along a line through the sculpted form that followed the temporal development of the action. Thus the viewer perceived the progression of the action, and in this way an illusion of movement was created. Laban employs a similar strategy in his combination drawings, but with this difference. The progressive stages of the movement are not represented by different parts of the figure’s body. Rather, the temporal unfolding of the movement is projected onto the space around the body and represented by the trace-form. For example, in Plate K a dancer is depicted stepping onto the right leg and reaching forward while the left leg extends backwards in balanced countertension. The figural pose simply represents one phase of this action, while the trace-form surrounding the figure maps the ongoing sequence of movements that will follow this first step. by Presumably dancer continue the depicted starting position tracing thethe design thatcan hangs in the from air around her body. Laban’s choice of an angular form to represent the sequential development of this movement is of further interest, because it demonstrates his creative amalgamation of techniques developed by Leonardo da Vinci and Albrecht Dürer. In his attempt to depict the moving figure realistically, Leonardo da Vinci had theorized a “second form” of the human body that could be visualized as the trajectories of the limbs around their joints. He conceived these trajectories as circular forms
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projected on the space around the body. These circles were to be used to cope with problems of foreshortening, and can still be found in the figure drawing manuals of today. Dürer developed a different approach to the problem of foreshortening, one that is also still used today. He experimented with inscribing stereometric solids onto parts of the figure itself. These solids could be tilted and rotated in space to construct poses and calculate appropriate foreshortenings, then reconverted to the biomorphic shapes of the human figure. Laban seems to have integrated these two approaches in his combination drawings. The stereometric approach of Dürer is appropriated, but not applied to the figure itself. Rather, the solids are projected onto the space around the body, as Leonardo proposed, and used to describe, in spatial terms, the temporal progression of the movement. Clearly Laban was aware, like Leonardo, that bodily movement predominantly inscribes curves on the surrounding space. However, in order to record a movement, these curves must be related to some kind of directional referencing system. This is where Dürer’s solid geometrical forms became useful to Laban. Platonic solids like the cube, octahedron, and icosahedron partition three-dimensional space ina regular way, and their corners can be used as reference points for mapping movement pathways. When movement is mapped within a geometrical geography, the resulting angles of the trace-forms impose a rhythmic structure on the flowing curves of bodily motion through regularly occurring changes in direction. This is why Laban represents trace-forms as polygons, or, as he puts it, “circles in which there is spatial rhythm, as 97
distinct from time rationale rhythm.” for Laban’s use of a geometrical geography An additional to represent movement arises from his observations of the congruence between range of motion and the angles of polyhedral forms. Laban notes that “anatomically it has been shown that the body and its limbs can be moved only in certain restricted areas . . . which we called ‘zones’ of the limbs. In these [zones] the moving limbs describe certain angles of rotations and flexion. The size of the angle is determined by the individual structure of the joints.”98 Laban goes on to detail the range of motion of various parts of the body, then compares these biological measurements
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with the measurement of various geometrical angles found in the Platonic solid known as the icosahedron. Laban finds the angles of the icosahedron and the angles of limb movement to be equal or in a ratio of 1:2 or 2:1 — a proportional correspondence he describes as “quite astonishing.”99 Laban also points out that various Golden Section ratios found in the icosahedron parallel Golden Section ratios found in the human body. 100 He chose the icosahedron as the preferred stereometric projection for mapping trace-forms because of its kinship with the proportions of the human form and the range of motion of various limbs. While it occupies a position of particular significance, the icosahedron was not the only stereometric solid that Laban projected onto the kinesphere and used for mapping trace-forms. All the other Platonic solids — tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, and dodecahedron — were used at least experimentally. Of these, the cube and the octahedron proved to be particularly useful as systems of reference for recording dance. While any movement consists of an infinite number of positions along a trajectory in space, some of these positions seem to be more salient to the mover and viewer than others. Bergson described this phenomenon in the following way. Of the gallop of a horse our eye perceives chiefly a characteristic, essential or rather schematic attitude, a form that appears to radiate over a whole period and so fill up a time of gallop. It is this attitude that sculpture has fixed on the frieze of the Parthenon. But instantaneous photography isolates any moment; it putsthem all in the same rank, and thus the gallop of a horse spreads out for it into as many successive attitudes as it wishes, instead of massing itself into a single attitude, which is supposed to flash out in a privileged moment and to illuminate a whole period. 101 In other words, not only does our mental process break the flowing unity of a movement sequence into snapshots, it also accentuates and emphasizes certain snapshots more than others. Thus the memory condenses an image of the movement into a few characteristic poses or attitudes. Muybridge’s work may be seen to have first revealed this privileging of certain moments, because “his pictures startled artists,
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physiologists, and many others, for they showed that the conventional representations of motion, such as a horse running, a man walking, or an athlete vaulting, were composites on the brain of the observer.” 102 Laban also seemed to have been aware of this “privileging” of certain moments. This flux of time can, therefore, be understood as an infinite number of changing situations. Since it is absolutely impossible to take account of each infinitesimal part of movement we are obliged to express the multitude of situations by some selected peaks within the trace-form which have a special quality. The most characteristic, of course, are those which strike us by their spatial appearance, but we must remain aware of the fact that those selected for description are connected with one another by numberless transitory positions.103 This observation raises the question of how such selected peaks and privileged moments are to be chosen from among the numberless transitory positions. This is where Laban’s choice of polygons rather than circles to represent trace-forms becomes important. While Laban certainly translates a movement in time as a line in space, he does not then break that line by an arbitrary temporal unit, as in a chronophotograph. Instead, he divides the line of the movement into regular spatial intervals. By so doing, Laban creates polygonal tracings that are rhythmic. The regular changes of direction at set distances, marked by the angles in the form, accentuate certain “spatial appearances.” For example, Laban based his system of spatial orientation on the cardinal directions: up/down, right/left, and forward/backward. Laban perceived these directions to be accentuated in the five positions of classical ballet, which have been handed down in the oral tradition of dance instruction as “the simplest means of spatial orientation in the art of dance.” 104 If these directional points are situated around the dancer’s body and connected by surface lines, an octahedral scaffolding results. Rhythmic circles traced within this scaffolding will accentuate the cardinal directions and the characteristic attitudes associated with classical ballet forms.
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In Laban’s combination drawings, the “numberless transitory positions” are still visible in the continuous line of the trace-form, but the “peaks,” “privileged moments,” and “characteristic attitudes” can also be captured. This makes Laban’s work much more like the images captured by Bragaglia, where discrete positions of the moving figure are made to flow together through the blurring of the intermomental passages . Still, this may be begging the point. From a Bergsonian perspective, movement exists in space and time. Any visual representation, existing in space alone, appears destined to lose the dimension of time. But there must be some way to represent movement so that time, too, is integrated, just as the convention of perspective has come to be accepted as a convincing representation of deep space, even though the third dimension is actually missing. Laban resolved the problem of the representation of time in his notation system by the simple means of adjusting the length of symbols to indicate the duration of the actions for which they stood. This integrated quantitative time into the graphic symbol system Laban invented. On the other hand, time in dance is not merely a quantity; it also possesses rhythmic qualities that are roughly analogous to descriptive terms in music such as staccato, legato, forte, pianissimo, etc. Laban developed a rich descriptive taxonomy addressing these rhythmic dynamics. These descriptive terms and their symbolic representation have never been integrated entirely successfully into the Laban’s dance notation, however. Indeed, Laban appears to have believed that detailed recording of the spatial form and metric duration of bodily actions provided a sufficient representation of The movement, which dynamic rhythms be extrapolated. basis ofone thisfrom belief can the perhaps be traced to could ideas about the interrelationship of form and dynamics that were promulgated by the Art Nouveau theorists who dominated discourse about art during Laban’s years as a visual artist. Ar t Nouveau a nd t he Mode r nizat ion of For m As noted in Chapter 1, Art Nouveau was an international movement that swept across Europe during the fin-de-siècle period (circa 1890 – 1914). While the French terms for “new art” have been applied to the
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movement as a whole, Art Nouveau consisted of a number of local variations and designations. In Vienna, it was known as “Secession Style”; in Great Britain, “Arts and Crafts”; in Germany, “Jugendstil”; in Spain, “Modernista”; and in Italy, “Stile Floreale.” To further complicate matters, Art Nouveau as a label refers not only fine and decorative arts, but also to literature, theatre, and dance. Art Nouveau style can be perfectly embodied in the single objet d’art or “it can be a cohesive, integrated ensemble of construction and decoration.”105 Despite these ambiguities, the prevalence and wide circulation of various publications devoted to Art Nouveau, the possibility for artists to display their work at international exhibitions, and the opportunity for designers of one nation to find wealthy patrons in another ensured wide dissemination of ideas, theories, and stylistic examples.106 This has led Howard to observe that, Art Nouveau “is not a singular style but a movement in which certain 107
formal characteristics recur and certain ideologies are expressed.” Ideology unites the various manifestations of the Art Nouveau movement perhaps more obviously than stylistic features. As Greenhalgh observes, “Art Nouveau was the first self-conscious, international ly based attempt to transform visual culture through a commitment to the idea of the modern.” 108 This commitment to modernity was based upon recognition that the material conditions of European life had altered radically during the 19th century. If art was to find a role in these altered circumstances, theorist Meier-Graefe argued, “art itself must change.”109 It was clear that modern objects needed to look modern; the question was how to achieve this. The initial response was to reject that old had art; become that is, to turn away from the Classical and Renaissance models dominant through their promulgation and institutionalization by the art academies. This rejection had stylistic implications. Hard-won techniques of achieving the illusion of three-dimensionality were abandoned, as was the insistence that the artist’s job is to reproduce visual reality. Rather than rehash what had already been done, Art Nouveau artists searched for new sources of inspiration and new modes of depiction. If art were to be a part of contemporary life, then the ordinary objects of everyday life had to be transformed into works of art that were within economic reach of the
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common household. This led to a variety of artistic initiatives. Attempts were made to soften the division between applied and fine arts, to raise standards of public taste, and to utilize industrial means of production. Art Nouveau as a movement was egalitarian and visionary. By creating a “harmonious ensemble of equal arts,” the artists and designers aimed to transform European life.110 This transformational movement was spearheaded by practitioners of the decorative arts, for it was the illustrators, bookbinders, furniture makers, fabric designers, jewelers, glass makers, architects, and interior decorators whose explorations opened new stylistic horizons and established the formal characteristics associated with Art Nouveau. These artists looked for new sources of inspiration and found them in nature and in exotic decorative pattern. They explored design possibilities of stylization, working with flat surfaces, exploiting the interplay of foreground and background, and creating pattern and ornament through the skillful use of line. In the hands of these artists, “sinuous, sensuous, serpentine... line defined fluid, attenuated forms, played over surfaces, and created abstract pattern.”111 While the examination of nature provided visual motifs for the Art Nouveau artist, the study of antique and non-European forms of ornamentation provided insight into how to generate decorative patterns. Sourcebooks of both types were mined by designers and led to two approaches — one characterized by an emphasis on recognizable organic forms; the other, by an emphasis on abstract line. 112 This distinction is one of degree, not kind, as both approaches utilize stylization. Even when an organicits form is recognizable, its shape typically has been streamlined, flattened, curves or angles enhanced, its symmetry or asymmetry exaggerated, and the pattern made more rhythmic through the repetition of elements. This process is simply continued in more abstract designs until the organic form that may have provided initial inspiration is abstracted to the extent that it can no longer be identified clearly. Through these design processes, Art Nouveau artists escaped from the bonds of realistic depiction, and pioneered techniques that led to the development of abstract art. Many significant Art Nouveau artists “added literary works to their artistic creations.”113 These works, along with discussions taking
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place in psychology and aesthetics at that time, provided a theoretical underpinning for the transformation of visual culture that Art Nouveau artists hoped to realize. Emp at hy, Expr ession, and Abstr actio n During the latter part of the 19th century, developments in the psychological understanding of perception and cognition gave rise to new aesthetic theories. One of the most influential was the concept of empathy. The German aesthetician Robert Vischer was the first to introduce the term “empathy” into modern aesthetics, using the term “to describe the way in which we are able to project our feelings into the objects we perceive, thereby establishing a subjective, animate relation to the phenomenal world.”114 In relation to the perception of objects of art, Vischer is sometimes
seen to base his empathic projection on the physiological sensation of movement given by the eyes as their gaze roams. However, Vischer’s concept of empathy seems to rest as much on imaginary movement as on actual movement: “I transpose myself as a sensible and intellectual subject into the inner being of the object and explore its formal character from within … This kind of transposition can take a motor or sensitive form, even when it is concerned with lifeless or motionless forms. I can imagine to myself that this pine tree is about to move, or has just now been moving; I can entertain the thought of shooting up into space with it like arocket.”115 What is significant for this discussion is Vischer’s interjection of the body of the observer and its movement (both actual and imaginary) into aGerman theory of aesthetic form. theme was carried Lipps. forwardLipps by thewas eminent psychologist andThis aesthetician Theodor interested in how art communicated meaning. He hypothesized that meaning did not reside in the physical art object itself, but “was to be found in the empathic relationship forged between viewer and object.”116 The Swiss art critic Heinrich Wölfflin also addressed this relationship in his Prolegomena to a Psychology of Architecture (1886). Wölfflin asks how it is possible that architectural forms are able to express a feeling or mood. His answer goes beyond that of Vischer, for Wölfflin refuses to conceptualize empathy as a response based solely on vision, noting that
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“the architectural impression, far from being some kind of ‘reckoning by the eye’ is essentially based on a direct bodily feeling.”117 Wölfflin argues that the elements of architecture — material and form, gravity and force — make sense to us because of our own physical experiences. That is, “physical forms possess a character only because we ourselves possess a body.” Moreover, “our own bodily organization is the form through which we apprehend everything physical.”118 The theory of empathy, then, opens the way for an aesthetic subjectivity which is based upon bodily identification of the viewer with formal qualities in the art object. Meaning is not grounded in the extent to which an objet d’artresembles the object depicted. Rather, the potential for meaning resides in the formal qualities of the mode of presentation, which are of necessity more general and more abstract. This potential is released through the empathic identification of the observer with these formal qualities. This identification is possible because the viewer and the objet d’art coexist in the same ground of being in which the observers’ experiences of pressure and countertension, tempo, balance and imbalance can be related to similar qualities embedded in the work of art. Because the theory of empathy encouraged artists to look beyond the surface of the object to its more intrinsic characteristics, it became an important conceptual tool in the Art Nouveau artists’ search for new and dynamic forms. The influence of this concept is quite obvious in the work and writings of Jugendstil artists Hermann Obrist and his younger associate, August Endell. Obrist was well situated to work in a style that drew its inspiration from nature, his initial field of study was botany. After as abandoning botany for art,for Obrist studied ceramics briefly, then trained a sculptor at the Académie Julian in Paris before moving to Florence to set up an embroidery studio. Exhibitions of this work in 1896 established Obrist as pioneer of the “new art.” As Greenhalgh describes, Obrist’s embroideries “evoke rather than imitate nature,” they “float in space” as “tense, vibrant, and flame-like” designs. 119 Indeed, Obrist’s own writings reveal a fascination with movement, demanding dynamic energies and rhythm “not only of objects in motion but also of stable heavy masses.”120 In Obrist’s designs, roots, stems, and
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flowers were subject to whiplash-like contortions and spiral motifs. Similarly, his students were admonished to understand natural objects as images “full of expressive forces, full of linear, plastic, constructive movements of unprecedented abundance and astonishing variety.” 121 These ideas proved to be attractive to August Endell. Endell had studied philosophy and psychology with Theodor Lipps in Munich. A chance meeting with Obrist, however, turned his aspirations toward art. He rapidly established himself as a designer and architect. Together with Obrist, Endell became an eloquent advocate for Jugendstil, evoking the theory of empathy as a way toward a new art: “Though a circle may recall a ring and thereby elicit an association withfaithfulness and eternity, that has nothing to do with the immediate power of the form itself.”122 Instead of seeing forms as realistic representations or as symbols, Endell proposed a completely new approach, a Formkunst or form art. This would be “an art with forms which signify nothing, represent nothing and remind us of nothing, which arouse our souls as deeply and strongly as music has always been able to do.”123 Endell then went on to spell out the empathic reactions aroused by various kinds of lines. Straight and curved lines, narrow and wide lines, short and long lines, and the direction of the line were all correlated with various sensations and qualities. As Weiss outlines Endell’s thesis, “length or shortness of a line are functions of time, while the thickness and thinness are functions of tension in Endell’s system. Thus lines or line complexes and, ultimately forms, which are only modifications of line complexes, can express all the nuances of feeling experienced in movement, which 124
always exhibits bothcontroversial time, or ‘tempo,’ and tension.”in 1897-98, were Endell’s views, when published representative of widely-held assumptions of avant-garde artists that “attention to the specific details of the natural world was inconsistent 125 with fulfillment of the expressive potential of art.” Music — expressive, abstract, free from any necessity to refer to the natural world — came to be seen as an exemplar for the new visual arts. As Harrison and Wood observe, “August Endell and Kandinsky were among those for whom the apparently ‘universal’ expressiveness of music held out the possibility of an abstract visual art, its validity secured not by reference to the
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appearance of the material world, but rather by the supposed basicness of certain formal principles.”126 The Moder nizat ion of Fo r m an d Expr ession in D ance Just as proportional theorists and instantaneous photographers grappled with problems of representing movement, the avant-garde artists of Art Nouveau also wrestled with mobility in various ways. The visual arts were preoccupied with creating dynamic ornamental forms, while the performing arts struggled to open the theatrical space for movement and to free the performer’s body. Philosophical discussion addressed the experience of time, space, and motion, as aestheticians and psychologists theorized about the kinesthetic sense and its role in empathic apperception of form. Within this fin-de-siècle vortex, Laban was shifting his own interest from visual art to dance. Other artists of the period, notably the
Futurists, were also turning from the visual to the performance arts, favoring dynamic expression over static representation. Due to his determination to develop a notation system, Laban could not entirely forsake the representation of movement for its evanescent embodiment. It was vital to Laban that the dance leave a trace behind, and this forced him to continue to contend with the problems of representation. Consequently, the innovations in visual form that Laban witnessed through his proximity to the Art Nouveau worlds of Paris and Munich had important consequences for his emerging thoughts on dance, its theoretical structure, and its preservation through graphic representation. It has beenthrough noted that the Art Nouveau movement aimed toRefrains transform visual culture commitment to the idea of modernity. of these ideological concerns can be found in Laban’s work. He was dedicated to finding a relevant role for dance in contemporary society. Like other artists of the period, Laban rejected historical styles and pursued new forms for the modern dance. As Wigman writes, Laban told me once that it was the vision of a great work of art, a combination of dance, music, and poetry, which started him on his way. But how was such a dream to become reality when the
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chief instrument needed for the actual creation, the dance chorus, did not exist. The ballet dancer of that time was not fit for the dance as Laban envisioned. The modern dancer had not yet come into being. Laban had to build up the new instrument himself and the means of doing so.127 This was particularly true of Laban’s choreutic explorations, which aimed to open spatial possibilities for the dance beyond the traditional ones oriented around the cardinal directions. The resulting theory was innovative, for as Preston-Dunlop observed, “Laban’s choreutic forms, nearly all inclinational and positively counter-stable, were a direct attempt by him to provide other ways of moving than that provided by the ballet which is based on stable forms.”128 In addition to a quest for new forms, Art Nouveau artists aspired to create the total work of art or Gesamtkunstwerk, an orchestration of different art forms into a unified whole. Laban’s early experiments resonated with this aim. The Schule für Kunst (School for Art) in Ascona (1913) was not merely a center for dance, but included training in music and art. Laban’s subsequent school in Zurich (1915) advertised courses in Tanz-Ton-Wort (Dance, Sound, Word). Moreover, Laban’s synthetic leanings are quite clear in his views of dance itself. In his first book, Die Welt des Tänzers (The Dancer’s World,1920), Laban rhapsodically extolled the gestural power of dancing as an act that unifies feeling, thinking, and willing. If Laban abandoned the creation of Gesamtkunstwerk as a practical aim in the later decades of his career, he never forsook it as a theoretical aim. Dancing remained for him an orchestrated union of body and mind, apsychophysical Gesamtkunstwerk whose compositional principles awaited discovery. Art Nouveau artists not only created new art, they also generated novel theories. The emerging field of psychology contributed to the aesthetics of Art Nouveau, while the close connection between visual arts and music, dance, and theatre ensured further interchange of ideas. Three aspects of theory and practice seem particularly relevant to how Laban came to conceptualize space, form, and dynamics in dance. These include the theory of empathy, Art Nouveau approaches to the handling
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of line as a formal element, and practical techniques employed to create patterns and visual ornaments. Expression. The relevance of the theory of empathy arises from the importance ascribed to the kinesthetic and visual senses in the appreciation of form. Empathy was believed to rest upon physiological experiences and the viewer’s ability to associate these with the formal characteristics of the art object. Empathy provided a basis for the aesthetic understand ing of artwork that was neither naturalistic nor symbolic. This concept may have influenced Laban’s thinking as regards the relationship between form and expression. The theory of empathy suggests that the dynamic expression is inherent in the form and much of Laban’s thinking about affinities of effort and space would seem to rest upon the assumption that certain kinetic rhythms arise naturally in relation to the line and directional trajectory of the movement being performed.
Line. The way Art Nouveau regarded the formal characteristics of line would also seem to have had an impact on Laban’s conceptions of movement form. Dance can be seen as creating two kinds of forms or “ornaments” in space. The first is the bodily form that arises when the dancer momentarily holds a pose or assumes a position. The second kind of ornament is the more evanescent form created by actual movement through space; these transitional “disappearing” lines are what Laban called “trace-forms.” Both types of movement ornaments are complexes of lines. The English theorists were amongst the first to explore “the hidden utterance of ornament;” that is, the effects that certain forms have upon the mind.129 Jugendstil artists, notably August Endell, followed this idea a systematic way, attributing tempo andwent tension various typesthrough of lines.inBased upon these two parameters, Endell on totosuggest that line and line complexes could express “all the nuances of feeling experienced in movement.”130 Endell also dealt with direction, attributing different effects to vertical, horizontal, and oblique lines. It is possible to see in this Art Nouveau theory the seeds of Laban’s concepts of spatial tension and the harmony of effort and shape. Pattern. Finally, line complexes create ornaments and lead to pattern and design. Art Nouveau artists studied nature for formal arrangements and patterns. They also mined antique and exotic styles of ornament.
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Because these examples were not reproduced outright but used to generate novel designs, ornaments had to be analyzed to determine how they were constructed. Thus, part of the theory of Art Nouveau addressed the principles by which visual patterns can be generated. While the knowledge of pattern generation was applied by Art Nouveau artists primarily to two-dimensional surfaces, similar techniques can be applied to generate patterns in three dimensions. Laban appears to have drawn upon these principles of pattern generation to develop various choreutic sequences known by analogy to music as “scales.” The exact design methods he employed are discussed in more detail in subsequent chapters. Abstraction. Art Nouveau was a style that looked to nature for form and structure and yet rejected naturalistic representation. Stylization was its byword. The degree of abstraction employed in the treatment of natural forms by the organic and linear camps was more a matter of degree than a profound distinction. Nevertheless, a tension between the biomorphic and the geometric within Art Nouveau can be detected. This was not just a question of curves versus straight lines and angles. Rather it came to be seen as a difference in aesthetic viewpoint. Wilhelm Worringer, in his 1908 work, Abstraktion und Einfuhlung (Abstraction and Empathy), hypothesized that the urge to abstraction stood at the opposite pole from empathy, which aims towards an identification with lifeand its vital forces. Consequently, sensuous and dynamic biomorphic forms, even highly stylized ones, invite “objectified self-enjoyment,” that is empathic identification. 131 Geometrical objects, such as pyramids or Byzantine mosaics, invite an opposite response. One does not seek to identify empathically with the life forces of in such objects, their beauty lies “in the life-denying inorganic, theabstract crystalline or, infor general terms, 132 in all abstract law and necessity.” The urge to abstraction in its geometric purity is, for Worringer, a withdrawal from the external world of nature and “the unending flux of being.” 133 Laban seems to have alternated between a biomorphic view of space and movement form and a geometric, architectonic vision. This is reflected in his drawings in which trace-forms are rendered as flowing curves (see Plate L) or alternatively drawn as crystalline scaffoldings (Plate K). A similar vacillation has been noted in his writings. On the one hand,
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choreutic sequences are said to be organic phrases that can be seen to occur spontaneously in natural movements. On the other hand, the choreutic scales Laban identified are said to represent fundamental laws of space movement. Rather than replicating naturalistic movements, these sequences have been carefully constructed according to logical principles. Thus a tension between empathy and abstraction can be detected in choreutic theory. If one places Laban’s choreutic theory within an Art Nouveau context, choreutic sequences can be seen as a stylization of natural movement sequences. These geometrical patterns stand in relation to the biomorphic shapes of natural human movement as an angular ornamental border stands to the leaves and flowers from which it was derived. Like other Art Nouveau artists, Laban looked to nature, but what he created was artificial. The stylized geometry of movement pathways that Laban uses in his choreutic theory and notation system serves as a cognitive map for the mover, a crystalline abstraction through which the flowing biomorphic curves of natural movement may be conceptualized, recorded, and reconstructed. Harmony. In conclusion, the Art Nouveau movement instigated many innovations in theory and practice. Laban was able to draw upon these to stimulate his own theoretical and practical work in dance. For example, the search for modern forms led Laban away from the stable orientation of balletic tradition towards more oblique inclinations observable in naturally flowing movement sequences. Familiarity with the theory of empathy and its elaboration byJugendstil artists such as Obrist and Endell encouraged Laban toeukinetic hypothesize links between movement of lines or traceforms and dynamic, qualities. An understanding design and ornament allowed him to transform flat shapes into three-dimensional dance patterns. Even the Art Nouveau tension between biomorphic and geometrical forms proved to be fruitful in the development of a workable movement notation system. Indeed, the turning away from representation and naturalism towards stylization and abstraction that characterized the trajectory of the Art Nouveau movement was very important for Laban. As detailed in subsequent chapters, this “urge to abstraction” provided Laban with the
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practical tools he employed to conceptualize elements of human movement, to develop a symbolic form of dance notation, and to outline a theory of movement harmony. Art Nouveau was particularly influential with regard to the last enterprise. For fin-de-siècle artists such as Obrist, Endell, and Kandinsky, music was the non-representational art par excellence, Dionysian in its effect yet Apollonian in its construction. Music became a metaphor of expression made valid, not through reference to the superficial world of the senses, but by appeal to more fundamental abstract principles of harmonic construction. The Art Nouveau theorists looked for these principles in the visual environment; Laban sought them in the dancers’ world.
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Notes 11. Hughes, Shock of the New, 6. 12. Dictionary of Art, “Human proportion.”
13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 10. 11. 12. 13.
Vitruvius, Ten Books on Architecture, 72. Lawlor, Sacred Geometry, 44. Encyclopedia of World Art, “Proportion.” Hogarth, Dynamic Anatomy, 67. Critchlow, “Platonic Tradition,” 133. Bronowski, Ascent of Man, 157. Panofsky, Meaning in the Visual Arts, 65. Vitruvius, Ten Books on Architecture. Ibid., 73. Arnheim, Art and Visual Perception, 117. Panofsky, Meaning in the Visual Arts, 97-98.
14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.
Prinz, Dürer. Strauss, Human Figure, 6. Petherbridge and Jorda nova, Quick and the Dead. Panofsky, Meaning in the Visual Arts. Panofsky, Codex Huygens, 126. Dictionary of Art, “Human proportion.” Panofsky, Codex Huygens, 125. Ibid., 124. Panofsky, Life and Art of Dürer, 267. Ibid., 125. Panofsky, Meaning in the Visual Arts, 105.
25. of Art, “Academy.” 26. Dictionary Ibid. 27. The author wishes to express appreciation to L.V. Davis, an instructor of anatomy and drawing, for the hours of time spent studying Laban’s drawings and discussing them from an artist’s point of view. The remarks paraphrased come from one such conversation (December 3, 1997). 28. This study was undertaken with the tutelage of L.V. Davis, director of the Academy of Fine Art in Boulder, Colorado, during the spring and autumn months of 1997. Davis was a student of Clayton
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Martindale, who was John Singer Sargent’s assistant. Sargent was an American portraitist who studied in Paris during the 1870s. Davis claims with some justification that his school teaches anatomy and
29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.
figure drawing as it has not been taught in a systematic manner since the collapse of the great art academies of Europe. Chastel, Genius of Leonardo da Vinci, 130. Hale and Coyle, Anatomy Lessons. Daval, Photography. Newhall, History of Photography, 117. Harrison and Wood with Gaiger, Art in Theory 1815-1900, 669. Edgerton and Killian, Moments of Vision, 49. Robert Taft, introductory comments in Muybridge, Human Figure in Motion, viii. Rabinbach, Human Motor.
37. Edgerton and Killian, Moments of Vision, 49. The zoetrope was a child’s toy that had a series of figures on the inside of a revolving cylinder. When viewed through slits in the cylinder, the revolving figures appeared to be animated. Muybridge adapted this device and used it to project his photographs, creating an illusion of movement. 38. Rabinbach, Human Motor, 103. 39. Newhall, History of Philosophy, 121. 40. Ibid. 41. Ibid., 122. 42. Pollack, Picture History of Photography, 213. 43. Rabinbach, Human Motor, 102. 44. 45. Ibid. Taft, introductory comments in Muybridge, Human Figure in Motion, viii. 46. Newhall, History of Photography, 123. 47. Ibid., 122-123. 48. Daval, Photography, 68. 49. Rodin, Rodin on Art and Artists, 34. 50. Ibid., 32. 51. Daval, Photography, 68. 52. Rodin, Rodin on Art and Artists, 33.
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53. Ibid., 33-34. 54. Daval, Photography, 68. 55. The actual invention of the cinematography in 1895 is usually credited
56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62.
to the French Lumière brothers, but any number of similar devices prefigured their patent. Read, History of Modern Painting, 108. Ibid., 109. Ibid., 110. Hughes, Shock of the New, 44. Rabinbach, Human Motor. Read, History of Modern Painting, 113. Ibid., 112. This is perhaps overly harsh on the part of Read. The Futurist Umberto Boccioni did in fact have a theory of movement. Rather than depicting a gesture atits moment of action, or synthesizing
many gestures into one characteristic attitude, Boccioni wanted “physical forces to be diffused into the environment and to superpose and flood one over the other like vibrations” (Coen, Umberto Boccioni). In early Futurist works this was accomplished by a multiplication of limbs to show movement, much like a chronophotograph. Later works became more abstract; the object in motion disappeared and only lines of force and color were used to diffuse the movement across the whole canvas. What resulted was not a representation of an identifiable body in motion, but only the motion itself as pictorial dynamism. 63. There had always been a theatrical element in Futurism, with its various manifestos being declaimed in public,for often brawling, arrest, and very useful publicity the leading artists. to F.T. Marinetti, founder of the movement, came to embrace cabaret for its simplicity of means, its anti-academic position, and its primitive appeal. Futurist performances, beginning around 1915, incorporated scenery, costumes, movement, music, noise, and poetry and can be seen as the prototype for the Zurich Dada performances in which Laban’s dancers performed in 1917 and 1918. These later performances were organized by Hugo Ball, who acknowledged Marinetti and Frank Wedekind as his inspiration. Both Futurist and
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Dadaist performances were meant to shock, and the incorporation of movement was part of the multimedia onslaught on the bourgeois sensibilities of the audiences. Tisdall and Bozzolla, Futurism. Ibid., 138. Daval, Photography, 79. Tisdall and Bozzolla, Futurism, 142. Daval, Photography, 68. White, Age of Analysis, 66. Pete Gunter comm ents on this remark able popu larity in his introduction to Bergson, Creative Evolution, xviii. 71. Segel, Body Ascendant, 184. 72. Masur, Prophets of Yesterday,261. 73. Ibid., 253. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70.
74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84.
Ibid., 254. Rabinbach, Human Motor, 110. Bergson, Creative Evolution, 395. Bergson, Matter and Memory, 246. Ibid. Bergson, Creative Mind, 16. White, Age of Analysis, 68. Bergson, Creative Mind, 16. Ibid. Ibid., 190. Bergson, Creative Evolution, 306.
85. Creative Mind, 143.aligned itself with Bergson ’s intuitive 86. Bergson, Bragaglia’s photodynamism view of movement. Rather than the discrete images rendered in the work of Muybridge and Marey, Bragaglia’s multiple images blur and overlap, filling in the spaces between positions so that a sense of continuous flow unifies the passage of the moving figure. Bragaglia was critical of the mechanical arbitrariness of chronophotography and the shattered rhythm of cinematography. His work echoes Bergson, reflecting “the notion that it is more human to capture what lies in the interval” (Tisdall and Bozzolla, Futurism, 138).
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187. This treatise was published in England in 1966 as Choreutics and reprinted in the U.S. under the title The Language of Movement in 1974. Page numbers cited in this book are taken from the American 188. 189. 190. 191. 192. 193. 194. 195. 196. 197.
version of Laban’s treatise. Ibid., 3. Ibid., 4. Bergson, Matter and Memory, 265. Ibid., 289. Laban, Language of Movement, 4. Ibid. Ibid., 5. Ibid. Ibid., 4 Ibid., 26.
198. Ibid., 106. 199. Ibid., 108. 100. The Golden Section is found within the icosahedron as a ratio between surface lines and internal rays. Laban points out that “the Golden Section is also considered to be the ruling proportion between all the different parts of the perfectly built human body,” and notes that “from the time of the Renaissance Leonardo da Vinci’s analysis of the human figure based on the Golden Proportion has been well known” (Language of Movement, 108). Leonardo was not the only Renaissance artist to have worked with the Golden Proportion. In his studies of various body types, Dürer found only
101. 102. 103. 104.
one constant andisthis was a Golden ratio which the length of the lower leg to the thigh as the Section thigh is to thein torso (Dictionary of Art, “Human proportion”). Bergson, Creative Evolution, 332. Taft, introductory comments in Muybridge, Human Figure in Motion, vi-viii. Laban, Language of Movement, 28. Laban’s comments, taken from his first treatise on choreutics and notation, Choreographie (1926), are cited in Maletic, Body Space Expression, 59.
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105. Howard, Art Nouveau, 2. 106. A variety of publications devoted to the applied arts emerged across Europe in the late 1800s. The British led the way with Century
Guild Hobby Horse (1884), The Studio (1893), and The Yellow Book (1894). Germany followed with Pan (1895) and Die Jugend (1896). Austria, Spain, France, Belgium, Scotland, and Russia also had periodicals covering the Art Nouveau movement. Meanwhile, the Paris Exposition of 1900 provided a venue for the display of decorative arts done in the new style, such as the theatre designed for Loie Fuller by architects Henri Sauvage and Pierre Roche and the Siegfried Bing gallery. This was followed by the Turin Exposition of 1902, in which the best work of avant-garde designers from across Europe was displayed. Commissions made it possible for these designers to work internationally. For example, the Belgian
107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112.
designer Henri Van de Velde worked in Germany, Alphonse Mucha (srcinally Moravian but associated with French Art Nouveau) worked in Prague, while the English architects C.R. Ashbee and Hugh Bailee Scott had clients in Hungary and Poland. Howard, Art Nouveau, 1-2. Greenhalgh, Art Nouveau, 18. Ibid. Ibid., 20. Greiff, Art Nouveau, 26. For example, in 1856 Owen Jones published The Grammar of Ornament. This publication included 90 plates of ornamental motifs from different demonstrated goodWidely design used according to 37civilizations propositionsthat formulated by Jones. and circulated, it was a prophetic work. It marked a change in European aesthetics in several ways: by displaying “primitive” art for its design content and by suggesting nature as a basic design source. Jones’s work is now seen to have played a role in the move towards non-representational art. In addition, there are other notable treatises on decoration by English artists such as Christopher Dresser (1873) and Walter Crane (1896). Techniques of pattern generation were addressed by Mucha, Verneuil, and Auriol (ca.
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1900). Sources of biomorphic forms used by artists include the photos of Blossfeldt (1900) and Haeckel’s Kunstformen der Natur (Artforms in Nature, 1904). All of these design sourcebooks are 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 122.
still in print. Schmutzler, Art Nouveau, 12. Harrison and Wood with Gaiger, Art in Theory, 690. Vischer, “Aesthetic Act and Pure Form,” 692. Greenhalgh, Art Nouveau, 435. Wölfflin, “Prologomena ,” 714. Ibid., 712. Greenhalgh, Art Nouveau, 292. Wichmann, Jugendstil Art Nouveau, 120. Hiesinger, Art Nouveau in Munich, 80. Endell, cited in Weiss, Kandinsky in Munich, 36.
123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129. 130. 131. 132. 133.
Endell, “Beauty of Form,” 63. Weiss, Kandinsky in Munich, 36. Harrison and Wood, Art in Theory, 15. Ibid. Wigman, Mary Wigman Book, 32. Preston-Dunlop, “Choreutics,” 139. Dresser, Principles of Victorian Decoration, 4. Endell, cited in Weiss, Kandinsky in Munich, 36. Worringer, Abstraction and Empathy, 69. Ibid., 68. Ibid., 71.
C HAPTER 4
Space: The Ou ter Doma in of Hum an Movement The Dancer Moves from Place to Place When Laban the visual artist shifted his interest to dance, his goal was to put dance on equal footing with the other arts. The initial problem he tackled was the development of a serviceable graphic notation, one that would allow movement to be recorded and reconstructed from a written score. Finding a means to record dance was central to Laban’s aim, for he recognized that no “temporal art” could achieve “full development” without a notation to “capture, preserve, and examine its ephemeral creations.”1 2
It took Laban “fourteen years of continuous slog” to develop a workable notation system. As it turned out, finding a way to record dance was not one problem but several. First Laban had to identify key elements of dance; that is, he had to delineate a “grammar” for the language of movement. Secondly he had to create graphic signs for these elements, and then specify syntactical rules for the use of these signs in recording dance. Ultimately, Laban’s research extended beyond a concern with syntax to include a search for “harmonic” principles that could explain the dense coherence of elements in the flowing motions of dance. None of these challenges was easy to resolve. Given what is known about Laban’s working methods, it is probable that he did not view these as discrete problems but as interrelated concerns.3 Nevertheless, for ease of discussion, this part of the book focuses on Laban’s identification of key elements of dance, introducing his taxonomy of movement, along with symbols for elements of this classification system. Historical development of the taxonomy is not the central point of this discussion. Rather, the aim is to provide a basis for subsequent examination of syntactical and harmonic principles by explicating key elements of the grammar of movement, as Laban constructed it. Laban observed that “the dancer moves, not only from place to place, but also from mood to mood.”4 In this beautifully economical statement,
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Laban captures the psychophysical nature of dance and lays out the two broad domains of his movement taxonomy. Physical movement from place to place occurs in the visible outer domain of space. Psychological shifts from mood to mood occur in the inner domain of thought and feeling but 5 can be inferred from the dynamic manner in which an action is performed. This chapter addresses observable sequences of movement in the outer domain of space. In Laban’s view, the unfolding of movement in space is not random. Rather, there is an underlying logic governed by the anatomical structure of the human body and the nature of terrestrial or gravity-bound space itself. Since the lines of movement vanish even as they are being traced, the first step to discovering this underlying logic is to be able to capture these forms by mapping the dancer’s space. Geogr aph ies of the “K inespher e”
Finding an appropriate way to describe and record the evanescent unfolding of movement is not a simple matter. Imagine the following dance sequence. A ballerina enters upstage left and performs a series of traveling turns to end center stage. Here she pauses, extending her right leg in arabesque, then sweeps her leg around and forward while her arms trace wide arcs overhead. In this seemingly simple sequence, two kinds of spatial movement occur. The dancer travels through space (from upstage left to center stage) and the dancer continues to move while in place (performing a series of leg and arm gestures). Mapping these two types of movement requires different approaches. Movement through space can be captured on a two-dimensional map. The territory of the stage can be depicted with a floor plan, clearly indicating stage directions. The pathway that the dancer follows can then be drawn as a simple line or arrow. Facing pins can be added to show the starting and ending orientations, as shown in Figure 4-1.
Figure 4-1. Floor plan. Dancer enters upstage left and travels on a straight path to end stage center, facing the audience.
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This is the scheme utilized in Labanotation and Kinetography Laban. Since two-dimensional maps are commonly used for navigation, writing or reading a movement record like this is straightforward. However, mapping the second series of actions — those the dancer performs while stationary — presents a different sort of challenge. A flat map will not suffice, for now the problem is how to capture movements in threedimensions. Laban developed an interesting solution to this problem. He conceived of the space around the body as a territory that is spherical in shape and referred to this personal movement space as the “kinesphere.” The limits of this territory are defined by the body’s range of motion while stationary; thus the kinesphere is the space that can be reached without taking a step. Laban pointed out that “we are able to outline the boundary of this imaginary sphere with our feet as well as with our hands.” 6 With the additional actions of bending, stretching, and twisting the torso, any part of this spherical area around the body can be reached. Moreover, even when traveling through general space, the kinesphere is carried along and surrounds the dancer “like a shell.” 7 Laban’s description makes it sound as though the kinesphere is a fixed territory, with set boundaries that are established by the reach of fully extended limbs, aided by twisting, bending, tilting actions of the torso. The kinesphere should actually be thought of as something far more fluid and malleable, for the shape and boundaries of the actual kinesphere can only be established by the dancer’s motion. Thus, the kinesphere can grow and shrink in size, depending upon whether the dancer is using extended limbs, is or limited, keeping the the kinesphere movement close to the body. If thefully width of movement may be more disc-like than spherical in shape. If the mover is only using certain areas of the kinesphere while avoiding others, the kinesphere may be lopsided, like a partially collapsed ball. While the potential kinesphere may be thought of as a fixed bubble of space onto which movement is superimposed, the shape and size of the actual kinesphere is established, as Bergson puts it, by “real motion that deposits space beneath itself.” 8 Fin ding Landm arks for the Ki nesphere. The kinesphere provides a conceptual starting point for mapping movements in three dimensions.
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However, just as landmarks and directions are necessary when mapping an area in two dimensions, some sort of reference points are necessary to describe pathways through the territoryof the kinesphere. Laban’s solution was to consider the five Platonic solids – the tetrahedron, the cube, the octahedron, the icosahedron, and the dodecahedron – as possible geographies for the kinesphere.
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
Figure 4-2. Platonic solids: (a) tetrahedron, (b) cube, (c) octahedron, (d) icosahedron, (e) dodecahedron.
(e)
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These regular polyhedra bear Greek names reflecting the number of their sides. The tetrahedron has four triangular sides, the cube (or hexahedron) has six square sides, the octahedron has eight triangular sides, the icosahedron has twenty triangular sides, and the dodecahedron has twelve pentagonal (five-sided) faces. These forms are considered to be regular because all the sides or faces are the same shape and size. Moreover, the edges of each side are the same length, and the angles between edges at each corner are identical. Because these polyhedra are three-dimensional, they encompass space, as a sphere does. Mathematically, these shapes are considered to be “regular graphs on a sphere.” 9 Their corners and edges create a graph-like grid. Laban recognized that these regular grids could be exploited to create a kind of longitude and latitude for the kinesphere. In particular, Laban discovered that three of the Platonic solids – the octahedron, the icosahedron, and the cube – were very useful for capturing characteristic pathways used in dance and other movement arts. The corners of these forms not only serve as markers for the beginning and ending locations of movement through the kinesphere; they also provide a geography of landmarks that corresponds to the dancer’s fundamental conceptual organization of movement space.10 Cardinal Directions and the Octahedron. Laban’s geometrical scheme for mapping movement initially seems quite abstract. Yet abstract spatial concepts are made palpable through bodily experience. For example, our upright posture establishes the cardinal directions. Up is headward, away from the ground; down is towards the feet. Forward is the direction we face; backward is what behind of For the bilateral symmetry of the body, right andisleft are aus.bitBecause different. example, if the right arm extends to the right, the torso is exposed. If the right arm reaches to the left across the midline of the body, the torso is protected. This leads Laban to observe that the bodily experience of gesturing to the right or to the left is one of opening versus closing and depends, not only on the direction of the movement, but also on the side of the body that is leading the action. Up, down, forward, backward, open, and closed arecalled the cardinal directions because they form the simplest conceptual map that can be
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used to make sense of space. Each pair of opposite directions corresponds to a cardinal dimension. Up/down establishes the vertical dimension of height; right/left establishes the horizontal dimension of width, and forward/backward establishes the sagittal dimension of depth. These dimensions can be represented as a set of three intersecting lines perpendicular to one another. Linking the ends of this dimensional cross creates an octahedron, as shown in Figure 4-3.
Figure 4-3. Dimensional axes link to form the internal scaffolding of an octahedron. In developing a system for spatial orientation, Laban drew upon his military background, observing that the movements made in every kind 11 of fighting “correspond closely to our fundamental orientation in space.” In extreme situations of attack and defense, movements must be related to anatomical structure, for certain vulnerable regions of the body have to be protected effectively. In relation to the cardinal dimensions, Laban explains that an upward to defend theside. head, downward movement with the rightmovement arm servesistoused protect the right A amovement of the right arm across the body guards the left jugular vein, while an opening movement defends the right jugular vein. The left flank is protected by a backward movement across the body. A movement forward defends the abdomen. The series of parries usedin the opening movements in fencing stylize this sequence of cardinal directions, linking “the different zones of the body and its limbs in a logical way.” 12 In addition to serving as a system of reference in the martial arts, Laban observed that the cardinal directions provide “the simplest means
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of spatial orientation” in dance.13 An emphasis on these simple directions is found in European folk dances, in which the body is held erect while a pattern of forward, backward, sideways open and sideways crossing steps are performed. Laban also detected an octahedral geometry in the “traditional teaching of ballet” based on a “static theory” of body carriage and position.14 With its emphasis on placement and balance, the ballet barre is organized around the cardinal directions. Pliés and relevés along the vertical axis are combined with arm and leg gestures, forward, sideward, and backward. These directions continue to be reiterated in center floor work; and in performance, spectacular balances often crystallize along the dimensional axes. While Laban observed that “all our steps and gestures of the arms are rhythmical changes between stability and mobility,” he discovered that certain lines of movement enhance stability while others facilitate 15
mobility. For example, Laban observed that movements containing dimensional tensions give a feeling of stability. This stability arises from the relationship of the dimensional axes of the octahedron to gravity. When poised upright on a corner, the octahedron’s central vertical axis is plumb with the line of gravity. The horizontal axis is perpendicular to the vertical, as is the sagittal axis. The value of being plumb with or perpendicular to the gravitational axis has long been appreciated by architects, for adherence to these lines ensures structural stability. The human body and its movements were viewed as a kind of “living architecture” by Laban.16 Like a building, the human form must balance compression and tensile forces to remain standing. Consequently, the major weights of the shoulder girdle and pelvis are suspended at right angles to the spine. The legs rise upwards, two mobile supports upon which the cross-beam of the pelvis rests. Meanwhile the heavy head is placed precariously atop the vertebral column. According to Todd, if the skull, the thorax and the pelvis “are balanced at center in relation to the axis of gravity, there will be no unequal strain upon ligaments or muscles around the joints.”17 To facilitate this centering of weights, the three vestibular canals of the inner ear are arrayed at right angles to one another so as to signal displacement in each plane of motion. Postural reflexes provide automatic protection if one strays too far from the axis of gravity.
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By these lively means, the human body can maintain its balance throughout a variety of activities. The same spatial geography that provides architectural stability also enhances stability in physical actions. Consequently, acrobats and dancers rehearse vertical alignment to facilitate balanced support. Spectacular poses can be held as long as verticality is maintained and the line of gestures is more or less perpendicular to a vertical axis of support. If the vertical axis begins to tilt, the pose either collapses or flows into another movement. And this introduces a new spatial geography. Cardinal Planes and the Icosahedron. Laban “intended to create a dynamic theory of form,” 18 and this led him to consider movement possibilities inherent in an icosahedral geography. The icosahedron, with twelve corners and twenty triangular faces, is more spherical in shape than the octahedron. Moreover, hidden inside this form are three rectangular planes. The icosahedron can be situated in such a way that these internal planes correspond to the cardinal planes of motion. Again, there is a close relationship between the anatomy of the human body and the planar scaffolding of the icosahedron, as shown in Figure 4-4. The vertical plane, which extends through the kinesphere like a door, corresponds to what is called the frontal plane in anatomy. This plane divides the dancer’s space, separating the area in front of the body from the space behind. The horizontal plane, which stretches through the kinesphere like a table, is known anatomically as the lateral plane. It divides the space above waist level from the space below. The sagittal plane, which extends through the kinesphere like a wheel, separates the space to the right side of the body from the space to the left.
(a)
(b)
(c)
Figure 4-4. Cardinal planes of icosahedron: (a) vertical, (b) horizontal, (c) sagittal.
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Two diameters lie in each of the three cardinal planes. These lines connect opposite corners of each plane and intersect in the center of the icosahedron, creating another kind of internal scaffolding for this polyhedron, as shown in Figure 4-5. The planar diameters are neither plumb with the line of gravity nor perpendicular to it. They incline away from the dimensional cross, making planar movement in an icosahedral geography less stable and more dynamic.
(a) (b)
(c)
Figure 4-5. Oblique diameters: (a) vertical plane, (b) horizontal plane, (c) sagittal plane. Acrobatic maneuvers utilize the cardinal planes. Cartwheels take place in the vertical plane; somersaults, in the sagittal plane; and flying barrel turns, in the horizontal plane. Cyclical movements in these planes require the mover to tilt off the plumb line of gravity, and this off-vertical tilting provides “other ways of moving than that provided by ballet which is based on stable forms.” 19 In his own choreographic work, Laban explored the icosahedral scaffolding to develop “inclinational and positively counter-stable” dance sequences.20 Consequently the dynamic potential of planar movement has come to be associated with many 20th century modernand dance Diagonals thestyles. Cube. The eight corners of the cube provide another set of coordinates for mapping movement in the kinesphere. Just as the corners of the octahedron are connected by a set of three dimensional lines that intersect in the center, opposite corners of the cube are connected by a set four diagonal rays that also intersect in the center, as shown in Figure 4-6. These sharply oblique lines are composed of complex directions, combining height, width, and depth in equal proportions. When Laban investigated the quality of movement along these diagonals, he found that “real mobility is almost always produced
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by the diagonal qualities of an inclination.”21 Again, architecture provides a clue to this observation. Any architectural structure that tilts or is not plumb will tend to fall. The Leaning Tower of Pisa is marvelous for this reason. The whole building is oblique, and yet it stands. In terms of bodily architecture, movement towards a corner of the cube promotes a flowing mobility and supports rapid transitions and changes in level, such as jumping and falling.
Figure 4-6. Diagonals of the cube.
Notation Basics. Laban embedded octahedral, icosahedral, and cubic geometries in his notation system, developing a series of symbols to represent all the dimensional, planar, and diagonal directions. These symbols are easy to decipher once the reader is properly oriented as follows. It is common practice in dance classfor the teacher to demonstrate with his/her back to the students. This is done so that the right and left sides of the teacher and students correspond. Likewise, a movement forward or backward for the teacher will also be forward or backward
for the students. This same orientation is used in notation. The mover is visualized as standing in the kinesphere with his/her back to the reader, as in Figure 4-7. This orientation allows the reader to kinesthetically identify with the directions taken by the mover.
Figure 4-7. Orientation in kinesphere.
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Laban designed the shape of the symbol to indicate the direction of the movement. There are only four shapes, as shown in Figure 4-8.
Figure 4-8. Direction symbol shapes. The rectangle is used to represent the center of the kinesphere or “place.” Place corresponds to the center of weight for the mover, which is plumb with gravity. When the other symbols are arrayed around this center, as if the viewer were looking down on the kinesphere from above, each shape “points” in the direction it symbolizes, as shown in Figure 4-9.
Figure 4-9. Directions of kinesphere. These direction symbols are elaborated by shading the symbol to indicate the level of the movement. There are three levels – low, middle, high. The shadings for these levels are shown in Figure 4-10.
Figure 4-10. Shading indicates level.
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Level shading can be added to all the direction shapes in order to depict the dimensions (shown in Figure 4-11 in relation to the octahedron), the corners of the planes (shown in Figure 4-12 in relation to the icosahedron) and the diagonals (shown in Figure 4-13 in relation to the cube).
Figure 4-11. Dimensional directions.
Figure 4-12. Planar directions.
Figure 4-13. Diagonal directions.
.
The 26 direction symbols shown above, plus the symbol for center ( ), provide simple coordinate points for a longitude and latitude of the kinesphere. Movement trajectories can be mapped by indicating starting and ending locations and significant transitional landmarks. The pathway of a movement can be captured in a simple motif, as shown in Figure 4-14. In this notational format, the sequence of directions should be read from left to right. This is the format that will be used throughout the rest of this book.
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Figure 4-14. Simple directional motif. Lines of Motio n an d Their C har acter istics In Laban’s taxonomy, prototypic lines of motion are clustered in various groupings based upon shared characteristics. Laban advocated a multilateral description of movement, and this can be seen in the criteria he used to create categorical clusters. For example, lines of motion are grouped according to shared geometric characteristics of some kind. In addition, these common geometrical characteristics have to be palpable
feel similarities at thedifferences level of kinesthesia; that of is, athe mover must be Laban able to recognizes and in the nature trajectories. that the geometry of space and the crystalline geographies he uses for orienting movement can seem cold and intellectual in contrast to the sensuous experience of flowing movement. Nevertheless, he believes that a dancer can learn to “comprehend living movement within geometrical plasticity,”22 uniting an intellectual understanding of space with a bodily feeling for expressive movement. Laban goes on to suggest that “with the growing understanding of our kinaesthetic sense we may recognize that our nerves have the capacity for a genuine perception of spatial qualities.”23 This assertion underlies his concept of spatial tension. Concept of “Spatial Tension.” While this term was introduced in Laban’s first book, Die Welt des Tänzers, and revisited in other writings, he does not offer a concise definition in any work. Spatial tension appears to be a composite concept. On the subjective level, the term addresses changes in muscular activation and sensation related to shifts in the mover’s relationship to the plumb line of gravity. At the objective level, spatial tension addresses the complexity of the line of motion in threedimensional space, differentiating one-, two-, and three-directional inclinations. Axial lines, or internal rays, connect the corners of the octahedron,
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icosahedron, and cube. These axes also indicate trajectories through the kinesphere. In Laban’s taxonomy, these lines of motion show distinct differences in terms of spatial complexity. For example, the axial lines of the octahedron correspond to the cardinal dimensions. Movements toward the corners of the octahedron can be described simply with a single word – up, forward, right, etc. From Laban’s point of view, movements towards these pure dimensions have only one directional pull or “spatial tension.” The axial lines of the icosahedron are more complex. The planar diameters are tilted away from the plumb line of gravity. Moving towards an upper corner of the vertical plane, for example, requires a combination of directions; one must reach not only upward but also sideward. Thus Laban referred to lines of motion in the planes of the icoashedron as having two spatial tensions. Moreover, because these planes are rectangular, not square, displacement from the center of the plane to the corner will not be equal; that is, there will be more movement in one direction than in the other. Consequently, the two spatial tensions are unequal in proportion, making these diametral lines of motion more complex than the one-dimensional trajectories of the octahedral axes. The diagonal rays connecting opposite corners of the cube are even more complicated. Unlike movement in the flat, two-dimensional planes, these oblique diagonals are fully three-dimensional. To reach an upper corner of the cube requires not only reaching upward and sideward; one must also reach forward or backward. Thus Laban referred to movement along the diagonals of the cube as having three spatial tensions. Because the internal planes of the cube are square (rather than rectangular), movement the center the cube towards anyofcorner requires that the vertical,from horizontal, andofsagittal components the trajectory be balanced equally. These differentiations of directional complexity are discernible kinesthetically. In moving along or balancing in alignment with dimensions, planar diameters, or cubic diagonals, the body takes on differing relationships to the pull of gravity. As Juhan points out, gravity is felt as an “attraction to the ground,” and all movement is a “balance between surrender and resistance to this downward pull.” In movement, it is “muscular sensations which provide the mechanisms used by the
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mind to sense and control this balance.”24 This leads Juhan to conclude that “our very concept of space itself is primarily muscular.” 25 While over 200 individual muscles have been delineated, as Cash points out, “the moving body should not be seen as the individual action of separate muscles. The system works together as a whole to develop patterns of muscular activity.”26 This view agrees with Laban’s perception of the skeleton “as a crystalline structure created by the numerous (oneand multi-dimensional) pulls of active muscles on individual bones, spreading muscular tensions through larger or smaller segments of the skeleton in ordered tension sequences.”27 Contraction of one part of the musculature will necessitate lengthening of other parts, while any extension of a limb in space will require bracing elsewhere in the structure. According to Juhan, in order to execute any single change ofshape, “the entire musculature must always utilize many of the different directions of pull afforded by the arrangement” of muscles, tendons, and bony levers. Consequently, “we will be closer to the complex truth in our conceptualization of muscular activity if we regard the body as having only one muscle, whose millions of fibre-like cells are distributed throughout the fascial network and are oriented in innumerable directions, creating innumerable lines of pull.”28 Among these many lines of pull, Laban identified two main types. The first is simply two opposing pulls. This is viewed as a simple countertension, a kind of reflective body symmetry in which one limb reaches in one direction while another opposes thisreach by extending in the opposite direction. Laban perceives this type of spatial countertension as an 29
automatic, “often involuntary” motion to “re-establish balance.” Laban also identified more complex body-space patterns, which he referred to as “chordic” tensions. These plastic poses or motions of the whole body occur when three or more “spatial/tension paths radiate into space simultaneously.”30 For example, Laban writes that a flying leap “is likely to be many-directional,” since such a complicated movement necessitates “a series of secondary tensions executed by many smaller parts of the body, its limbs, or its trunk.” 31 Locating Lin es of Motion in the Kinesph ere. Spatial tension is also affected by where the line of motion occurs in the area around the body.
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Location in the kinesphere is a second criterion that Laban used to catergorize lines of motion. He identified three clusters: (1)lines of motion that pass through the center of the kinesphere, (2) lines of motion that stay on the periphery, and (3) lines that traverse the space between the outer boundary and the center of the kinesphere — these last lines are referred to as transversals. In this schema, the dimensional axes of the octahedron, the planar diameters of the icosahedron, and the diagonal axes of the cube are all central lines of motion. All these lines intersect in the center of the kinesphere. Because the dancer also occupies the center of this movement space, the dimensions, diameters, and diagonals can be conceived to emanate from and pass through the dancer’s body. As Laban puts it, “innumerable directions radiate from the center of our body and its kinesphere into infinite space.”32 Prototypic central pathways are those of the dimensions, diagonals, and planar diameters, as shown in Figure 4-15.
Figure 4-15. Key directions emanating from center of kinesphere. Rudolf Laban Archive L/E/14/54 ©NRCD.
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In contrast to the central trajectories illustrated in Figure 4-15, peripheral pathways circuit the outside boundaries of the sphere of personal space, avoiding the center. Laban sometimes refers to these as “surface movements.” 33 He uses the edges of the octahedron, the icosahedron, and the cube as prototypes for these peripheral lines of motion. For example, a grand battement to the front follows a peripheral pathway from place low to forward middle tracing an edge of the octahedron.
Throwing a Frisbee follows a peripheral pathway along an edge of the horizontal plane of the icosahedron.
Frisbee Dusting the top edge of a picture frame follows a peripheral pathway along an edge of the cube.
Again, while innumerable peripheral pathways are possible, the longitude and latitude provided by the edges of these three polyhedra are sufficient for charting most surface movements. Transverse movements indicate a third type of trajectory. These lines of movement cut between the surface and center of the kinesphere. In general, movements that sweep obliquely through space from one zone of the kinesphere to another will tend to follow a transverse pathway. Laban situates all the prototypic transversals in the icosahedron. By definition, these lines of motion connect the corner of one plane to the corner of a second plane by passing through a third plane. For example, a movement that sweeps from the upper right corner of the vertical plane to the lower back corner of the sagittal plane will cut through the horizontal plane.
Laban identified twenty-four transversals inside the icosahedron, which became his preferred model of the kinesphere. 34
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Why Laban Pr eferr ed the Ico sahe dr on Laban emphasized that “the idea of using the icosahedron as the scaffolding of the kinesphere arose spontaneously from the study of
movement and dance. The present systematic description therefore is not imposed from without, but is based on the inherent laws of natural movement, which gradually came to light in the author’s professional activity as a dancer and dance-teacher.”35 It appears that the icosahedron emerged as the preferred model of the kinesphere for several reasons. Zones of the Kinesphere. Laban drew upon the planar scaffolding of the icosahedron to explore relationships between bodily structure and pathways in space. As discussed above, each of the cardinal planes bifurcate the kinesphere. The combination of all three planes divides the kinesphere into eight areas or “zones.” (For example, one zone is situated to the right side, above waist level and in front of the body; another situated to left side, below waist level and behind the body, and so on.) Laban observes that the body “is constructed in a manner which enables us to reach certain points of the kinesphere withgreater ease than others.”36 Therefore, “each limb has its ownzone, which is that part of thekinesphere which can be reached by moving only the limb in question, without much additional movement.”37 In addition, by “combining the movements of trunk and limbs, we reach points which cover an area much wider than the normal zone, and thus we form the ‘super-zone.’”38 Laban goes on to advocate close study of the “relationship between the architecture of the human body and its pathways in space.” 39 Laban’s own analysis yielded some interesting correlations between the icosahedral scaffolding, proportion, range of motion. Center. and First, it should be recalled that Laban came into the field of dance from the visual arts, where he had studied anatomy and proportion. From classical times onwards, artists have utilized geometrical devices to help with realistic representation of the human figure in action. Consequently, certain proportional relationships were known to Laban. A salient relationship was captured in Leonardo’s famous drawing of the Vitruvian man, which was shown in Chapter 3, Figure 3-1. This drawing shows that if the point of a compass is placed at the navel, the human figure with fully extended limbs can be inscribed in a circle. 40
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Laban transferred this observation to three-dimensional space and used it to establish a one-to-one correspondence between the center of the dancer’s body and the center of the icosahedron as follows. The point of intersection of the three cardinal planes establishes the center of the icosahedron. This center can also be found by locating the center of any one of the three planes. Planar centers are easy to find, for they are marked by the point of intersection of the plane’s two diameters. When a normallyproportioned human figure is posed in the door plane, legs wide and arms extended upwards towards the upper corners of this plane, diametral lines can be superimposed on the figure. These lines will intersect at the navel, establishing an isomorphism between the center of the body and the center of the vertical plane that corresponds to the center of the icosahedron. Laban’s color rendering of this proportional relationship is shown in Plate M. The hexagonal outline represents the icosahedron resting on the lower edge of the vertical plane. The standing figure is posed in the vertical plane. By superimposing the diameters of this plane on the figure, as shown in Figure 4-16, the intersection at the navel can be seen. The coincidence of these centers will apply in general due to “the surprising correspondence between proportions of diversely sized bone structures of both sexes.”41
Figure 4-16. Diameters of the vertical plane intersect at the navel center of the body. Rudolf Laban Archive L/C/4/7 ©NRCD.
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The proportional correspondence of the navel center of the body with the center of the icosahedral model is one relationship Laban detected, but there are more. As noted in Chapter 3, Laban compared standard degrees of range of motion in flexion, extension, abduction, adduction, and rotation for various body parts. These degrees of movement were identical with or proportional to a variety of angles found in the icosahedron. For example, the rotating angle for the head at the atlantoaxial joint is 60 degrees. The angle between the intersecting peripheral lines of motion marked by the edges of the icosahedron is also 60 degrees (due to the fact that all the faces of the icosahedron are equilateral triangles). Laban details a number of other such correspondences “between the angles of the icosahedron and the maximum angles through which the limbs move.”42 This observation further supports the choice of icosahedron as a model of the kinesphere, for the angular relationships between diameters, peripheral edges, and transversals as prototypic lines of movement are congruent with angular range of motion of the joints of the human body. Prevalence of Deflected Lines of Motion. As noted earlier, Laban associates dimensional lines of motion with stability and diagonal trajectories with mobility. Laban goes on to observe that “since every movement is a composite of stabilizing and mobilizing tendencies, and since neither pure stability nor pure mobility exist, it will be the deflected or mixed inclinations which are the more apt to reflect trace-forms of living matter.” 43 Longstaff refers to this observation as the “organic deflection hypothesis,” reiterating Laban’s view in this way:“Dimensional
conceptual and diagonal orientations serve as pure directional stability and pure directional mobility prototypes respectively:of while actual body movements occur as ‘deflections’ between the idealistic pure dimensions and pure diagonals, that is [as] mixtures of stability and mobility.”44 (italics added) Laban’s organic deflection hypothesis suggests that there is a continuum of variation between stable and mobile lines of motion. Resting, pausing, and balancing will tend to occur along dimensional pathways. Rapidly flowing, unstoppable transitions will incline along sharp diagonals. These trajectories represent the extremes of stability
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and mobility. However, if movements through the kinesphere were to leave vapor trails so that the pathways could be investigated, most of these trace-forms would incline slightly, tending towards the deflected directions that lie between the perpendicular lines of the dimensions and the extreme oblique lines of the diagonals. Laban models his concepts of deflected directions on the various tilted lines found within the icosahedron: namely, the planar diameters, the transversals, and the peripheral edges. Of these tilted lines, the planar diameters are referred to as the “primary deflections.” 45 Since these primary deflections play an important role in harmonic theory, it is useful to understand their spatial relationship to the dimensions and the diagonals from which they are deflected. First, consider the relationship of the cardinal dimensions and the cardinal planes. The vertical and horizontal dimensional axes lie within the vertical plane, while the corners of the plane lie between the endpoints of the dimensional axes. The diameter of the plane indicates motion in the direction of the corners. These diametral lines of motion are deflected from the pure dimensions. For example, movement towards the upper right hand corner of the vertical plane tilts off the vertical axis and veers above the horizontal axis. These relationships are shown in Figure 4-17.
Figure 4-17. Diameters of vertical planes in relation to vertical and horizontal dimensions.
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Similar relationships hold true for the horizontal and sagittal planes. All the planar diameters are deflected from the pure dimensions. They are neither plumb with the gravitational axis nor perpendicular to it. They slant at oblique angles to the cross of the dimensional axes. However, diameters do not slant to the same degree as the cubic diagonals. This can be seen when one of the cardinal planes is situated in the cube. As shown in Figure 4-18, the vertical plane stands between the front and back walls of the cube, dividing the inner space of the cube in half. Consequently, movement along the pure diagonal from the lower back right corner to the upper forward left corner will project through the vertical plane. This diagonal is a fully three-dimensional trajectory that rises, advances, and opens towards the left. In contrast, movement within the vertical plane is flat and two-dimensional. Tracing the diameter from the lower right corner to the upper left involves moving upward and sideward, but the motion is constrained within the plane and follows a much shallower trajectory.
Figure 4-18. Diagonals project through the cardinal planes.
Since the deflected planar directions lie between the dimensions and the diagonals, their spatial characteristics are moderated or tempered. In terms of stability , the diametral deflections are less stable than the dimensions, but more stable than the diagonals. In terms of mobility, the deflected directions are more mobile than the dimensions, but less mobile than the diagonals. This holds true for the other prototypic deflected lines of motion identified by Laban, that is, for the icosahedral transversals
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and peripherals. All these lines of motion fall in the middle of a continuum from stability to mobility.
Stability
Mobility
dimensions deflected directions diagonals diameters/peripherals/transversals
Figure 4-19. Lines of motion in relation to the continuum from stability to mobility. To summarize, Laban appears to have given the icosahedron place of pride as a model of the kinesphere for the following reasons. The cardinal planes that provide the internal scaffolding of the icosahedron subdivide the kinesphere into eight zones or areas. Range of motion of individual limbs as well as combined actions of several parts of the body can be studied in relation to these kinespheric zones and super-zones. The icosahedron encapsulates many deflected lines of motion that correspond to naturally-occurring pathways taken by the limbs, with angles between these lines of motion corresponding to standard range of motion of various body parts. Finally, the dancer’s center of gravity provides a theoretical center for movement in any kinespheric geography. When the icosahedron is used as the model of the kinesphere, however, its center and the dancer’s navel center correspond literally as well as figuratively. From Line to Line Complex: Theorizing Movement Sequences Lines of motion can be conceptualized inrelation to direction, location in the kinesphere, and associated kinesthetic sensations. However, as a movement progresses, many lines are traced in the space around the body. These line complexes create an impression of shape. Laban refers to these movement shapes as “trace-forms.” Generic M ovemen t S hapes. Drawing on the terminology of classical ballet, Laban identifies “four basic formal elements” of line: “droit (straight), ouvert (curved), tortille (twisted) and rond (rounded).” He goes on to point out that these elemental lines resemble the Arabic numbers 1,
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2, and 3: “1 represents the droit or, if slightly curved, the ouvert while 2, with its double wave, corresponds to the tortille and the 3 to the rond.” These linear elements serve as a “basis for shaping;” they can be seen as the building blocks of all trace-forms.46
Figure 4-20. The four formal qualities of line identified by Laban. Shape is an important design element for both dance and visual art, yet the creation and perception of shape are entirely different in these disciplines. “In past,” actualLaban movements, point in after point of the trace-forms vanish into the notes, while architecture, sculpture, and 47 painting, “the trace-forms are fixed.” In dance, the lines of motion appear sequentially, one at a time, and then disappear, leaving only an ephemeral memory trace of the whole sequence of shapes. In visual art, the line complexes making up a shape can all be viewed simultaneously, creating an enduring Gestalt. Coming to dance from the visual arts, Laban recognized the value of such wholistic impressions, for he wrote, “to understand and remember a trace-form, it may often be useful to know what we shape (e.g., atriangle) or to know what familiar contour the trace-form of our movement resembles.” 48 Consequently, when he conceptualized movement sequences in space, he gave them a recognizable shape. Like Leonardo da Vinci, Laban perceived human movement to have a “fluid and curving nature.”49 Since these circles needed to be situated within a polyhedral grid in order to be notated, however, Laban transformed the circle into various polygons, each having a spatial rhythm: “A triangle accentuates three points in the circumference of a circle, a quadrangle four points, a pentagon five points, and so forth. Each accent means a break of the circuit line, and the emergence of a new direction. These directions foll ow 50 one another with infinite variations, deflections and deviations.”
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As discussed in Chapter 3, Laban developed these rhythmic circles as a way to capture the progressive stages of movement. The unfolding sequence of lines is projected onto the space around the dancer’s body and represented schematically as a polygonal trace-form, as shown in Figure 4-21, and Plate K (color version).
Figure 4-21. Polygonal trace-form representing a sequence of movements. Rudolf Laban Archive L/C/5/86 ©NRCD.
These sequential circuits, which are also called “rings,” are classified on the basis of the number of their sides. Thus a “three-ring” is triangular; a “five ring,” pentagonal; and so on. Laban’s aim seems to have been to create a taxonomy of prototypic movement sequences based on variations of a circle. The forms he identified all display certain characteristic features. The rings are situated so as to make full use of the kinesphere, moving in prescribed sequence from plane to plane. Most of the rings are symmetrical polygonal forms, with angles of the same size and sides of
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the same length. In the latter instance, this means that the sides of these trace-forms are typically all of one kind; that is, all peripheral lines or all transversals. Only in a few cases did Laban identify “mixed rings,” which combine peripheral and transverse lines and are consequently asymmetrical. The consistency of these characteristics raises questions as to whether these rings are naturally-occuring movement sequences which Laban chose to record in a systematic way, or whether these sequences were constructed by Laban according to certain coherent rules. It is clear that Laban intended for these rhythmic circles to be the basis of a physical movement practice and to serve as a design resource for dance composition.51 This suggests that these rings were created rather than discovered. In this sense, Laban’s rhythmic circles are best thought of as spatial “prototypes” from which dance sequences can be constructed, just as musical scales are “model” tonal sequences from which melodies and harmonies are composed. When actual choreographies have been scrutinized, some of the simpler rings, such as those with only three or five links, have been found to be used as whole forms. It is more common, however, for only fragments of rings to be found in the movement design, just as only a part of a scale sequence may be found in a musical composition.52 Indeed, Laban himself seems to have been aware of this, for he asserted that “we can understand all bodily movement as being a continuous creation of fragments of polyhedral forms.” 53 Corridors of Action. Just as linear trajectories in space share geometric and kinesthetic characteristics, so do rhythmic circuits. The first characteristic is their number sides. The This second characteristic they they shareshare is their location in theofkinesphere. is determined by the relationship of the ring to one of the four diagonals of the cube. These four diagonal axes were particularly important to Laban. He identified whole families of three, four, six, seven, and twelve-sided rings surrounding each of the four diagonals of the cube. These rings, which are made up of peripheral or transverse lines of motion, are situated in the icosahedron, but revolve around the cubic diagonals. Thus it is useful to understand the relation of the cubic diagonals to the geography of the icosahedron, since the latter is the model Laban chose as best
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matching the deflected pathways of naturally-occurring movement. The cubic diagonals traverse the interior space of the icosahedron and pierce its faces, as shown in Figure 4-22. More significantly, the ends of these four lines mark the eight zones of the kinesphere. For example, the diagonal that extends up, forward, and toward the right links the kinespheric zone that lies to the front, above waist-level, and to the mover’s right with the kinespheric zone that surrounds its opposite end, that is, with the zone that lies behind, below waist-level, and to the mover’s left.
Figure 4-22. Example of one cubic diagonal projecting through the icosahedron. Because these diagonal axes link zones of the kinesphere, they create corridors of action around which the deflected trajectories of natural movement may be conceived to oscillate. The pure diagonals provide a conceptual anchor for the infinite variety of the rhythmic circles of human movement. This appears to be the way in which Laban utilized them, designing rings with a varying number of sides all of which belong to a family of forms that surround the corridor of action marked by one of the four pure diagonals.54 Refining Laban’s Scheme While the preceding discussion has outlined spatial concepts and fundamental notation practices developed by Laban, his foundational work has been elaborated and modified by students, colleagues and others
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in the many decades since his death. The following points are introduced to round out discussion of the spatial domain of the Laban taxonomy. Posture versus Gesture. Laban did not give specific instructions for how the rings he identified were to be performed. In fact, he wrote that “it will be both advantageous and instructive for the performer to experiment and find for himself the most harmonious way of executing simple forms.”55 On the other hand, in his own teaching and choreography, Laban evolved a style of embodiment in which his artistic and theoretical perspectives converged. This manner of performance has been delineated as incorporating a “dominance of one side of the body,” in which one arm “draws the shape” of the trace-form while the “steps follow congruently,” along with the trunk and head. Preston-Dunlop explains that this “uncomplicated congruency” of all body parts served Laban’s choreographic work with amateurs “for it relies on no ‘unnatural’ training 56
of the body through techniques.” This style of embodiment is also consistent with Laban’s theoretical view of the isomorphism of the center of the kinesphere and the navel. Laban constructed his rings to oscillate symmetrically around this body center, thereby encouraging a style of performance that is postural rather than gestural. Preston-Dunlop has argued, however, that a prescribed practice of total body congruency is “inapplicable with dancers of high technical potential” and irrelevant in current theatrical approaches in which “contemporary choreographers use the highly sophisticated and noncongruent body behaviour of stylized techniques.” 57 Indeed, dance notators have had to develop approaches for recording complex spatial gestures individual body parts.srcinal geography of space as follows. Theirofsolution adapts Laban’s Rather than reading the direction of a gesture of the limbs, trunk, or head in relation to the center of the kinesphere, gestural directions are based upon the “spatial relationship of the extremity (free end) to the base (point of attachment).”58 The base or fixed end of limb is generally the joint closest to body center. For example, the fixed end of the whole arm is the shoulder, while the free end is the hand. The direction of an arm movement would be read as the spatial relationship between the hand and shoulder. A mini-kinesphere is located at every joint, with the cross of dimensional,
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diagonal and diametral axes providing a system of orientation for recording pathway traced in space by the free end of the limb. In this adaptation, there is not one kinesphere around the whole body, but multiple spheres surrounding major joints. This adaptation of Laban’s srcinal scheme allows complex and overlapping phrases of multiple parts of the body to be recorded with great accuracy. Systems of Reference. Laban’s initial analysis of the direction of lines of motion was based upon a simple set of cardinal directions: up/ down, right/left, forward/backward. Dancers tend to feel these directions in terms of the body, so that up is towards the head, forward is in front of the body, and so on. Directions can be taken from the stage or room, however, so that up is towards the ceiling, forward is towards the audience, stage right is to the right when the performer faces the audience, and so on. As long as a dancer is standing and facing the audience, body directions and stage directions are the same. If the dancer faces away from the audience, however, his or her right side will be toward stage left. If the dancer is lying in a supine position on the stage floor, up is no longer headwards, but situated in front of the mover’s body. In order to record complex patterns of stage movement along with acrobatic maneuvers, different systems of reference for analyzing the direction of movement have been developed.59 For example, the Body Cross of axes bases cardinal directions on the body without any outside points of reference. In this system, up is always toward the head, chestward is forward, and so on. The Standard Cross takes up and down from the line of gravity, and the other cardinal directions from the body. The Constant Cross bases directions outside of reference in the mover’s environment. Once theseonpoints are points set, they remain constant regardless of the facing or position of the dancer. Motion forward is always toward whatever has been identified as front, movement to the right is toward whatever has been set as the right side of the room, and so on. These systems of reference add flexibility to Laban’s geography of space and mediate between the mover’s need to make sense of direction from a bodily perspective and the observer’s need to capture the form. Motion versus Destination. In developing his notation system, Laban struggled with the crux of the problem of movement representation
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addressed by Henri Bergson: movement is experienced as an indivisible whole, yet conceived as a line that can be identified by the beginning and ending positions, and any particularly significant transitional points in between. Laban wanted “to write motion, not only positions passed 60 through,” and this led to many years of experimentation. The breakthrough in the development of notation occurred when Laban finally compromised, “accepting that gestures were best expressed as positions passed through, while ‘steps’ were best expressed as motion.”61 This convention in recording movement hasbeen retained to this day. Gestures, defined as any non-weight bearing action of a body part, are recorded in terms of movement towards a destination, using “points in space as milestones.”62 Steps, leaps, jumps and other weight-bearing actions are written as “motion away from a starting point.”63 While this compromise resulted in a practicable system of notation, Laban never stopped searching for a way to record gestures as motion. One late attempt appears in the last chapter of the posthumously published book, The Language of Dance. Here Laban raises the need for a notation that can record free lines in space that are not “bound to points of the scaffolding [of the icosahedron].”64 The scheme Laban outlined has never been adopted. However, Laban’s taxonomy of space has been enriched by subsequent efforts to address the problem of writing motion, mainly through the development of a hybrid category known as “shape.” Laban addressed shape in two ways, analytically and synthetically. Analytically, he identified four formal elements of line ( droit, ouvert, tortille, and rond; noted on pp. 131-32) from which any movement shape could be composed. Synthetically, Laban constructed prototypic rings with readily recognizable polygonal shapes (see pp. 133-34). These rings are identified by “positions passed through,” and these positions ar e bound to the “scaffolding” or coordinate pointsprovided by the octahedral, cubic, and icosahedral geographies of the kinesphere. These shapes are represented as a series of destinations, not as motions. Nevertheless, both of Laban’s approaches to shape have been mined to capture motion. The four formal elements of line have been used to conceptualize “modes of shape change.”65 Three modes have been identified: shape flow, directional movement, and carving. Shape flow is a concept used
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to describe the plasticity of thekinesphere in terms of how body movement causes this hypothetical sphere to grow or shrink in size. Directional movement describes the trace-form in terms of its linear quality of being “spoke-like,” that is, straight (droit); or “arc-like,” that is, curved (ouvert). Carving movement becomes fully three-dimensional, involving spiral and twisting movement, and seems to subsume the categories of tortille and rond. These modes are identified on the basis of quality of linear motion without reference to destination or points passed though in the kinesphere, representing one way to capture free space lines. Delineation of “shape qualities” provides another approach to representing motion.66 These shape qualities are identified by reference to the cardinal directions: rising to indicate a motion upward, descending to indicate a motion downward, spreading to indicate a motion away from the midline of the body, enclosing to indicate a movement toward the midline, advancing to indicate a motion forward, and retreating to indicate a motion backward. These qualities may be combined, as in a rising and advancing gesture that moves both upward and forward. Shape qualities are used to represent motion away from a starting point that could be anywhere in the kinesphere. The resulting motion is described without reference to specific destinations in the kinespheric scaffolding. Modes of shape change and shape qualities can be seen as additions to the taxonomy of space that Laban srcinated. Interestingly, Laban speculated that “free space lines can be very useful in the notation of everyday movements.”67 This has proven to be the case, for modes of shape change and shape qualities have been applied primarily in the behavioral and human movement form is been frequently less 68 highly crystallized thansciences, in dance.where The symbols that have developed to notate modes of shape change and shape quality capture the essence of free motion in space, but do not allow the movements recorded to be reproduced exactly. This has not been a limitation, however. Unlike recording a choreographed dance work, documentation of movement behavior in the human sciences is done primarily for purposes of analysis rather than reconstruction. It is a testament to Laban’s foundational work that his movement theories have proven sound enough to be adapted and applied in disciplines beyond dance.
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Summ ar y: Taxonomy o f Spa ce Laban’s taxonomy of space starts with conceiving a spherical bubble of personal space that surrounds the mover. This movement territory, or
kinesphere, is defined by the limits of the range of motion of the body. In other words, the kinesphere is the area that can be reached without taking a step. This personal bubble of space is not fixed in one place. Rather it is a movable territory that travels with the dancer, changing size and shape based upon the individual’s movements. In order to trace and record movement pathways through the kinesphere, Laban drew upon the Platonic solids. These regular threedimensional forms provide corners, edges, and internal rays that can be used as a “longitude and latitude” for mapping movement in the space around the body. Laban found that three forms were particularly useful: the octahedron, the cube, and the icosahedron. The octahedron encapsulates the cardinal directions, which are plumb with the line of gravity or perpendicular to it. Thus the dimensional scaffolding of the octahedron stands as a model of stable trajectories of movement. The cube contains the sharply inclined diagonals and represents mobile spatial pathways that either fly or fall. According to Laban’s observations, most movements combine stable and mobile tendencies and follow what he called the deflected inclinations. The planar diameters, peripheral edges, and transverse rays of the icosahedron represent these prototypic pathways. The icosahedron proved to be a particularly suitable model for movement description. The intersection of the cardinal planes divides the kinesphere into eight zones, allowing an investigation of the range of motion of various limbs in relation tofor these clearly demarcated areas of the mover’s personal space. Moreover, the center of the icosahedron corresponds proportionally with the navel center of the human body. Laban also found angles between the peripheral edges and transverse rays of the icosahedron that are congruent with the normal range of motion of various parts of the body. Finally, Laban hypothesized on the basis of his observations that these peripheral and transverse lines best approximated trajectories traced in naturally-occuring movements.
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In Laban’s taxonomy, prototypic lines of motion are classed in families having shared characteristics. Laban distinguishes families in terms of spatial tensions (one, two, or three spatial pulls), location in the kinesphere (central, peripheral, or transverse), and degree of stability and mobility (dimensions, diagonals, and deflected directions). Most movements unfold in space, following a series of lines and changes of direction. By combining geometric approaches to the representation of movement developed by Renaissance artists Albrecht Dürer and Leonardo da Vinci, Laban came up with the concept of “rhythmic circles” as a prototype for movement sequences. These “rings” are actually polygonal shapes of a varying number of sides. These shapes can be arrayed in various locations in the kinesphere to represent the unfolding of movement sequences as they traverse the space around the body. Laban’s taxonomy groups these polygonal forms in families based upon the number of sides that the circle has as well as the axis around which it is organized. The four cubic diagonals, which link zones of the kinesphere, form corridors of action that serve, in Laban’s scheme, as axes for movement sequences. Laban emphasizes that this kind of modeling of movement traceforms serves a formal and analytical function. As such, it is an artificial separation of the patterns of lines and forms from the other aspects of movement. As Laban notes, “the will or the decision to move springs from the depth of our being. We not only alter the positions of our bodies and change the environment by our activity, but bring an additional colour or mood to our movements.” 69 How Laban has conceptualized these movement moods is the focus of the next chapter, which will complete the introduction to Laban’s choreutic and eukinetic taxonomy of human movement.
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Notes 1. Maletic, Body Space Expression, 113. 2. Preston-Dunlop, Rudolf Laban, 132.
3. Preston-Dunlop and Lahusen report that Laban’s early research “focused on finding a spatial harmonic system for dance that would form the basis of written dance” (“Editorial II, Schrifttanz, 24). In Maletic’s view, however, the “crucial breakthrough” in the development of written dance arose from the “separation of Laban’s notation from its initial integration with space harmony concepts” (Body Space Expression, 119). This initial break has resulted in separate lines of development. Archival evidence indicates that Laban continued to pursue his own research on harmonic principles until the end of his career. After publication of the notation system in 1928, practical development was carried on independently by other movement specialists, notably Albrecht Knust and Ann Hutchinson Guest, without obvious reference to theories of movement harmony. 4. Laban, manuscript, E(L)8/15, Laban Archive, NRCD. 5. Laban coined a variety of terms for various aspects of his theoretical explorations, such as “choreography,” “choreology,” “choreosophy,” “choreutics,” “eukinetics,” and “effort.” The term “choreography” (literally “writing circles”) was used to convey both “authoring” dances as well as recording them in notation. “Choreology” refers to the “study or logic of circles” and is sometimes amended as “choreology – space” or “choreology – effort” to differentiate the domain being studied. “Choreosophy” deals with the “wisdom of circles” is ainherent term Laban used to allude to philosophical and spiritual and values in movement and dance. In this book, “Choreutics” is used to refer to the spatial domain, while “Eukinetics” is used to refer to the realm of kinetic energy. Both words use the Greek root “eu,” meaning “good,” and were employed by Laban in relation to what he perceived as harmonic principles in these two domains. In English-speaking countries, Choreutics is sometimes referred to as “space harmony” and Eukinetics as “effort theory.” 6. Laban, Language of Dance, 10. 7. Laban, Modern Educational Dance, 85.
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18. Bergson, Matter and Memory, 289 19. Farmer and Stanford, Knots and Surfaces, 41. 10. Laban experimented with all five Platonic solids. For example, he observed that the height and width of the human body are greater than its depth, resulting in a flat, plane-like structure. The third dimension of depth becomes most apparent when moving. Since the simplest three-dimensional form is the tetrahedron, Laban viewed this form as a plastic transformation of a quadrangular plane, a kind of kernel of other more complex shapes assumed when the body is in fully three-dimensional motion. In addition, there are many drawings of dodecahedra in the Rudolf Laban Archive. The nature of these suggests that Laban experimented with this form theoretically as a model for the mid-reach area of the kinesphere. In practice, the twenty corners of the form proved to be a more difficult map of space for the 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.
dancer, and this model was not adopted as a kinespheric geography. Laban, Language of Dance, 37. Ibid. Laban, cited by Maletic, Body Space Expression, 59. Ibid. Laban, Language of Movement, 94. Ibid., 5. Todd, Thinking Body, 59. Maletic, Body Space Expression, 59. Preston-Dunlop, “Choreutics,” 139. Ibid.
21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.
Language of Movement, 90. Laban, Ibid., 88. Ibid., 89. Juhan, Job’s Body, 250. Ibid., 249. Cash, Pocket Atlas of Moving Body, 7. Bartenieff with Lewis, Body Movement, 103. Juhan, Job’s Body, 113-114. Laban, Language of Movement, 89. Bartenieff with Lewis, Body Movement, 107.
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31. Laban, Language of Movement, 21. 32. Ibid., 17. 33. Ibid., 94. 34. There are actually 30 internal rays that cut through the interior space of the icosahedron. Six of these lines form the longer edges of the three cardinal planes. Since these rays lie within one plane, they do not meet the criteria Laban set for transverse lines; that is, they do not connect two different planes by cutting through a third plane. Moreover, these planar edges are either plumb or perpendicular to the line of gravity, unlike the other 24 oblique transversals. 35. Laban, Language of Movement, 108n. 36. Ibid., 25. 37. Ibid., 21. 38. Ibid., 23. 39. Ibid., 25. 40. This proportional relationship has been replicated using a female figure by Doczi, Power of Limits, 98. 41. Ibid., 100. 42. For a full discussion of these similarities, see Laban, Language of Movement, 106-108. 43. Ibid., 90. 44. Longstaff, “Cognitive Structures of Kinesthetic Space,” 164. 45. Laban, Language of Movement, 73. 46. Ibid., 83. 47. Ibid., 115. 48. 49. 50. 51.
Ibid. Ibid., 101. Ibid., 26. Laban was fam iliar with de sign sourcebooks from his vis ual art background. Many Art Nouveau treatises drew on historic and exotic patterns of ornament to provide artists not only with motifs but also with principles of pattern generation that could be applied to srcinal design work. The emphasis on symmetry, line, and pattern in Laban’s rhythmic circles suggest that he visualized these as serving an analogous function for dance composition.
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52. See Preston-Dunlop, “Choreutics,” 144-147. 53. Laban, Language of Movement, 105. 54. Laban also identified rings of five and seven sides around the planar
55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61.
diameters. Once the design principles he employed are understood, potentially any of the central axes of the icosahedron could be used for pattern generation. For example, see Preston-Dunlop, Point of Departure, 108 – 118. Laban, Language of Movement, 111. Preston-Dunlop, “Choreutics,” 142. Ibid., 143. Hutchinson, Labanotation, 32. Hutchinson-Guest, Your Move, 279-288. Preston-Dunlop and Lahu sen, Schrifttanz, 25. Preston-Dunlop, Rudolf Laban, 132.
Hutchinson, Labanotation, 28. Ibid., 30. Laban, Language of Movement, 125. Hackney, Making Connections, 221-222. Ibid., 222. Laban, Language of Movement, 125. Notable exam ples includ e application s in cultural anthro pology, industrial psychology, and psychotherapy. 69. Laban, Language of Movement, 48. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68.
Plate A. Superimposed octahedra. Rudolf Laban Archive L/E/10/16 ©NRCD.
Plate B. Angular circuits in icosahedra and dodecahedron. Rudolf Laban Archive ©NRCD.
Plate C. Three-dimensional manipulations of pentagons and heptagons. Rudolf Laban Archive L/E/38/29 ©NRCD.
Plate D. Pentagonal shapes used to generate poses. Rudolf Laban Archive L/C/1/87, L/C/1/88 ©NRCD.
Plate E. Tetrahedral pose. Rudolf Laban Archive L/C/6/56 ©NRCD.
Plate F. Sequential unfolding of movement within crystalline shapes. Rudolf Laban Archive L/C/7/152 ©NRCD.
Plate G. Sculptural version of dance trace-form. Rudolf Laban Archive L/F/7/68 ©NRCD.
Plate H. Lemniscatic sculpture. Rudolf Laban Archive L/F/7/84 ©NRCD.
Plate I. Seascape done on holiday.Rudolf Laban Archive L/C/9/65 ©NRCD.
Plate J. Crayon portrait. Rudolf Laban Archive L/C/9/1 ©NRCD.
Plate K. Figure surrounded by angular trace-form. Rudolf Laban Archive L/C/5/86 ©NRCD.
Plate L. Trace-form as biomorphic curves. Rudolf Laban Archive L/C/6/24 ©NRCD.
Plate M. Figures in hexagonal outline of icosahedron. Rudolf Laban Archive L/C/4/7 ©NRCD.
Plate N. Proportional nesting of cube, dodecahedron, and icosahedron. Rudolf Laban Archive L/C/4/5 ©NRCD.
Plate O. Proportional nesting of octahedron, intersecting tetrahedra, and cube. Rudolf Laban Archive L/E/4/72 ©NRCD.
Letters represent directions as follows:
Plate P. Laban’s correlations of musical tones and intervals with the signal points of the right A scale and its related standard scale. Rudolf Laban Archive L/E/4/72 ©NRCD.
Plate Q. Topological manipulation of skeletal octahedron. Rudolf Laban Archive L/E/17/16 ©NRCD.
Plate R. Hypercubic model of complete effort affinities. Rudolf Laban Archive L/E/7/35 ©NRCD.
Plate S. The flow shape, surrounded by skeletal dodecahedron. Rudolf Laban Archive L/C/1/32 ©NRCD.
Plate T. The time shape, surrounded by skeletal dodecahedron. Rudolf Laban Archive L/C/1/31 ©NRCD.
Plate U. The space shape, surrounded by skeletal dodecahedron. Rudolf Laban Archive L/C/1/33 ©NRCD.
Plate V. The weight shape, surrounded by skeletal dodecahedron. Rudolf Laban Archive L/C/1/21 ©NRCD.
C HAPTER 5
Effor t: Th e In ner Doma in of Hu ma n Movement Th e Dan cer M oves fr om Mood to Mood As noted in Chapter 4, Laban observed that “the dancer moves, not only from place to place, but also from mood to mood.” In so doing, he identified dual aspects of human movement: the physical and the mental/ emotional. These aspects are not of the same nature. Physical movements through space are visible. Thoughts and feelings, on the other hand, are non-material. The ephemeral shift from mood to mood cannot be observed directly, but can be inferred by what a person does and, more significantly, by how an action is performed. of movement Labanvoluntary initially called “Eukinetics” and The laterhow renamed “effort.” isInwhat his view, human movement springs from an inner intent that results in an observable action. The inner intent modifies the quality of an action, just as an adverb modifies a verb. Consider a simple sequence of actions such as entering a room, placing a bag on the floor and sitting down. One individual storms furiously into the room, hurling the bag at the floor, and planting herself forcefully in the chair. Another person ambles slowly into the room, casually dropping the bag, and slumping passively in the chair. The series of actions is the same, but the contrasting manner of performance suggests that the inner moods of these two movers are different. While the internal flow of thought and feeling is inscrutable, inner impulses cast dynamic shadows that color the way visible movement is performed. This chapter introduces Laban’s conceptual framework of movement dynamics, delineating the inner impulses that become visible as effort takes shape in space. Evolving a Th eory of Move ment Dyna mics Laban’s effort concepts appear to have been developed later than other aspects of his theoretical work and, as would be expected in naturalistic research, to have been subject to periodic revision. Gaps in
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documentation make it difficult to present a coherent chronology of development.1 Nevertheless, in terms of understanding the place of effort in Laban’s theory of movement harmony, several points can be argued. First, Laban’s taxonomy of movement dynamics developed separately from his dance notation system but not separately from his harmonic theories. Secondly, the taxonomy shifted from being a description ofdance dynamics to becoming a more general descriptive framework for movement observation and analysis. Finally, while Laban’s effort terminology has demonstrated its value as an empirical system of movement description, certain aspects of the theory need further validation. An analogy with music may serve to elucidate the first point. Musical notation records melody, harmony, and rhythm — the key structural elements of a composition. The “feeling” of a piece is embedded in its harmonic and rhythmic structure, in the sense that the choice of major or minor key, meter, and tempo all convey clues to the composition’s mood and meaning. If additional guidance regarding dynamics is needed, this is provided by verbal annotations and expression marks in the score. These annotations indicate dynamic variations in the manner of performance, providing additional guidance for the musician who is responsible for bringing the work to life. Laban’s approach to creating a notation for dance concentrated on capturing the structure of the movement event by recording actions of the body in the kinesphere. Perhaps because Laban perceived a harmonic relationship between body and space, he assumed that indications of the mood choreographic would be embedded the notation, just asofita is in a musicalcomposition score. While “origins of whatinLaban later developed as a theory of Eukinetics and Effort can be found in all his German texts,”2 symbols for recording dynamics were not refined until the 1940s, long after the rudiments of the notation system had been established. Consequently, effort theory stands in relation to dance notation as expression marks and verbal annotations stand to a musical score; that is, as additional directives to the performer rather than key elements of structure.3 This is due to an accident of history, however, and does not represent the perspective of Laban’s mature theoretical work in
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which kinetic energy and spatial form are viewed as equally important structural elements of movement harmony. In chronicling the development of effort theory, Maletic affirms that “Laban’s first investigations into the dynamic structure of movement focused on expressive qualities in dance.” In the 1920s and 1930s, Laban referred to this area as “Eukinetics,” relating it to “harmonic principles in dance.” Maletic goes on to observe that Laban developed effort theory in the 1940s “as a complement to Eukinetics.” 4 This elaboration was based upon the richer data pool that Laban had obtained through his analysis of work movement in British industry. These industrial assignments allowed Laban to test theoretical concepts developed from the study of “expressive” movement against observations of “functional” actions. Moreover, the examination of clerical and managerial labor in addition to manual jobs led to the realization that bodily effort could be observed even in relatively sedentary occupations. As Laban explained, “no matter if we are watching a person at leisure or at work, when dancing, throwing a ball, or sitting in almost complete rest, we will always be able to read his bodily behaviour and can learn to know to what effort type he belongs.” 5 On the basis of observations such as this drawn from his naturalistic research, Laban modified dynamic concepts andterminology. Drawing on her comparative analysis of Laban’s German and English writings about movement dynamics, Maletic points out that “the continuum of approaches to some components is juxtaposed to a change in points of view in others.” 6 Nevertheless, by 1926 Laban had settle d on four key dynamic elements – weight, time, space, and flow. Different terms for these elements in Laban’s German writings, and there were additional changesappeared when Laban later reframed the concepts in English. Despite these variations in technical terminology, three of Laban’s four key dynamic elements remained conceptually stable, while only the fourth (space) was revised, seemingly on the basis of new data obtained in the 1940s. This suggests that Eukinetics and effort are two versions of one taxonomy that Laban adapted over time to account for new sorts of observational data, enhancing the general applicability of the descriptive scheme. As he wrote in an unpublished manuscript from the 1940s, “the unrestricted range of efforts used in the modern art of
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movement, and the possibility of recording the rhythms built up from all these efforts have created a kind of universal effort language.” 7 Maletic concurs with this view, noting that effort theory “considers the various 8
qualities of mind-body movement involved in human exertion ingeneral.” Consequently, the taxonomy detailed in this chapter draws on Laban’s later writings in English. To circumvent confusion, when differing terms are used in relation to a motion factor or an effort quality, these terms should be viewed as being synonymous. Through the 1940s and 1950s Laban continued to elaborate effort theory, primarily by drawing correlations of two types. First, as part of his ongoing research on movement harmony, Laban examined relationships between effort elements and areas of the space around the body to see if there was any pattern of naturally-occuring affinity. Two models had been formulated based on his work in dance, and these presu ma bl y receive d fur the9r ve rification from ob servati on and experimentation with workers. Nevertheless, these affinities should be viewed as hypothetical connections rather than absolute givens. Secondly, through his contacts with psychotherapists in the 1950s, Laban became familiar with the theories of Carl Gustav Jung. Jung’s ideas provided Laban with a framework for thinking about effort in psychological terms. Subsequently Laban postulated correlations between dynamic elements of movement and the four states of mind – thinking, feeling, sensing, and intuiting — that Jung identified as “functions of consciousness.” These connections seem to have played a role in how Laban systematically theorized complexly-nuanced effort expressions. While Laban correctly conceives movement as a psychophysical phenomenon, the specific correlations he draws between effort and psychological states should be viewed as hypothetical. Eleme nts of Ef for t: T he Four Motio n F actor s Laban wrote that “movements are bound to evolve in space as well as in time” and “in this evolution of movement the weight of the body is brought into flow.”10 These four motion factors – flow, weight, time, and space – are the fundamental building blocks of Laban’s effort taxonomy. Laban observes these motion factors in both functional and expressive
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actions. Effort is volitional, and Laban applies the concept to voluntary, rather than involuntary, movements. Thus each motion factor represents a different sort of inner intent: flow is the effort exerted to control movement; weight is the effort exerted to apply the right amount of force; time is the effort exerted to pace movement adroitly; and space, when used as an effort term, is the effort exerted to aim movement accurately. “One may conclude,” Maletic explains, that Laban’s concept of effort “unifies the actual, physical, quantitative and measurable properties of movement with the virtual, perceivable, qualitative, and classifiable qualities of movement and dance.” 11 In actions that are subject to human volition, Laban discerns a dynamic power that “enables us to choose between a resisting, constricting withholding, fighting attitude, or one of yielding, enduring, accepting, indulging” in relation to the motion factors. 12 Consequently, Laban characterized effort variation of each motion factor as an oscillation between opposite qualities, one which has a “fighting” character and the other which has an “indulging” character. Flow. The effort element of flow varies between binding and freeing. According to Laban, the flow is bound “in an action capable of being stopped and held without difficulty at any moment during the movement.”13 These actions appear restrained or even tense and represent the fighting aspect of the flow continuum. In contrast, the freeing of flow occurs “in an action in which it is difficult to stop the movement suddenly.”14 Such motions are easy-going and fluent and represent the indulging side of the flow continuum. Variations in flow allow for fluid changes tasks. in the ongoing degree of control needed for different movement Weight. The effort element of weight varies between increasing and decreasing pressure. According to Laban, a “prevailing effort of muscular tension” is necessary to apply pressure and provide resistance. 15 Such movements will appear forceful and firm and represent the fighting aspect of the weight continuum. On the other hand, in decreasing pressure,Laban notes, “the effort of muscular relaxation prevails,” and a state of “relaxed buoyancy” is experienced. 16 Such actions appear light and delicate, characterized by a gentle touch that represents the indulging side of the
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weight continuum. Variations in the effort element of weight allow the mover to handle material objects of different sorts with the appropriate amount of force. In expressive actions, weight variation manifests as differing degrees of strong or slight emphasis. Time. The effort element of time varies between accelerating and decelerating. The effort to accelerate, Laban observes, “produces a special kind of energetic suddenness.”17 The speed of the motion increases and there is a sense of energetic hurry and rapid activity, representing the fighting aspect of the time continuum. Alternatively, Laban notes that the effort to decelerate necessitates a “continuous muscular function.”18 This sustained effort serves to slow the movement, drawing out and extending the process of the action in an indulgent manner. Varying the effort element of time makes duration pliable, allowing actions to be hurriedly condensed or luxuriously extended, depending upon the mood of the mover. Space. The effort element of space varies between the qualities of directing and indirecting. In actions of great directness, Laban writes, a “well-traced pattern having no plasticity” is produced.19 The movement has a singular focus and progresses linearly, as if homing in on a target, representing the fighting aspect of the space continuum. In contrast, an indirect or flexible effort, according to Laban, brings about “continuous changes of the direction of the movement.”20 Motions become pliant and roundabout, taking in a multiplicity of points of orientation in an indulgent manner. Varying the effort element of space facilitates precise execution and flexible adjustment in how the movement is aimed in relation to an object orfour the environment. The motion factors of flow, weight, time and space and their eight contrasting effort qualities are the basic elements from which Laban’s taxonomy of movement mood is developed. These basic elements are shown in Figure 5-1. Given the limited number of elements, effort theory appears to be extremely parsimonious, and one wonders how such a simple system can possibly capture the infinite variety and dynamic nuance of human movement. The answer is that in naturally-occurring movements, the effort elements are combined and sequenced in an almost infinite variety of
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Motio n Factors Flow
“ Fight ing” attit ude “ Indul ging ” attit ude Binding
Freeing
Weig ht
Inc reasi ng Press ur e
Decr easi ng Press ur e
Time
Accelerating
Decelerating
Space
Directing
Indirecting
Figure 5-1. Motion factors and effort qualities.
ways. At the theoretical level, Laban worked through the combinations of these elements methodically. This is what has come to be known as his theory of effort “states” (combinations of two qualities), effort “drives” (combinations of three qualities), and “complete efforts (combinations of four qualities). Laban characterizes the last by noting that “a person indulging in all motion factors will be ableto deal with all tasks demanding free flow of motion, fine touch, flexibility and sustainment.” In contrast, “a person habitually fighting against all the four motion factors will deal with work exacting controlled or bound flow of motion, great strength, use of the shortest and most direct way in all his movement and an ability function with quick impulses.”21 He goes on to point out that “one will hardly find a normal individual” who exclusively indulges in or fights against these motion factors, because “the richness of people’s efforts consists just in the fact that their effort characteristics are an incredibly subtle mixture of many degrees of attitudes towards several motion factors.”22 Laban developed symbols to capture these subtle combinations of kinetic energy. Notation B asics. A simple, graph-like notation is used to record the flow of weight in time and space. This graph is shown in Figure 5-2. The horizontal line represents flow; the vertical line, weight; the right angle, space; and the broken line, time. By combining parts of these lines with a short diagonal stroke, all eight effort qualities can be recorded in a kind of shorthand. There is a logic to this notation. If the diagonal stroke is
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Figure 5-2. The effort graph.
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extended, all the line segments to the left represent “indulging” effort qualities, while all the segments to right stand for the “fighting” effort qualities. Combinations of effort qualities (states and drives) can be recorded by combining symbols from the effort graph. Sequences of mood change can also be notated, as in the simple motif shown in Figure 5-3 (read from left to right).
Figure 5-3. Notated motif of effort change.
The “Dynamos pher e” The movement “from mood to mood” begins inwardly, in what might be termed “psychological space.” Laban conceptualized this psychological domain as the “inner world in which impulses continually surge and seek an outlet in doing, acting and dancing.” 23 He called this inner world the “dynamosphere” and defined it as the “space in which our dynamic actions take place.”24 While the dynamosphere is a virtual, rather than an actual space, it can be thought of as a model structure that parallels the kinesphere. As Laban writes, “it is the similarity of concentration and dispersion in outer space and creation and destruction in inner space, which allows a relatively exact determination and control of these apparently so different domains.”25 Thus if the kinesphere has a physical geography of changing forms, then the dynamosphere may be said to have a psychological landscape of shifting moods. Laban applied combinational analysis to enumerate these moods, establishing landmarks and place names for the shifting landscapes of the dynamosphere. In addition, he attempted to correlate dynamic states with psychological functions, reinforcing his view of effort as a visible expression of the inner world of thought and feeling.
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Effort and Consciousness. As noted earlier, Laban initially perceived two fundamental psychological attitudes: one of resisting or fighting the physical conditions influencing movement, the other of yielding and accepting these conditions. These attitudes were used in the construction of bipolar qualities for each of the four motion factors. In later years, Laban hypothesized correlations between these four motion factors and the four functions of consciousness theorized by Jung: sensing, thinking, feeling, and intuiting. Jung used these constructs to develop a dense h t eory of personality type in which each function is modified by many other psychological factors such as attitudes of extraversion or introversion, 26 conscious development or unconscious regression, and so on. Put simply, however, Jung explained the four functions as follows: “Sensation (i.e. sense-perception) tells you that something exists; thinking tells you what it is; feeling tells you whether it is agreeable or not; and intuition tells 27
you whence it comes and where it is going.” To elaborate, the function of sensing has to do with the perc eption of what is tangible and palpable in the immediate environment. Laban associated this perceptive function with the motion factor of weight and the intent to apply pressure firmly or delicately. As Bloom puts it, weight “relates to the physical-sensory world, the actual material substance of the body, and the sense of touch.”28 The function of thinking has to do with rational judgment based upon the analysis and classification of sensory data in relation to ideas and concepts. Laban associated this function with the motion factor of space and the effort exerted to orient oneself directly or flexibly in the environment. to Bloom, space to “one’s point ofand view on the outsideAccording world. It implies a space forrelates reflection and thought, is 29 therefore related to the mind, to the mental aspect of experience.” The function of feeling allows one to establish what one likes and what one dislikes, and this judgment is often experienced as a visceral reaction of attraction or repulsion, pleasure or pain. Laban associated feeling with the motion factor of flow and the effort to move with fluid abandon or to hold motion in check. Bloom sees the control or release of tension as analogous to “the control or release of feelings” and relates flow to “the experience of emotion in the body.”30
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Finally, the function of intuiting has to do with sudden perceptions and insights that seemingly do not arise from immediate sense perception or methodical reasoning. Laban associated this function with the motion factor of time. Here Laban seems to be drawing on Bergson’s idea that intuition is the direct apprehension of a “living time” that is experienced “from within.”31 Living time does not move smoothly at a steady rate; some hours fly by, while other hours creep. Laban appears to see the decisive effort to speed up or slow down as arising from this internal, hence “intuitive” sense of timing. In addition to correlating the motion factors with Jung’s scheme, Laban drew other psychological relationships, seemingly of his own devising. For example, he related the motion factor of space to the faculty of paying attention, noting that “the predominant tendency here is to orientate oneself and find a relationship to the matter of interest either in 32
an immediate, direct way or in a circumspective, flexible one.” The motion factor of weight was correlated with intention, for “the desire to do a certain thing may take hold of one sometimes powerfully and firmly, sometimes gently and slightly.”33 Laban associated the motion factor of time with decisions that can be made “either unexpectedly and suddenly” or “developed gradually.” 34 Finally, the motion factor of flow was correlated with “precision” or “progression” and the ability to attune oneself to action by controlling and binding “the natural flux of the process” or by giving it “an unrestricted and free run.” 35 Laban summarized these correlations by noting that “attention, intention, and decision are stages of the inner preparation of an outer bodily action. This comes about when, concrete expression in the through body.”36 the flow of movement, effort finds If these correlations are at best approximations and hypotheses, they nevertheless represent a pioneering effort to address the psychological dimensions of human movement objectively. Laban recognized inherent challenges in exploring this uncharted territory, for he admitted “it is difficult to attach names” to effort variations “as they are concerned with pure movement experience and expression.”37 Laban’s labeling of effort combinations is informed by his psychological observations, but these interpretations should be viewed as “possibilities rather than absolutes.”38
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Obviously, actual movement experience provides another inroad of understanding. As effort theory is discussed, first schematically and then descriptively in this chapter, it is worth remembering Laban’s admonition: “Although in analysis we look at movement from the standpoint of an outside observer, we should try to feel it sympathetically from within.” 39 Kinesthetic experience deepens understanding, for “through the bodily perspective it is possible to reveal the connection between emotion within ourselves and movement outside ourselves.” 40 Laban enumerated Combinational Analysis in Effort Theory. movement moods by systematically analyzing all possible combinations of motion factors and effort qualities. With the four motion factors (flow, weight, time, and space) and the eight effort qualities (freeing-binding, increasing pressure-decreasing pressure, accelerating-decelerating, and directing-indirecting), it is possible to delineate a variety of movement moods. Just as the primary hues of red, blue, and yellow can be combined to create orange, green, and purple and more subtle shades such as redorange, blue-green, and red-violet, so too can effort elements be combined in pairs, trios, and even quartets, vividly coloring bodily actions. Combinations of two motion factors are referred to as “effort states.” There are six possible combinations: 1) flow and weight, 2) flow and time, 3) flow and space, 4) space and time, 5) space and weight, and 6) weight and time. Since two different qualities may be discerned for each motion factor, there are four possible combinations of effort qualities for each of these six states, making 24 configurations in all. Combinations of three motion factors are referred to as “effort drives.” There are+four possible combinations: 1) weight + space + time, 2) weight + space flow, 3) space + time + flow, 4) weight + time + flow. Since two different qualities may be discerned for each motion factor, there are eight possible combinations of effort qualities for eachof these four drives, resulting in 32 configurations in all. Combinations of four motion factors are referred to as “complete efforts.” These moods are extreme in their intensity, and consequently rarely seen in normal behavior. There are 16 possible configurations of complete efforts.
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All in all, Laban identified 72 distinctive movement moods.41 Thus, while the effort taxonomy is quite parsimonious in terms of the number of fundamental elements, it unfolds kaleidoscopically as the eight qualities of flow, weight, time, and space are combined in various ways. As Laban conceived it, human effort is rich and variegated in expression: “A motion factor appearing singly involves an inner regulating function (of thinking, feeling, intuiting, or sensing); a combination of two motion processes reveals a kind of general state; and a threefold combination reveals an externalized drive.”42 Consequently, the inner world of the dynamosphere encompasses many dramatic and contrasting landscapes. Lan dscapes o f the Dynamos pher e Eff ort States. A state occurs when only two motion factors “give shading to a movement.” States lack dynamic intensity and for this reason 43
Laban referred to them as “incomplete efforts.” As Bartenieff observes, “in everyday behavior, in work actions and in dance and drama, these two-element combinations often appear as fleeting transitions.” 44 States may serve as preparation for more dynamically-loaded actions, or as recuperation from major exertions. As noted in the preceding section, the four motion factors can be paired to create six contrasting states, shown in Figure 5-4. The feeling of these subtly nuanced movement moods is difficult to capture adequately Motion Factors: Mobile s e t a t S t r o ff E
Flow
Weight
X
Awake Dream Remote Near (Rhythm)
X X
Space
X X
Stable
Time
X
X X
X X X
X
Figure 5-4. Motion factors combined in effort states.
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in words, but the names Laban chose provide some insight into the dynamic character of each state. For example, the mobile quality of ongoing progression (time and flow) contrasts a stable mood of grounded and watchful presence (weight and space). The quality of being awake (space and time) contrasts with being in a moody dream (weight and flow). A state of remote detachment (space and flow) contrasts being in rhythmic synchrony with activity near at hand (weight and time). Further definition of these moods is established when the qualitative configurations of each state are worked out. Since each state combines two motion factors, and each factor varies between two effort qualities, there are four dynamic configurations for each state. Possible blendings of space and time in the mobile state are shown in Figure 5-5.
Figure 5-5. Mobile state configurations.
This enumeration of states of mobility introduces some novel concepts. Foras instance, it isineasy to associate “mobility” withItfree flowing acceleration, embodied running headlong down a hill. is, perhaps, less easy to conceive of “mobility” in terms of some of the other effort combinations outlined above. Yet, to progress an action adroitly, there are many times when a dancer must slow down carefully (decelerating with binding), sustain a motion in a relaxed way (decelerating with freeing), or bring a movement to a sudden stop (binding andaccelerating). True mobility encompasses the full range of flow and time variations. Similarly, Laban posits the combination of weight and space as a stable state manifesting in “steadfastness which may be resolute and
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stubborn or sensitively receptive. It may also be solid and powerful or delicately pinpointing.” 45 Laban’s description captures some of the surprising forms that stability may take. In this sense, Laban’s use of combinational logic provides an innovative structure for movement exploration as well as a systematic framework for observation and description. Effort Drives. Laban referred to combinations of three motion factors as “drives.” The four different drives are outlined in Figure 5-6. These movement moods are intensely colored and demanding to perform both physically and psychologically. In each of these drives, one of the motion factors is latent; that is, it does not appear to change. While all movement would seem to involve the flow of weight in time and space, for a motion factor to be “effortful,” it must be dynamic.46 One must be able to observe variation in the degree of control, pressure, pace, or aim. When there is no fluctuation in a motion factor, it is said to be latent. For example, if a movement progresses at a steady pace, neither speeding up nor slowing down, the motion factor of time is said to be latent. Weight is latent when there is no discernible change in pressure, space is latent if the mover’s focus is undeviating, and flow is latent when a steady degree of control is maintained. The nature of each drive, consequently, is based not only upon the three effort elements that are dynamically present, but also upon the factor Motion Factors
Flow
Weight
Time
Space
X X
X
X
X
Action s e iv r D t r o ff E
(flow-less) Passion (space-less)
X
Vision (weight-less)
X
Spell (timeless)
X
X X X
Figure 5-6. Motion factors in effort drives.
X
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that is missing or latent. This is seemingly paradoxical. Yet all of a human being’s faculties — thinking, feeling, sensing, and intuiting — are seldom brought to bear in a concerted action. It is the differentiated involvement of faculties that is embodied in the drives, giving each a unique character. Th e Action Drive. The Action Drive occurs when qualities of weight, time, and space are simultaneously crystallized in a movement. Laban codified the Action Drive “when he observed patterns of workers’ movements for wartime industrial studies.”47 The prevalence in work of weight, time, space combinations makes sense. In accomplishing practical tasks, it is necessary to focus on the job (variations in space effort), to control the speed of work (variations in time effort), and to apply the appropriate amount of force in handling materials and tools (variations in weight effort). In the midst of productive labor, how one feels about the task is often subsumed by the simple desire to get the job done as swiftly and effectively as possible. Thus flow, which Laban saw as the emotional element in movement, remains latent in the matter-of-fact embodiment of Action Drive. There are eight possible combinations of the Action Drive. Laban found that common verbs capture the dynamic qualities of these basic actions adequately. 48 These names are listed, along with the effort components of each combination in Figure 5-7. Combinations have been arranged in contrasting pairs (e.g., float vs. punch, flick vs. press). A common task in which each combination might appear is included in the chart as an example. The Passion Drive. While the Action Drive reflects the impulse to accomplish practical tasksofwithout emotionality, theisPassion Drive embodies the full range intenseundue human feeling as it expressed in motion. Passion Drive combines qualities of weight, time, and flow (see Figure 5-6). Passion can be thought of as a transformation of Action Drive, in which flow takes the place of space. Space effort, which Laban related to thinking, becomes latent. This gives a clue to the “unreasonable” nature of the Passion Drive. Caught in a powerful flow of feeling, the mover loses his or her orientation and momentarily slips from the bonds of rational thought. When one is blind with rage, intoxicated with joy, or overcome with grief, there is a momentary loss of focus. One ceases to
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Figure 5-7. Action Drive combinations.
pay attention to one’s surroundings, as outer reality pales before the surging of powerful inner emotion. Passion Drive will most often be observed in moments of emotional outburst, such as a child’s tearful tantrum, a heated argument, or a passionate embrace. As with the Action Drive, there are eight possible configurations of Passion Drive. These combinations reflect a gamut of feelings in motion, from swooning with pleasure to straining in agony. Laban did not attempt to give names to these nuanced expressions of feeling, for this is highly individual. One person’s anger is cold and controlled while another person’s anger bursts forth vehemently. It is possible, however, to embody all eight Passion Drive combinations, and, through the resonance of bodily experience, survey the landmarks in this area of the dynamosphere for oneself. The Vision Drive. Yet another vista is presented by the Vision Drive, which combines the qualities of space, time, and flow (Figure 5-6). In this transformation of the Action Drive, flow replaces weight. Weight effort, which Laban related to visceral sensation, becomes latent. Weight
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effort is the mover’s responsive dialogue with gravity, gravity being the omnipresent force that holds us to the earth. When weight effort becomes latent, the mover momentarily slips from gravity’s grasp. It is no longer necessary to grapple intentionally with practical matters; one is free to soar fluidly on the wings of thought and intuition. In dance, Vision Drive is frequently used “to create the illusion of completely overcoming body weight,” as in an ethereal ballet adagio.49 Movement disciplines that emphasize achieving a form with a minimum of force or strain, such as Tai Chi, may also utilize Vision Drive combinations. Relatively sedentary activities that require concentration, such as studying, writing, or designing, can transport the mover into the Vision Drive. Escapist recreations — window shopping, idly browsing through magazines or surfing the Internet — may also induce a visionary experience in which down-to-earth concerns are transcended temporarily. Again, there are eight unnamed configurations of Vision Drive representing a range of moods, from the most indulgently speculative to the most urgently concentrated. Th e Spell Drive. The fourth drive that Laban identified is known as the Spell Drive. The Spell Drive combines qualities of weight, space, and flow (Figure 5-6). In this transformation of the Action Drive, flow replaces time. Time effort, which Laban related to intuition, becomes latent. It is no longer necessary to be decisively energetic because time passes so steadily as to become imperceptible or even to seem to stand still. This timelessness has an uncanny and hypnotic quality that Laban associated with casting a spell or becoming spell-bound. Drive occur in moments of being engrossed one losesSpell all sense ofcan time. Methodical operations thatso require steadythat attention and control can lead to a hypnotic and “spell-like mechanization” if they lose their rhythmic quality.50 Maletic notes that “when we watch a horror movie we sometimes get spell bound.”51 North asserts that “timelessness” may be experienced “in extreme fear or terror.” 52 On the other hand, Spell Drive can be irresistibly fascinating and may also be used to persuade, attract, or seduce. Again, there are eight nameless configurations, ranging from movement moods that are delicately alluring to those that are powerfully mesmerizing.
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Relating States to Drives. All the effort drives require concentrated physical and mental exertion. Drives are intense and only manifest momentarily in streams of movement behavior. Consequently, most movement phrases consist of less intense combinations of effort that serve as preparations for and recuperations from the energetic concentration of the drives. There is a relationship, then, between the less intense states (Figure 5-4) and the more dynamic drives (Figure 5-6). States can crescendo into drives, or serve as recuperative decrescendos. Three states support the Action Drive. The awake state (space and time) creates a mood of alert attentiveness to what is occurring in the present moment. The stable state (weight and space) creates a sense of steadfast, perceptive presence and is often employed in holding and steadying materials that are being worked upon. The near state (weight and time) creates a down-to-earth attitude and facilitates a rhythmic handling of tools and tasks. Three states relate to the Passion Drive. These are the near state (weight and time), the mobile state (flow and time) and the dream state (flow and weight). The weight and time combinations of the near state are earthy and visceral. The flow and time combinations of the mobile state are as fleeting and mercurial as feeling itself. The flow and weight combinations of the dream state transport the mover into a light-hearted fantasy of ease or plunge the mover into a nightmarish mood of discomfort. There are three states associated with the Vision Drive. The mobile state (flow and time) facilitates fluid and intuitive perception. The awake state (space and time) promotes a heightened alertness or sustained remote state attention the present situation.that Thetranscends (space immediate and flow) supports atotimeless concentration the mover’s surroundings. Finally, there are three states that are connected to the Spell Drive. In the remote state (space and flow), one is giving attention, but not to one’s immediate environment; instead one is preoccupied or deeply concentrated. The dream state (weight and flow) recalls those se nsations one sometimes experiences when dreaming – sensations of flowing suspension, as in soaring, or feelings of agonized restraint, as in running through tar. The stable state (weight and space) relates to a kind of timeless
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enduring, as in being rooted firmly and fixedly or prevailing with adelicate flexibility. A cubic model of the dynamosphere depicting the relationships between motion factors, drives, and states can be found in unpublished documents in the Rudolf Laban Archive.53 In this geometric model Laban uses corners, edges, and oblique surface lines across the faces of the cube to create an ingenious representation of eukinetic theory. Laban has arrayed elements of his effort taxonomy in the following way. The four motion factors are matched with four of the eight corners of the cube. The four drives are matched with the other four corners and situated opposite the motion factor they lack. For example, Vision Drive is placed at the right forward high corner of the cube, while the motion factor of weight is placed opposite, at the left back low corner. This arrangement of motion factors and drives is shown in Figure 5-8.
Figure 5-8. Motion factors and effort drives.
Now, Laban connects the Vision Drive in the right forward high corner with the Spell Drive in the left back high corner. That diagonal line on the top surface corresponds to the remote state (see Figure 5-9). Note that the two other corners of the top square, flow and space, are the two motion factors that are combined in the remote state itself.
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Figure 5-9. Remote state in relation to drives/motion factors.
Altogether, the six states are placed on oblique surface lines across the six faces of the cube, as shown in Figures 5-10 and 5-11. These surface lines connect the corners where the four drives are placed. The state that is situated on a given surface line will be common to the two drives that the line connects. Contrasting states are positioned opposite one another (see Figures 5-10 and 5-11). Thus, the remote state (space/flow combinations) is on the top of the cube, while its opposite, the near state (weight/time combinations), is placed on the bottom of the cube. The mobile state (time/flow) is on the front surface of the cube, while the stable state (weight/space) is situated on the back wall. The awake state (time/space) is placed on the right face of the cube, while the dream state (weight/ flow) is opposite, on the left face of the cube. In addition to being represented as connecting links between drives, the effort state lines surround a corner where one of the motion factors is situated. For example, in Figure 5-10, Laban has positioned the remote (space/flow), stable (space/weight), and awake (space/time) states on the three faces that intersect at the right back high corner of the cube, where the motion factor of space has been placed. Space is the motion factor that is common to these three states (see Figure 5-4).
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st ab l
e
e k a w a
Figure 5-10. Cubic model of states and drives (1).
Figure 5-11. Cubic model of states and drives (2).
In Figure 5-11, three states intersect in the lower left front corner. This is the corner where Laban positioned the Passion Drive. The three states that meet at this corner — mobile (flow/time), near (weight/time), and dream (weight/flow) — are all related to this drive. Without extending this description to the point of tedium, it will suffice to note that this cube represents all the significant relationships of effort theory in one model. Laban also developed octahedral and tetrahedral models that are equally effective representations.54 Although the ways in which motion factors, states, and drives are matched to each
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polyhedron vary, a consistency of approach can be detected. It is notable that Laban favors three-dimensional geometrical schemes as ways of modeling not only the choreutic domain of his movement taxonomy, but also the eukinetic domain. Complete Effort Combinations. The full effort combinations, in which flow, weight, space, and time qualities are all simultaneously manifested, represent extreme states of mind. In these moods, the flow of intense feeling is added to the weight, space, and time of Action Drive combinations. According to Bartenieff, “at its peak the action becomes involuntary.” Through the addition of flow, it appears as if “the mover’s volition has been usurped by the totality of the Effort involvement.” Full effort combinations involving fighting qualities are like “destructive confrontations,” while those combinations involving indulging qualities “become avoidance of confrontation, escaping.” Both “can be interpreted 55
as extreme survival responses.” Fortunately, these movement moods are relatively uncommon. Less energetic moods, ranging from states to drives, predominate in human movement behavior. Patterns of Effort Change Effort moods are ephemeral. Just as thoughts and feelings come and go, the effort states and drives change constantly. There is an ebb and flow in human movement that is healthy, for the unchanging embodiment of any one mood becomes a visible sign of pathology. Laban recognized that dynamic change in movement behavior is vitallynecessary and highly individual, but he also looked for patterns or laws that could be conceived to govern movement In his kinespheric traceforms, Laban found variation. that patterns of investigations “stability and of mobility alternate endlessly.”56 Meanwhile, examination of dynamospheric fluctuations revealed a different sort of underlying rhythm, one that Laban conceptualized broadly as a pattern of exertion and recuperation. Exertion obviously requires effort. It is of interest to note that Laban also found that the act of recovery cannot take place without effort. He does not correlate exertion with activity and recuperation with passive rest. Rather exertion and recuperation are both active phases in a movement sequence.
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It will be recalled that Laban conceptualized effort as a bipolar variation in quality, expressing an “inner attitude of resisting or accepting the physical conditions influencing movement.”57 It is tempting, then, to assume that the resisting or “fighting” effort qualities comprise exertion and that the accepting or “indulging” qualities are recuperative. Yet this is not what Laban found. Instead, he discovered that “the effort used with a non-fighting indulgence does not always involve a low degree of exertion. It uses rather a different kind of effort, clearly distinguishable from the fighting effort.” Thus exertion need not be vigorous or laborious, for it can also take “a calm and almost strainless form.” 58 Similarly, in Laban’s view, “it would be wrong to consider an energetic inner attitude of fighting against something as incompatible with recovery.”59 As he points out, many sports have a fighting character yet serve as a recuperative pastimes. Exertion, then, does not necessarily involve only fighting effort qualities, nor does recovery utilize only indulging ones. The matter is more complex. The types of effort qualities exercised in exertion and used in recovery “must alternate with one another in a definite rhythm,” according to Laban.60 He applied this rhythmic concept in his consultations in industry. In repetitive labor, the same configurations of states and drives recur monotonously throughout work day. This not only makes such jobs dull and tiring, it also creates a persistent mood that threatens to disrupt normal patterns of movement variation. Merely mandating periodic rests — that is, cessation of all effort — does little to restore balance in the dynamosphere. In Laban’s view, recuperation is active, and work movements in repetitive labor need to As be “choreographed” to achieve“if a healthy alternation of effort qualities. Preston-Dunlop describes, the job required a downward pressure then he [Laban] introduced, somewhere in the movement phrase, an upward movement and released pressure.” 61 Thus through the rhythmic alternation of fighting and indulging effort qualities, Laban sought to maintain dynamic vitality and a balanced expression of dynamospheric impulses. The alternation of fighting and indulging efforts is a simple theoretical model of effort patterning, but Laban himself admitted that what may be simple in theory becomes much more complex in practice — “if the
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change between effort and recovery were a simple rhythmical change occurring at well-discernible regular intervals, it could be regarded as a waste of time to scrutinize the relationship of these two functions.” 62 Spontaneous movement behavior is much more complicated. This is because, as Bartenieff points out, a movement sequence can be perceived on many levels, for instance, “as a body action, a spatial action, and/or an action with varying degrees of Effort qualities. In each case, the action can be simple, e.g., moving one body part in one direction with one Effort dominant, or, complex, involving more body parts in more directions with more Effort elements. The complexity of the phrasing is increased as the body, space, and Effort factors of the actions include more variations.” 63 Connecti ng Moo d a nd Place Laban wrote, “man lives in two worlds. The world of the space and time of his external surroundings and the world of the strength and flow of his inner center of effort. These two worlds merge in man’s action if oriented outside, towards the external surroundings; and in man’s behaviour, if oriented inside, towards the inner center of effort.”64 Laban’s taxonomy mirrors this differentiation, with Choreutics dealing with the outer physical domain of human movement and Eukinetics addressing the inner psychological domain. While the discrete separation of inner and outer domains is useful for analytical purposes, every bodily movement involves spatial relocations and the use of kinetic energy. Thus, the kinesphere and the dynamosphere should not be thought of as separate universes, but as interpenetrating ones. As Laban insisted, “the experienc of the interdependence of dynamospheric and kinespheric sequences hase shown us that the conventional idea of space as a phenomenon which can be separated from time and force and from expression, is completely erroneous.”65 Nevertheless, having established separate taxonomies for effort and space, Laban had to grapple with the problem of how theshifting landscapes of the dynamosphere could be conceived to relate to the geometric geographies of the kinesphere. Laban’s preliminary solution to this conundrum was straightforward. He had established various geographies of the kinesphere by using
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Platonic solids to create different sets of coordinate points for navigating the kinesphere. These geometrical frameworks allowed patterns traced in space to be recorded. If patterns of effort change in the dynamosphere could also be represented geometrically, these dynamospheric patterns could be superimposed on kinespheric patterns, since the forms of representation for the choreutic and eukinetic domains would be congruent. The way in which Laban had conceptualized his taxonomy of effort lent itself to geometric representation. Since each motion factor was conceived as consisting of bipolar qualities, the contrasting qualities could be represented as opposite poles along a continuum. Once so represented, these lines of effort variation could be aligned in three-dimensional space so as to correspond with visible movement paths in the kinesphere. The key was to establish empirical correspondences between virtual lines of effort variation and actual lines of motion. In examining the relationship between dynamospheric and kinespheric sequences, Laban found that “the body and its limbs are able to execute certain dynamic nuances in movement towards certain areas in space better than others.” 66 On the basis of this observation, he developed two basic schemes connecting mood and place. The first scheme, which deals with relationships between dimensional lines of motion and the effort factors of weight, time and space, appears to be supported by empirical research. 67 The second scheme, correlating diagonal trajectories and Action Drive compounds, is a logical extension of the empirically-grounded dimensional model.
Dimensional Aff initieswith . This scheme relatesspace, the lines of the cardinal dimensions thefundamental motion factors of weight, and time. Laban associates the vertical dimension with variations in the motion factor of weight. In this scheme, a “feeling of lightness” is correlated with “the reaching upward to the point where the arm or the body prepares to relax,” while “strong, firm movement” is related to “a foothold downward.” Laban associates the horizontal dimension with variations in spatial focus. “Straight, direct movement” is connected to the spatial restriction resulting from “movement across the body,” while roundabout flexible use of space is correlated with movement “opening outwards.”
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Variations in timing are related to the sagittal dimension. Laban associates quick, sudden movements with contractions “into a backwards direction,” while slow, sustained movements release “into a forward direction.”68 Laban’s observations seem plausible. Moreover, his correlations reveal a formally-ordered coherence, for bipolar effort qualities of a single motion factor are associated with movements in opposing directions along a single dimensional axis. Thus, the weight effort qualities of lightness and strength are situated at opposite ends of the vertical axis of the octahedron; contrasting qualities of space, at opposite ends of the horizontal axis; and contrasting qualities of time, at opposite ends of the sagittal axis. These “affinities” of effort and space are shown in Figure 5-12. Note that horizontal movements of opening and closing will vary depending upon the side of the body that is leading. Since this affects effort affinities, both right-handed and left-handed dimensional models are shown below.
Left-handed affinities
Right-handed affinities Figure 5-12. Effort qualities related to dimensions.
Diagonal Affinities. The second model that Laban developed is an extension of the first. In this model, the cubic diagonals are related to configurations of the Action Drive. This correlation is based upon Laban’s observation that the average person should be able to reach every part of his body with his hands. Similarly he will be able to exert each of the basic efforts [Action Drive combinations] while working on an object wherever it is placed, in front, behind, above, below or at either side so long as the object is within easy reach. However,
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due to man’s body structure, none of the basic efforts will be equally well applied in every position, and it has been found that each basic effort can be used in a specific position relative to the center of the body more easily than in any other. That is, when each basic effort is used in its specific position, it will gain the freest flow. 69 It will be recalled that the ends of the diagonals mark the eight zones of the kinesphere. Each diagonal trajectory combines equal vertical, horizontal, and sagittal spatial pulls, and each Action Drive combination blends qualities of weight, space, and time. Laban’s correlation of each cardinal direction with a single effort quality makes it possible to work out dynamic correlations for the diagonal directions. For example, in reaching forward toward the upper right corner of the cube with the right arm, one rises, opens, and advances simultaneously. Rising relates to decreasing pressure; opening, to indirecting; and advancing, to decelerating. Thus, a diagonal pathway toward this corner of the cube can be correlated with a delicate, flexible, leisurely “floating” action. The opposite end of this diagonal line of motion is related to the opposite combination of effort qualities, to a strong, direct, sudden “punching” action. Again, the way in which Laban matched the eight configurations of the Action Drive to the eight corners of the cube reveals a formal coherence. Contrasting effort combinations are associated with movements in opposite directions along each of the four cubic diagonals. The rest of this scheme is shown in Figure 5-13. Because opening and closing varies depending upon the side of the body that is leading, righthanded and left-handed cubic models of the affinities are shown. Laban’s observations regarding these effort/space affinities should not be viewed as rigidly predictive of all possible relations of mood and place. While Laban conceives his models as representing natural tendencies, he notes that “movements of any dynamic shade can,of course, be made into any desired direction.”70 It will be noted that the motion factor of flow is not incorporated in either model. There is an obvious explanation: four motion factors cannot be matched to three spatial
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left-handed affinities
right-handed affinities
Figure 5-13. Action Drives related to diagonals.
dimensions. In addition, Laban appears to see flow as an independent variable that may alter the prescribed relations between dimensional movements and the motion factors of weight, space, and time. As he elaborates, “the correlation of dimensional movements with dynamic stresses is most strongly felt in freely-flowing movement, whereas if the flow is restrained different correlations arise.”71 This observation suggests that volitional control plays a determining role in effort/space relationships.
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In addition to the exclusion of flow, Laban’s dimensional and diagonal models of effort-space relationships fail to address the deflected directions represented by the planar diameters, peripheral surface lines, and transverse rays of the icosahedron. Laban’s published writings do not provide any icosahedral effort models that could be superimposed on this geography of space to establish effort affinities for deflected pathways. Since Laban’s preferred model of the dynamosphere appears to be the cube, and his preferred model of the kinesphere is the icosahedron, there is no congruence between these forms. Patterns modeled in one geometrical form cannot simply be superimposed on the other to represent the interpenetrating relationships of effort patterns and spatial trace-forms. Laban’s solution to this gap in the theory of effort-space relationships is discussed in Chapter 9.
The “Law of Proximity” The cubic model (Figure 5-13) represents effort-space relationships. Having established this set of correspondences, Laban used the same cubic model to analyze effort-effort relationships. He perceived a “law of proximity,” noting that “there is a close proximity in kinespheric space between related action-moods, and a growing distance between actionmoods of estranged inner relations.”72 Laban based this observation on delineating three types of spatial relationships between corners of the cube: 1) corners can be linked by an edge, 2) corners can be linked by an oblique surface line across one face of the cube, and 3) opposite corners can be linked by a diagonal ray that passes through the center of the cube. Establishing the relative distance between these reveals the following: 1) corners that share an edge are close to corners one another, 2) corners that lie opposite one another across a face of the cube are slightly farther apart, and 3) corners that are at opposite ends of a diagonal ray are the farthest apart.73 When the effort affinities of Laban’s cubic model (Figure 5-14) are examined, their arrangement abides by the law of proximity. Action Drive compounds situated at opposite ends of an edge share two qualities and differ only in one. For example, cubic corners corresponding to float and glide are linked by the upper front edge of the cube. These action moods
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GLIDE-FLOAT
share2qualities
GLIDE ——— PUNCH PUNCH FLOAT
share share10quality qualities
Figure 5-14. Proximity or kinship of mood.
share qualities of lightness and sustainment, but differ in the quality of space (see Figure 5-7). Action configurations situated at opposite corners of a face share one dynamic quality and differ in two. For example, cubic corners corresponding to glide and punch are linked by an oblique line across the surface of the left face of the cube. These action compounds share the quality of directness, but differ in weight and time qualities. Finally, action moods situated at diagonally opposite corners of the cube differ in all three qualities. Float and punch provide an example. These action moods have nothing in common – float is light, sustained, and indirect while punch is strong, quick, and direct. Laban derived the cubic arrangement of Action Drive compounds by modeling effort-space relationships. Yet the model also serves to demonstrate dynamospheric similarities and differences among effort compounds. No doubt Laban saw this as another demonstration of the interdependence of energy and space. Whimsically he likened his cubic effort model to a “town with agood many cross-roads and squares between houses in which the effort microbes live,” observing that “it is a curious
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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.” 74 The law of proximity has important implications for the phrasing of effort. As Laban elaborates, “experience proves that extreme contrasts of dynamic actions in which there are contrasting elements of all three fundamental traits, speed, force and directional flux, cannot be performed by the body immediately one after the other. Transitional movements must be introduced.”75 Transitional moods will be less contrasting. For example, the fundamental pattern of exertion and recuperation suggests that a floating action may serve as a recuperation for a punching movement, or vice versa. The law of proximity, however, indicates that it is not possible to execute such a dramatic change without intermediary moods. Or as Laban puts it, “a bodily feeling for harmonious movement does not permit immediate transition between distant action-moods in the kinesphere.”76 This creates an interesting problem: how can effort be sequenced harmonically so as to move from a punch to a float or vice versa by gradual increments; that is, by only changing one effort quality at a time? Laban’s answer to this question will be addressed in Chapter 8. Summary: Taxonomy of Effort Laban’s taxonomy of effort is based upon a conception of movement moods composed of four different motion factors: flow, weight, time, space. Each and of these motion factors is dynamic, oscillating between oppositional attitudes of fighting and indulging. Thus flow manifests in movement as a binding or freeing quality of muscular control. Weight can be perceived as variations in pressure, as an increasing or decreasing of movement force. Time becomes visible in the process of accelerating or decelerating the pace of an action, while space is perceptible as variations in plasticity between a straightforward directness and a roundabout flexibility. Effort qualities reflect inner attitudes, for how the mover applies his or her kinetic energies reveals something about intention and mood. Effort
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moods unfold in the “dynamosphere,” which Laban conceived as avirtual, inner space that is analogous to the outer physical space of the kinesphere. To outline systematically the shifting landscapes of this inner domain of thought and feeling, Laban used combinational analysis. This led to a theory of states (combinations of two motion factors), drives (configurations of three motion factors), and complete effort compounds (combining all four motion factors). Laban delineated 72 dynamic effort configurations, all of which can be recorded in a simple, graph-like notation. In addition, Laban drew upon Jungian theory to hypothesize various connections between effort elements and functions of consciousness: the motion factor of space effort was linked with thinking and attention; weight, with sensing and intention; time, with intuition and decision-making; and flow, with feeling and attunement. In Laban’s view, all movement moods are dynamic and changeable. Yet beneath this evanescent fluctuation of kinetic energies, a fundamental pattern of exertion and recuperation can be perceived. Vitality is sustained by a balanced use of contrasting effort qualities and configurations. However, as movement becomes more complex, so does the alternating pattern of exertion and recuperation. Laban found that effort phrases follow a “law of proximity,” in which transitional effort configurations are necessary to modulate the shift from one action-mood to its polar opposite. In addition, Laban found that certain effort qualities were embodied more readily in movements towards particular areas of the kinesphere. He developed two models representing the interface of effort and space. One relates qualities the of weight, time,Action and space the cardinal directions of effort the octahedron; other relates Driveto configurations to the diagonal directions of the cube. In Figure 5-15, Laban’s choreutic and eukinetic taxonomies are outlined in skeletal form. This means of presentation demonstrates Laban’s attempt to create parallel domains in his movement taxonomy in which Choreutics addresses movement forms in the outer domain of space, while Eukinetics deals with kinetic elements in the inner domain of psychological intent. Laban appears to have been concerned with controlling the number of elements in each domain. Though he reshaped
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concepts on the basis of new observations, he appears to have avoided a proliferation of terms. This parsimony results in a descriptive framework that is relatively abstract. This abstraction supports claims that Laban’s work is a general theory of human movement, rather than a descriptive framework for dance alone. On the other hand, practical application of this taxonomy for purposes of movement description and analysis requires observers to be able to discern a small number of formal properties within a wide variety of movement events. While the crystallization of the choreutic and eukinetic taxonomies is an accomplishment in itself, Laban saw this as only part of his theoretical endeavor. He repeatedly observed that, although the unfolding of movement forms in the kinesphere can be separated from the patterned fluctuation of effort energies in the dynamosphere for purposes of analysis, this is an artificial division. The “movements from place to place” and the “movements from mood to mood” form a unified phenomenological field of human experience. “Harmony” is the overarching concept that Laban employed to move from analysis to synthesis, examining the way in which the inner and outer domains of human movement become one.
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Parallel Movement Domains CHOREUTICS
EUKINETICS
The study of movement from “place to place”
The study of movement from “mood to mood”
Where
How
Form
Energy
Kinesphere
Dynamosphere
“Outer” domain of human movement
“Inner domain” of human movement
Physical
Psychological
Three dimensions
Four motion factors
Opposite directions
Bipolar qualities
Lines, planes, plastic curves
Single effort elements, states, drives
1-, 2-, 3-dimensional
1, 2, 3 motion factors
Structural integrity maintained through rhythmic alternation of stable and mobile spatial inclinations
Vitality maintained through balanced pattern of exertion and recuperation
Figure 5-15. Laban’s taxonomy of human movement.
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Notes 11. Maletic, Body Space Expression. See Chapter 2, which traces the development of Laban’s concepts of dynamics. 12. Ibid., 93. 13. Laban, Principles of Dance Notation. This slender book was published by Laban in 1956 to protect his copyright of the notation system. It includes a section on notation of stresses of movement that incorporates effort symbols. Strangely, the symbols shown are not the srcinal ones that Laban designed in the 1940s. These later symbols have not been adopted by notators or movement analysts. 14. Maletic, Dance Dynamics, 9. 15. Laban, “Motion Study,” typescript E(L)5 3/1, 89, Laban Archive, NRCD. This appears to have been part of the first version of the book later published with Lawrence under the title, Effort. The
16. 17. 18. 19. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.
surviving manuscript includes theoretical material that is not in the published work. Maletic, Body Space Expression, 93. Laban, “Motion Study,” E(L)53/1, 26, Laba n Archive, NRCD. Maletic, Dance Dynamics, 9. See, Laban, “Motion Study,” E(L)53/1, 204, Laban Archive, NRCD. Laban and Lawrence, Effort, 66. Maletic, Body Space Expression, 100-101. Laban, Mastery of Movement, 23. Laban, Modern Educational Dance, 56. Ibid.
15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.
Ibid., Ibid., 60. 62. Ibid., 64. Ibid., 66. Ibid., 71. Ibid., 68. Laban and Lawrence, Effort, 67. Ibid., 66. Laban, Mastery of Movement, 17. Laban, Language of Movement, 30.
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25. Laban, “Change in Space,” E(L)6/78, 14, Laban Archive, NRCD. 26. Jung, Psychological Types. 27. Jung, Man and His Symbols, 61. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38.
Bloom, “Moving Actors,” 14. Ibid. Ibid. Mazur, Prophets of Yesterday, 255. Laban, Mastery of Movement, 126. Ibid., 127. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 89. Ibid., 86. Bartenieff with Lewis, Body Movement, 63.
39. Laban, Language of Movement, 90. 40. Ibid., 91. 41. Laban elaborated on these moods by ranking elements within effort configurations, giving some elements greater stress. This scheme is outlined in Laban and Lawrence, Effort, 33-39. Another elaboration with which Laban experimented is gradation of intensity of elements within combinations. For further discussion, see North, Personality Assessment, Appendix 1, Section D, and Newlove and Dalby, Laban for All, 154-158. It is difficult to establish the extent to which these refinements have come into general usage among movement analysts. 42. Laban, “Sea of Time,” E(L)7/67, 21, Laban Archive, NRCD. 43. 44. 45. 46.
Mastery of Movement, Laban, 85. Body Movement, Bartenieff with Lewis, 60. Laban, Mastery of Movement, 87. Lamb, “Framework for Laban’s Core Principles,” 18. In this article, Lamb emphasizes that movement is a “process of variation.” As he explains, “no movement can be just direct. It has to be a process of variation beginning with more direct becoming less direct, or indirect becoming more direct.” 47. Bartenieff with Lewis, Body Movement, 58.
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48. Maletic, Body Space Expression, 97, 99. In the 1920s and 1930s, Laban had already identified eight basic dynamic actions in dance by drawing upon and elaborating French ballet terminology. The
49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54.
55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67.
prevalence of these basic actions in work movement was confirmed in his industrial studies conducted in the 1940s and subsequently published in the book, Effort, written with F.C. Lawrence. Bartenieff with Lewis, Body Movement, 62. Laban, “Sea of Time,” E(L)7/67, 29, Laban Archive, NRCD. Maletic, Dance Dynamics, 50. North, Personality Assessment, 261. Laban, man uscripts, E(L)7/52, E(L)7 /67, and E(L)17/48, L aban Archive, NRCD. The octahedral model is found in Laban manuscript, E(L)5/40. (A version of this model also appears in North, Personality Assessment, 248-250.) The tetrahedral model is found in Laban, manuscripts, E(L)6/3, Laban Archive, NRCD. If the tetrahedron and octahedron are nested inside the cubic model, the placements of states and drives for all three models will correspond, suggesting that Laban developed these models in a coherent and consistent fashion. Bartenieff with Lewis, Body Movement, 63. Laban, Language of Movement, 93. Maletic, Body Space Expression, 101. Laban, “Rhythm of Effort and Recovery,” 44. Ibid., 45. Ibid. Laban, Preston-Dunlop, 223. Laban, “Rhythm Rudolf of Effort and Recovery,” 46. Bartenieff with Lewis, Body Movement, 73. Laban, “Chemistry of Sentiments,” E(L)5/78, Laban Archive, NRCD. Laban, Language of Movement, 67. Ibid., 30. Laban, “Motion Study,” typescript E(L)53/2, 28-29, Laban Archive, NRCD. Laban appears to have corroborated his theory of effort/space affinities in dance by subsequent observations of industrial labor, along with a series of “wheel and screw” experiments with workers.
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These involved the study of arm and hand movements in which the wheel or screw to be turned was placed in various locations: on the ground, in the wall in front, on the ceiling, etc. Laban discovered
68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73.
that in some positions, subjects found clockwise movement easier; while in others, counter-clockwise movements prevailed. Laban used these experiments to confirm “the ease with which a definite effort can be made in different directions in space.” Laban, Language of Movement, 31. Laban, “Motion Study,” E(L)53/2, Laban Archive, NRCD. Laban, Language of Movement, 31. Ibid. Ibid., 55. Lawlor, Sacred Geometry, 25, 32. If the edge of the cube is given the hypothetical value of 1, the diagonal line across a face can be found
by using the Pythagorean Theorem. It will have the value of the square root of 2, or approximately 1.4. The cubic diagonal will have the value of the square root of 3, or approximately 1.7. Laban uses these progressively greater distances to represent progressively greater differences between action moods situated at corners of the cube. 74. Laban, manuscript, E(L)6/64, Laban Archive, NRCD. 75. Laban, Language of Movement, 56. 76. Ibid., 67.
C HAPTER 6
On Har mony Analysis, Synthesis, and the Essence of Movement The preceding chapters introduced various elements of Laban’s taxonomy of human movement. These elements are organized under two broad yet distinc t categorical headings: Choreutics and Eukinetics. Choreutics deals with the outer domain of kinetic activity: charting the movement from place to place in “kinesphere” of visible space. Eukinetics deals with the inner world of thought and feeling: tracing shifting moods in the “dynamosphere,” as these become visible in the realm of movement dynamics. Although Laban sets out these distinctive domains in his taxonomy, he insists that the differentiation of kinespheric and dynamospheric movement elements is an artificial separation, noting that “to separate bodily actions (meaning anatomical and physiological functions) from the spatial activity (meaning that which creates the shapes and lines in space) is in reality as impossible as to separate the mental and emotional parts of movements from the space-time forms in which they become visible.”1 This is a somewhat surprising comment from a man whose work has become practically synonymous with analysis. Yet Laban never advocated analysis as the sole path for understanding movement. Admittedly, a coherent trace-form can be broken down into a sequence of positions in space, and a well-phrased action can be divided into a series of effort states and drives. The spatial and dynamic elements of Laban’s taxonomy allow for such analysis,offering various “photographic” angles of approach that can provide insight into movement
events. But as Henri Bergson points out, “these are only snapshots which our understanding has taken of the continuity of movement.” Granted that in these juxtaposed views one has a substitute for time and movement, but “time and movement are something else.”2 Laban agrees, observing that “the sum of such snapshots is, however, not the flux itself.” 3 For Bergson, the philosopher, and Laban, the movement theorist, the essential nature of movement lies in its fluctuating continuity. The essence of suchcontinuity is, of course, indivisibility. While Laban’s taxonomy is useful for analytical purposes, the breaking up of movement into component parts disrupts its essential continuity and coherence. The marvelous cohesion of form and energy is so commonplace as
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to be taken for granted. Consider a mundane action, such as lifting a cup of coffee to one’s lips. Most people can easily hold the cup level while angling it upwards with the appropriate amount of force so as to reach the mouth without overshooting the target, slamming the cup into one’s teeth, or moving so swiftly that the coffee sloshes over the brim. In contrast, consider what would be involved in programming a robotic arm to perform this same action for a disabled person. Some means of grasping or supporting the cup would need to be designed. The mechanical hand would have to grip the cup without crushing it while holding it level. Distance, speed, force, and angle of ascent would have to be painstakingly calculated. All these variables would need to be taken into account and then coordinated in some way so that the action could unfold in the proper sequence. The arm would have to stop at the right place, then tip the cup so that just enough coffee is poured into the waiting mouth. The degree of tipping would have to increase as the coffee is consumed. How would the robot know when the coffee cup is empty? One need only consider what is involved in mechanically replicating a seemingly simple everyday action to recognize that human movement is a wonderfully complex synthesis of perceptual and motor functions. A daunting number of variables come into play in even quotidian actions. But calculating variables alone will not reproduce a movement. The various parts must be coordinated and brought into agreement to produce a coherent movement. Human beings are able to do this naturally while robotics engineers are still puzzling over how such fluid and seemingly spontaneous cohesion can be replicated. Laban saw that movement was a synthesis of man’s “infinite faculties”; the coming together of thought and feeling to produce the “express and admirable” actions of which Shakespeare sings. 4 Fully realizing that analysis, though undeniably useful for mechanical purposes, destroys the marvelous synthesis that is the very essence of movement experience, Laban looked beyond the delineation of component elements for underlying principles that could describe, at least to some extent, the miraculous bonding of body, effort, and space. Harmony is the broad conceptual framework that Laban developed to address how the inner and outer domains are integrated in the seamless unfolding of voluntary human movement. Ha r mony as an Analo gic Metaph or It is important to recognize that Laban is not employing the term “harmony”
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in the common sense of something that is euphonious, attractive, or pleasing. His concept of harmony is more formal and abstract. So he writes: “Between the harmonic components of music and those of dance, there is not only an outward resemblance, but a structural congruity, which although hidden at first, can be investigated and verified, point by point.” 5 Laban’s observation that there is a “structural congruity” between harmonic relations in music as well as in dance suggests that he is employing harmony as an analogic metaphor. An analogic metaphor combines analogic modeling with the imaginative functions of metaphoric thinking. Metaphor connects two ideas. It has the power “to bring separate domains into cognitive and emotional relation,” enabling us “to see a new subject matter in a new way.”6 This imaginative extension is combined with analogue modeling, which has the “abstract aim of reproducing the structure of the srcinal.” 7 An analogic metaphor is a controlled comparison in which the analogue model (in this case, dance) shares with the srcinal (in this case, music harmony) the same structure and pattern of relationships. Analogic metaphors play an important role in the development of theory. Through a process of analytic induction, analogic metaphors may be elaborated so that “every incidence of a relation in the srcinal must be echoed by a corresponding incidence of a correlated relation in the analogue model.”8 Thus if music is governed by ratio, so must dance be. If music has an inherent underlying order, so must dance. The essence of this procedure, according to Randall Collins, is “to explain a phenomenon not by looking at it in isolation but by comparison and contrast to other things.”9 Through elaboration of theanalogic metaphor of harmony, Laban developed a beautifully coherent description of how the different elements of movement are brought into agreement. This work rests upon the structure of relations inherent in the taxonomy of space and effort and complements the analytic with a more synthetic perspective. Anyone who has studied Laban’s work in a practical way will have some familiarity with his notions of harmony, as will anyone who has read Laban’s published writings. What is attempted here, however, is a more comprehensive and systematic elaboration of the construct of movement harmony. It begins with an examination of elements of movement harmony. Laban never defined harmonic movement in a direct or succinct statement, but he alludes to harmony, and “harmonious” movement in a number of published and unpublished writings. From these various comments, the following elements of movement harmony may be delineated: (1) ratio and
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proportion, (2) balance, (3) symmetry, (4) unity of form, (5) interrelationship of elements, and (6) individuality. Each of these elements is distinct, yet all are interrelated. In this sense, Laban appears to build up a picture of the fundaments of harmony by gradual accretion. Consequently, each element is discussed individually first. Then, following an “interlude” examination of implicit aspects of Laban’s use of geometrical models, a working definition of movement harmony is presented. Ratio and Pr oport ion The harmonic relations underlying Western music are based upon simple ratios that can be expressed numerically. The most fundamental ratio is that of 1: 2, which establishes the octave, a primary division of pitch space. If a single string is plucked, it will vibrate at a set frequency. If the string is held down in the middle (that is, divided into two equal parts), each half will vibrate twice as fast as the whole string did. The note sounded by the whole string and the note sounded by the string divided in half, will be the same. But the note sounded by the divided string will be an octave higher than the note of the whole string. Other types of relationships in tones will develop when the string is divided in other ways: at one third its length, one fourth its length, and so on. The discovery of the proportional relationships between number and tone is attributed to the Greek philosopher and mathematician, Pythagoras, who used this knowledge to arrange tones in a sequence or scale. 10 This sequence of tones provides the organizational scaffolding that “brings order to music,” separating musical tones from unmusical sounds of irregular and indefinite pitch.11 As Livio observes, “Every string quartet and symphony orchestra today still uses Pythagoras’s discovery of whole-number relationships among different
musical tones.”12 Laban notes that “relations of vibrations expressed in primary numbers give our senses an impression of balance which we call harmony.” 13 Since musical and color harmonies are based upon numerical ratios, he goes on to point out “the possibility of discovering similar relations in the trace-forms of movement.”14 The analogy that Laban draws is as follows. Music organizes sound by cutting up pitch space into rational units. Not only are the bottom and top notes of the octave related to one another in the ratio of 1:2, the pitch space of the octave is evenly divided into the twelve tempered semitones (these are represented, for example, by the twelve white and black piano keys that make
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up the octave between middle C and high C). Dance organizes movement space in a similar way. A rational basis for this organization is inherent in Laban’s use of the icosahedron, whose twelve corners are equidistantly distributed around the kinesphere, cutting up movement space in a regular way just as the twelve semitones divide the pitch space of the octave into equal intervals. As Laban explains, these twelve “signal points” of the kinesphere “not only make a division of space possible, but also are in themselves units of harmonic interrelationships.” 15 Laban also uses edges and internal rays of the icosahedron to map lines of motion. Angles between these peripheral and transverse lines of motion, expressed as degrees of a circle, show a number of correspondences with the range of motion of various joints of the body, also expressed as degrees of a circle. Many correspondences based on single joint actions are delineated in This leads Laban to affirm that “the The Language of Movement. correspondence between the angles of the icosahedron and the maximum angles through which the limbs move is quite astonishing. They apprear to be either the same, or exactly half, or double, of those mentioned.”16 Laban presents this as evidence to support his assertion that numerical ratios similar to those found in music may be discovered in the trace-forms of movements. His argument was sufficient to convince the French mathematician Matila Ghyka. He notes, “Laban observes that all the bodily movements of the dancer (in three dimensions), as well as the different directions of the dancer’s space, correspond to the angles of the rays of the icosahedron.” 17 However, two difficulties arise with the correspondences that Laban identifies. First, anatomical references differ regarding the “normal” range of motionfor various joints.18 Moreover, motion of a single limb often involves several aspects of joint function, combining flexion or extension, adduction or abduction, and rotation. An action of the whole body becomes even more complex. Laban was well-aware of the complications. “To touch a point on the floor behind ourselves,” he writes, “we must employ a number of interrelated movements.” 19 These include flexion of the knees, rotation of the pelvis, extension of the lumbar spine, abduction and rotation of the arm, and so on. While Laban admits that interrelated movements are complex, he also insists that “between the angles of the component moves there is a precise relationship which is determined by a law – the law of harmony in movement. If we disobey this law, we shall then succeed in reaching the desired point only by means of incredible distortions and with the greatest difficulty.” 20 In other words, if the
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spine is overextended or the arm insufficiently rotated, the attempt to reach the floor will appear clumsy to the observer and feel awkward for the mover. By considering the “angles of component moves,” Laban introduces a more dynamic view into the analogy of musical and movement ratios. The unfolding of a musical melody in time is based upon underlying tonal relationships that are proportional. Similarly, the unfolding of a movement trace-form in space is based upon proportional ratios of coordinated joint actions. Consequently, the particularistic correspondences of single joint actions and angles of the icosahedron are less significant than Laban’s more fundamental observation: the proportions of the parts of the human body along with the anatomical structure of its joints determine the pathways that canbe traced in the kinesphere. There is, according to Laban, a “harmonic” relationship between bodily form and movement function that can be described numerically and geometrically. Numerical Relationships. This connection between number, form, and movement is seldom addressed explicitly in dance and movement training. Laban’s observation becomes more tenable, however, when his background in visual art is considered, for he translated academic training in anatomy, figure drawing, and rendering in perspective to his study of dance. As noted in Chapter 3, painters who wish to depict the human form in action are obliged to understand fundamental proportional relationships of the parts of the body and how these proportions are visibly altered when the body is represented in different poses. Over the centuries, artists have employed numerical and geometrical schemes to assist in the realistic representation of the human form in motion. For example, an “anthropometric” canon of human proportion has existed from Classical times. This canon, which delineates average body proportions, is based upon actual measurements of body parts. Relations between the measures of parts can be expressed in two ways: as whole number ratios (fractions based upon whole numbers) or as irrational numbers (numbers that have no precise value and are never-repeating and never-ending). In the first case, a standard of measurement is set, such as the length of the face from hairline to chin. Using this standard, the rest of the body can be proportionally related. For example, the shoulder girdle is two face-lengths wide; the hand and the foot are one face-length; the upper arm is 1 ½ face lengths, the upper leg is two face lengths, and so on. Laban’s figure drawings, analyzed in Chapter 3, demonstrate his familiarity with fractional schemes for dealing with bodily proportions.
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Irrational numbers can also be used to represent human proportion. As Schneider writes, “the ancient Greeks discovered, or more likely learned from the Egyptians, that the human body is ideally structured in part and whole according to the golden mean.” 21 The Golden Mean has a numerical value of 1.6180339887. . . . (or the square root of five, plus one, divided by two), but Robert Lawlor suggests, it is best thought of as a two term proportional division in which “the smaller term is to the larger term in the same way that the larger term is to the smaller plus the larger. It is written as a:b :: b: (a + b).” 22 Any line can be divided in such a way that the shorter segment is to the longer segment as the longer segment is to the whole line. This point of division marks the Golden Mean (see Figure 6-1).
1 : Φ : : Φ : (1 + Φ) Φ = 1.618 Figure 6-1. Golden Mean division of a line.
In the twentieth century, the Golden Mean has come to be represented by the Greek letter phi (Φ) after the Greek artist, Phidias, whose exquisitely lifelike sculptures are rich with golden proportions, as is the human body. “Phi is a proportion found in natural growth,” Schneider explains.23 Because of this relationship to patterns of growth, Doczi views phi as a proportional limit shared by all parts of the human body, thus “the length of the hand to arm to trunk… are shared.”24 Schneider is more specific: “When the length of each finger joint is multiplied by 1.618… the length of the next larger section is indicated.”25 Laban was familiar with the ubiquity of phi in the human figure: The Golden Section is also considered to be the ruling proportion between all the different parts of the perfectly built human body and throughout the ages its mathematical law has been closely connected with aesthetics. This [the Golden Section] shows an infinite series of redivisions in which each small part has the same relation to the larger part as the larger part has to the whole. 26
Geometrical Relationships. While proportions based upon rational and irrational numbers have proved useful to artists in the realistic depiction of the human body, geometrical devices have aided in rendering the active body in
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perspective. The Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer, who noted that “no one can be or become an absolute artist” without geometry,27 was among the first to exploit the use of solid forms to solve problems of foreshortening. As described in Chapter 3, Dürer superimposed geometrical forms on the organic curves of the body. These simpler geometrical forms could then be tilted, rotated, and redrawn in proper perspective, forby “shifting these around in space any number of poses could be produced in what may be called a synthetic fashion.” 28 This technique allowed Dürer to solve problems of foreshortening systematically, after which he could convert the geometrized pose back into a biomorphic human figure. Panofsky refers to Dürer’s approach as producing crystallized poses in which “the very principle of transition is left out.”29 Admittedly, Dürer’s use of geometry serves the analysis of joint action in stillness rather than in motion. Nevertheless, Laban seems to have appropriated aspects of Dürer’s approach in his own exploration of the relationship of anatomical structure and traceforms. As discussed in Chapter 3, Laban projects the geometrical form around the human body, superimposing it on the kinesphere rather than on the human figure itself. These superimpositions sometimes relate to poses, as shown in Figure 6-2, where Laban appears to use a geometrical figure to indicate proportional relationships among body parts.
Figure 6-2. Trace-form in dodecahedron in relation to bony landmarks of the human figure. Rudolf Laban Archive L/C/5/128. ©NRCD.
In other instances, the geometrical form is used to depict a trace-form as it progresses through the space around the body. A drawing of this type is shown
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in Plate K. Whereas real movement shapes vanish even as they are being traced, these types of drawings preserve the angles and configurations of lines that make up a trace-form. In many other cases, Laban dispenses with the human figure altogether and simply renders the trace-form geometrically. An example of this can be seen in Figure 6-3.
Figure 6-3. Trace-form without figure. Rudolf Laban Archive L/C/2/119 ©NRCD.
It can be seen, then, that traditional art practices have relied upon numerical and geometrical means of various sorts to aid the realistic depiction of human beings in action. Surviving drawings by Laban demonstrate his grasp of these artistic techniques, as well as their application to the study of movement traceforms. Certainly he had the means to conceive a law of harmony that dete rmines a precise relationship between the angles of component moves. Moreover, it is congruent with both art and music theories that these relationships should also be viewed in numerical terms. In this sense, ratio is a core element in Laban’s theory of movement harmony. Balance If one wishes to study movement harmony, Laban remarks,
it will not be enough to describe movement in the ordinary mechanical way. One can say that a person has a wonderful gait, and then go into detail and speak about the poise of the movement, the erect carriage of the spine and head and of other attributes connected with a pleasant and free form of walking; one can speak about the rhythm of the steps and of many other things but none of these remarks will penetrate the core of the idea of harmony in movement. There is more behind it, and here we must introduce the idea of balance in order to get a bit nearer to the recognition of harmony.30
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This statement indicates the central role that balance plays in Laban’s thinking about harmony. Balance, of course, is a significant aspect of somatic experience, from the cellular level to the psychological realm. Health, both mental and physical, is said to depend upon balance. All kinds of forces threaten psychophysical equilibrium, from germs to unhappy love affairs. As Laban notes, the human body has to withstand a variety of “disequilibrating influences,” 31 not only those that arise in the outside environment, but also those that come from within. Consequently, balance in movement has both dynamospheric and kinespheric aspects. It is a dynamic process, not a steady state and certainly not a poised stillness. At its most fundamental level, balance for Laban is an oscillation between opposites; it is never “complete stability or a standstill, but the result of two contrasting qualities of mobility.” 32 The fundamental pattern of oscillation in the dynamosphere is the rhythmic shift between exertion and recuperation, while, in the kinesphere, “stability and mobility endlessly alternate.”33 The concept of movement balance as an oscillation seems to follow naturally from the way in which Laban has constructed his taxonomy. The four effort elements are conceived as sets of bipolar qualities: free and bound flow, light and strong weight, sustained and sudden time, and flexible and direct spatial focus. Similarly, the kinesphere is organized in terms of axial tensions in opposing directions: in dimensions such as up and down, planar diameters such as right side high and left side low, and diagonals such as right forward high and left back low. Although Laban organized his taxomony around bipolar qualities and divergent spatial directions, these bipolar elements are not dichotomous or mutually exclusive. In order for the taxonomy to represent movement as a continuous process of change, effort qualities and spatial directions must be conceived as a continuum. In anymovement, there will necessarily be variations in direction and dynamic quality. For example, if a condition of bound flow persists or becomes extreme, the movement will rigidify and a pause will occur. Similarly, extreme free flow will dissipate eventually into an uncontrolled flop from which no transition is possible; a momentary standstill will ensue. Similar limits exist in the kinesphere. Onecannot continue to reach upwards indefinitely. Physical limitations of the limbs will bring the movement to a stop, until a fresh impulse leads to some kind of change. It has been said that music is what happens between the notes, and a similar observation could be made about movement — it is what happens between
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intensely persistent moods and infinite directions. In both music and dance, Laban writes, “there are oscillations in time and space. In both cases the disturbance of the equilibrium and the re-establishing of quietude is on the basis of the oscillatory phenomenon.”34 If movement is to maintain its dynamic fluidity and continuity, there must be variation in how and where it unfolds. If the continuity of transition is to be harmonic, there must be a balance over time in the moods and shapes of change. Symmetry Symmetry is an aspect of movement harmony that is very closely connected to the concept of balance. In The Language of Movement, Laban gives a simple example of this connection: “When one side of the body tends to go into one direction, the other side will almost automatically tend towards the contrary direction.” Such spontaneous movements of opposition serve to maintain postural balance. This leads Laban to observe that “the wish to establish equilibrium through symmetric movements is the simplest manifestation of what we call harmony.”35 Laban is by no means the first person to link equilibrium, symmetry, and harmony. For instance, graphic designers Albarn, Smith, Steele, and Walker make the following observation: “Concerned as it is with balance, symmetry is perhaps the first conceptual device we employ to order experience.”36 Hans Giger writes that the aim of mathematics is “to create order where previously chaos seemed to reign, or in one word, to establish symmetry.”37 As the structural chemists Istvan and Magdolna Hargittai explain, “beyond geometrical definitions, there is another, broader meaning to symmetry—one that relates to harmony and proportion, and ultimately to beauty.” 38 As these various quotations illustrate, definitions of symmetry seem to fall into two broad
categories: On the one hand, they are described in such terms as ‘the right proportion of parts’ and ‘the beauty resulting from this’, which one might call the aesthetic interpretation; then there are those more precise, or scientific, explanations whereby a symmetrical object is one that presents ‘two or more identical parts that are systematically arranged.’39 The latter definition of symmetry draws upon two concepts: congruence and periodicity. Congruence implies a relationship between figures such that “for every point on one there is a corresponding point on the other;” that is, the
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shapes are identical.40 Periodicity has to do with “the repetitive occurrence of exactly the same motif.” 41 The production of such identical and repetitive patterns rests upon “symmetry operations,” such as reflection (mirroring across a line), rotation (turning the figure around a fixed point), translation (sliding the figure a set distance), and so on. Senechal and Fleck acknowledge that “a symmetry operation is a motion and therefore effects a change in the position of most parts of the pattern… One can thus classify patterns by the kind of 42 symmetry operations that leave them invariant, and in this way discover form.” Symmetry, then, implies both balance and motion. It reveals the laws governing the creation of forms in our particular type of two- and threedimensional space. Moreover, symmetry is transformative, for through symmetry operations, contrasting elements in a design may be ordered, balanced, harmonized, and given cohesion as a whole. In this sense, the various symmetry operations play a significant role in dance technique and choreography. Reflection. For example, reflective symmetry is mirroring across a line, as shown with the simple pattern in Figure 6-4. The human body has bilateral reflective symmetry; so that the right and left sides of the body are more or less identical. Hargittai and Hargittai point out that bilateral symmetry is “ closely related to motion,” for crawling, walking, running, and swimming all progress through alternating actions of the right and left sides of the body.43 Bilateral reflection is, of course, an operation that all dancers are familiar with, for in a technique class, movement sequences are performed first to the right and then to the left. Moreover, choreographers often exploit reflective symmetry, in poses, in the placing of groups of dancers on the stage, and in group movement patterns.
Figure 6-4. Reflective symmetry.
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Rotation. Rotational symmetry involves moving a form around an axis. During a complete revolution, the motif will be repeated two or more times, as shown in Figure 6-5. Pinwheels, hubcaps, and flowershave rotational symmetry. Circular dance forms also employ rotation. Rotational patterns are particularly effective when viewed from above. Hollywood choreographer Busby Berkeley exploited rotational symmetry (indeed, all symmetry operations) with unique camera angles in the large group pieces he created for film in the 1920s and 1930s. Longstaff identifies additional rotational symmetry in the familiar en croix sequences in ballet, in which a leg extension “is executed towards the front of the body, then to the side, and finally extended towards the back.” Moreover, “any kinespheric form can be rotated in relation to the room simply by changing” the dancer’s facing and having him/her repeat the movement sequence.44
Figure 6-5. Rotational symmetry.
Translation. Translation involves sliding a form a set distance and then repeating it, as shown in Figure 6-6. According to Hargittai and Hargittai, “we may see translational symmetry everywhere:border decorations, parking meters, gutters, water fountains, lamps, columns, trees, soldiers, etc.” 45 Translation in dance can appear in several ways. The chorus line and the processional march embody translation symmetry. Movement sequences can also be moved from one area of the kinesphere to another and then repeated. For example, Longstaff notes that translation occurs in ballet technique “when a leg movement might be executed low with the toe touching the floor (e.g. ‘Ronde de jambe à terre’) or translated higher with the entire leg in the air (e.g. ‘ Ronde de jambe en l’air’). ”46
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Figure 6-6. Translation symmetry.
Glide Reflection. Another type of symmetry operation known as glide reflection combines translation and reflection so that a figure is moved through space and then reversed, as shown in Figure 6-7. In movement terms, a line of dancers in which every other person faces backwards would be an example of the use of glide reflection. This symmetry operation is also employed when two lines of dancers executing the same movements cross from opposite sides of the stage.
Figure 6-7. Glide reflection pattern combining translation and reflection.
Retrograde Motion. Retrograde incorporates a temporal element, in that a sequence of actions are performed first in one order and then in reverse order. Retrograde motion is fundamental to musical practice, as scales are always played both in ascending and descending order. In dance terms, transferring a “wavelike” action along a line of dancers, and then back again is an example of the use of retrograde motion. Longstaff observes, “when a sequential spatial form (pathway) is learned from beginning-to-end, it might then be recalled from end-to-beginning. The order in which the path waslearned might be termed the ‘srcinal order’ and the retracing of one’s motions in reverse can be referred to as ‘retrograde.’”47 Laban’s Use of Symmetry. Laban noted that “our intellect distinguishes between three forms of symmetry in space: up and down, left and right, forward and backward, but when the body follows trace-forms it appreciates only leftright symmetry.”48 With regard to bilateral symmetry, Laban goes on to observe that when someone follows a trace-form with the right arm and is asked to repeat the movement with the left, he or she will transpose the form to different
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zones of the kinesphere, replicating the shape as a mirrored reflection of the shape traced by the right arm. This “curious fact” leads Laban to conclude that “man understands his mirror-like symmetrical movements of the left and right sides to be identical, although their inclinations are completely different.”49 Perhaps as a consequence of this observation, Laban utilized multiple symmetry operations in the “rhythmic circles” that he designed, extending patterns of reflection, so that movements are mirrored up and down and forward and backward in addition to left and right. He also employs retrograde motion, so that the second half of a spatial sequence is not only a reflection of the first half, “but is performed in the reverse direction.”50 Laban’s rhythmic circles are quite literally “harmonic movements.” As defined in physics, “harmonic movement” is any vibratory pattern that is symmetrical about a mid-point. As noted in Chapter 4, the mid-point that Laban uses is the center of the kinesphere, which coincides proportionally with the navel center of the dancer’s body. The reflective symmetries embodied in the spatial patterns that Laban prescribes oscillate around this mid-point. The “harmony” arises from the symmetry of the spatial form. Moreover, these rhythmic circles facilitate a balanced use of the kinesphere, for pathways visit all areas of the space around the body. Oscillating movement through three-dimensional space also stimulates the vestibular canals of the inner ear, which play a role in the physiology of maintaining balance. While Laban observes that “the wish to establish equilibrium through symmetric movements is the simplest manifestation of what we call harmony,” he goes on to comment that “the aim of this is not merely to hold the body in an upright position, but to achieve a unity of form, a wholeness, a completeness.”51 This extends the meaning of symmetry into the realm of aesthetics, inviting consideration from another perspective. Unity of Form By linking symmetry to “unity of form,” Laban refers to classical ideals in the visual arts in which symmetry is correlated with proportion and eurhythmy. The linking of these design elements can be found in the writings of the Roman architect, Vitruvius: “Symmetry results from proportion, proportion is the commensuration of the various constituent parts with the whole.”52 Elaborating on the use of symmetry in architectural design, Vitruvius writes, “when every important part of the building is thus conveniently set in proportion by the right correlation between height and width, between width and depth, and when all these parts have also their place in the total symmetry of the building, we
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obtain eurhythmy.”53 “Eurhythmy” is defined in a contemporary dictionary as “harmonious structure.” Ghyka, however, points out an affinity between symmetry and rhythm based upon an older definition of rhythm: “Rhythm is in time what symmetry is in space.” 54 A harmonious structure, one that achieves a unity of form, will employ rhythm as well as symmetry to bring about a proportional consonance between various elements, and between each element and the whole. Th e Role of R hythm in S pace-Time Designs. Symmetry underlies all kinds of visual patterns, and its connection to architectural and choreographic design is direct. While rhythm is a significant design feature in dance, its link to architecture is less obvious. Yet, according to architectural theorist Eugene Raskin, rhythm has a lot to do with the emotional response that a building evokes. This is because the human mind can readily translate “a pattern that is perceived visually into a rhythm that is felt as though it were being heard.” Moreover, there is a time involved in the the elements visual perception of a pattern. First there is thefactor distance between of the pattern, closely spaced elements being scanned more rapidly than widely spaced ones; secondly there is the matter of interest. The eye passes over forms of minor interest quickly, but is arrested or slowed by those which engage its attention. Thus the time gaps which establish the tempo of a visual rhythm in architecture are determined in actual execution by distances, measured in feet and inches, and interest, estimated by examination of the workings of the human mind. The point to be remembered is that the time aspects of emotional reactions caused by rhythms seen and rhythms heard are entirely valid.55 When considered in this way, architecture and dance have much in common. Both are three-dimensional, or more accurately, four-dimensional, for their designs create patterns, not only in space but also in time. For this reason, Raskin suggests that architects can benefit from the study of music and dance, “these being the art forms in which rhythm is most closely tied to expression.”56 Interestingly, Laban reversed Raskin’s advice, for he studied architecture bef ore turning his hand to dance. Indeed, these early architectural studies appear to have influenced Laban’s ideas about dance. He drew metaphoric parallels between architecture and movement as well as more literal connections. For example, Laban referred to movement as “living architecture” made up of
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“pathways tracing shapes in space.” Just as the parts of a building must be proportionally balanced to remain standing in the midst of “continual vibrations,” so must body of the dancer.57 The same difficulties that architects face when attempting to cantilever a mass in space obtain in dance. “The body is in a stable balance when the centre of gravity is placed in a vertical line with the point of support,” Laban writes, and “when the centre of gravity is apt to change its normal vertical relation to the point of support,” a loss of balance will occur.58 Empathy and the Meaning of Form . In addition to sharing concerns with structural balance and cohesion, both architecture and dance are aesthetic forms that convey mood and meaning. As noted in Chapter 3, Laban’s concepts of the unity of form in dance appear to have been influenced by the aesthetic theory of empathy, popular in artistic circles in the fin de siècle period. According to this theory, forms arouse feelings through the viewer’s projections of self into the object. Raskin’s comments on rhythm in architecture presuppose this type of empathic projection and draw upon the earlier theoretical work of the aesthetician Wölfflin, who argued that kinesthetic experience underlies the expressive qualities of architectural forms because “as human beings with a body that teaches us the nature of gravity, contraction, strength, and so on, we gather the experience that enables us to identify with the conditions of other forms.”59 In Wölfflin’s view, the elements of architecture – material and form, gravity and force – can convey a feeling because we are able to project our own physical experiences into these elements. This is the same point Raskin makes with regard to architectural rhythm: “The most immediate reaction to rhythm is to fall in with it….You become part of it in a process which is not so much imitative as absorptive. The mood of the rhythm then becomes your mood.” 60 The views of Raskin and Wölfflin correspond with those of the Jugendstil architect August Endell. As discussed in Chapter 3, Endell spelled out the empathic reactions aroused by various kinds of lines, correlating straight and curved lines, narrow and wide lines, short and long lines and the direction of the line with various kinetic sensations.61 Since visceral/kinesthetic associations with visual forms convey “all the nuances of feeling experienced in movement,” 62 Endell argued that formal qualities of line and shape arouse emotion and are expressive, in andof themselves, without being representational or symbolic. Consequently, the theory of empathy laid the theoreticalfoundation for the evolution of abstract Expressionism, influencing Wassily Kandinsky
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and other artists in the Munich circles in which Laban moved. Laban appears to have applied the theory of empathy, not to painting or architecture, but to dance. As in architecture, unity of form in dance depends upon the coherence of both rhythmic and spatial elements. The theory of empathy proposes that abstract, formal qualities of lines and shapes have inherent dynamic qualities. Laban looked for these intrinsic relationships in his examination of the affinities of spatial form and effort qualities. In ter r elat ionship o f Elements It will be recalled that Vitruvius delineated two types of relationships that obtain in achieving a unity of form: the relationship of elements to one another and the relationship of all these various elements to the whole. Laban applies this concept in his formulation of movement harmony, examining relationships within the choreutic and eukinetic domains, as well as relationships between these two domains. From Place to Place. Relationships of elements in the choreutic domain have to do with orderly progressions through space. If a movement sequence were to be filmed, then cut apart and randomly spliced back together, a dreamlike movement would result, “full of unexpected jumps, breaks, gaps, overlaps and repetitions.”63 A movement makes sense, as Laban explains, only if “it progresses organically,” and this means that phases must follow each other in a natural succession.64 This “natural” and orderly spatial progression depends upon the mechanics of the human body and the physics of motion in space. Joints bend in some directions and not in others; moreover, they bend, stretch, and twist only so far and no farther. This fact has been exploited in certain martial arts like Aikido, wherein grasping, twisting, and leading an opponent’s limb in a certain direction will take him or her to the floor with very little
application of force, for if the opponent resists, the joint will give way. Most people would rather fall than have their sinews torn asunder! On the other hand, the human neuromuscular and proprioceptive systems are designed to prevent unexpected falls. These physiological mechanisms insure that we always “know in our bones” where the vertical plumb line of gravity is and where we are in relationship to it. If we veer too far off-vertical, reflexive compensatory actions are taken automatically. Such actions do not bring us back to the vertical right away, however, for other intermediary directions in space may intervene before equilibrium can be re-established. Since nearly all movement through space requires some departure from a
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vertically-balanced stance, Laban investigated how one nearly falls without actually falling. He found that two operations were involved in controlling mobility in space: countertension and a rhythmic cycling from plane to plane. Laban identified two types of countertension: the symmetrical and the chordic. In the symmetrical type, as discussed earlier, one side of the body goes in one direction and the other side almost automatically tends towards the opposite direction. In a chordic countertension, on the other hand, several different directions are used to counter the primary inclination of the movement. For example, in a ballet arabesque, one arm may reach upward while the other extends to the side to offset the primary backward extension of the leg. Rhythmic cycling from plane to plane has to do with compensatory actions to prevent a fall. All movement in three-dimensional space involves a brief loss of balance followed by a momentary regaining of equilibrium. Laban discerned a pattern in how equilibrium is regained. Consider, for example, a tilted suspension in the vertical plane. If the dancer leans too far to the side, he or she will begin to fall. A compensatory movement, stepping either forward or backward, can prevent the fall by introducing depth, or the spatial tension that is “missing” in the two-dimensional vertical plane. Similarly, a tight rope walker advancing or retreating along the high wire will use sideward arm movements for balance. This introduces “width,” the spatial tension that is missing in the sagittal plane. Thus the patterned oscillation between stability and mobility in three-dimensional space involves compensatory shifts from plane to plane, and there is a logical order underlying these movements. From Mood to Mood. Orderly progression may also be detected in the movement from mood to mood. This is where Laban invokes the “law of proximity”— his model of degrees of relationship between effort moods, based upon the similarity or dissimilarity of their component effort qualities. Laban’s attempt to deal with these systematically is based upon his view that “harmony exists between things which have a certain relation or kinship to one another. Things which are not at all akin to one another are opposites which can only become harmonized by intermediary steps leading from one of the opposites to the other.”65 Laban’s observations here parallel the concept of modulation, or the proce ss of changing key, in musical composition. Changes of key are basedupon kinship of tones and governed by certain laws of harmony.66 Laban suggests that a similar principles of orderly progression exist between movement moods so that “a bodily feeling for harmonious movement does not permit immediate
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transition between distant action-moods in the dynamosphere.” 67 Link ing Mood and Place. Various types of orderly progressions harmonize the unfolding of movement in the kinesphere and dynamosphere. These progressions serve to relate elements within each domain. How, though, are these different domains to be brought together? First, Laban reiterated again and again that movement is a coherent act in which the inner impulse to move takes shape in space. In an unpublished manuscript titled “Kinetic Harmony” Laban writes: Inclination is the key word of kinetic harmony. The word ‘inclination’ is used in the study and practice of movement in both meanings given to it in everyday language. Not only is there an inner inclination to colour stillness and stir in various combinations and grades of intensity [effort], but external movement is always characterised by changes of direction which are inclined in definite angles to one another in space.68 In another unpublished manuscript, Laban avers that “movement is the macroscopic projection of neuromuscular functions. The working hypothesis adopted here is that the curves, shapes, and sequences, which are seen in outer movement are somehow the exact replica of change of currents and tensions happening within the neuromuscular apparatus.”69 This sense that the inner impulse to move is connected with the visible form that the action takes leads Laban to comment that “the spectator will at first be surprised , perhaps, at the harmony existing between the various parts of the shape of trace-forms and the dynamic sequences which express the state of mind and the meaning of the whole movement.”70 Laban goes on to spell out this harmony in terms of affinities between certain effort moods and directions in space. He published two models of the correlations between effort and spatial direction; both are discussed in Chapter 5. While Laban admits that “every shape can be traced into space with an almost infinite variation of effort combinations,” he insists that “there is nevertheless a fundamental correlation between efforts and shapes.”71 The theory of empathy, which was quite influential in early 20th century art, perhaps inclined Laban to see dynamic quality as inherent in movement lines and trace-forms. However, he claimed that correlations were based upon empirical observation of both expressive dance movements and functional work actions. His findings have been accepted as a workable model of consonant and dissonant relationships of effort and shape, notably in the psychological
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studies of Warren Lamb and Judith Kestenberg, where Laban’s model has been linked to nonverbal cues influencing interaction patterns. 72 Laban’s own theoretical explorations of effort/space affinities extend beyond his published models and are discussed in Chapter 9. Individuality To finish the discussion of the elements of movement harmony, it should be noted that although Laban spells out interrelationships within and across the choreutic and eukinetic domains, he does not prescribe particularmovements as inherently harmonious. Rather, he notes that “there are considerations such as individual expressiveness or taste which can influence the personal conception of harmony in movement. Graceful movements will suit one person more than vital or bizarre movement, or the contrary may be the case.” 73 A precondition for individual expression, however, is a rich range of movement. “A healthy human being can have complete control of hiskinesphere and dynamosphere,” Laban opines. “The essential thing is that we should neither have preference for nor avoid certain movements because of physical or psychical restrictions.”74 This comment suggests that physical or psychological impairments will impact an individual’s range of motion; and this imbalance will in turn have an effect of the overall cohesion of movement expression. While a unity of form may be realized in a variety of movement styles, harmonious expression in any style depends upon a fundamentally intact range of motion. Hidden Har moni es: An Int erlude Beyond the harmonic elements already discussed, there is an additional aspect of Laban’s theory-building to be considered – his use of geometrical
models. As demonstrated in earlier chapters, Laban depended heavily on geometric schemes to develop his notation system, as well as to conceptualize prototypic spatial sequences, effort patterns, and effort-space affinities. The extensive use of three-dimensional polyhedral forms for modeling both the choreutic and eukinetic domains demonstrates Laban’s consistent methodological approach. This consistency, however, masks differences in what the models represent and how these models may be used in conjunction with one another to elucidate harmonic relations between the physical and psychological dimensions of movement.
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Dual Uses for Geometrical Models. Laban uses three-dimensional models to represent both the kinesphere and the dynamosphere. The kinesphere is conceived to be the outer domain of human movement in which visible physical actions occur. Since the mover’s space is three-dimensional, it makes sense to use three-dimensional models for this domain. The polyhedral models that Laban has chosen – the octahedron, cube, and icosahedron – provide geographical landmarks for the kinesphere that can be taken literally, for they signify actual locations of movement through space. On the other hand, Laban conceives the dynamosphere as the inner domain of human movement. This is a virtual space in which the movement from mood to mood occurs. These mood shifts become visible as effort qualities. Laban also uses polyhedra as models of the dynamosphere. In these instances, the three-dimensional positioning of effort qualities and combinations is tobe taken figuratively, for these polyhedral models indicate qualitative kinships among effort elements, configurations, states, and drives. Laban’s octahedral and cubic models of the effort-space affinities are an exception. These models represent kinespheric directions and lines of motion, as well as the effort qualities and configurations theorized to accompany such trajectories. Here the association of effort with areas of space should be taken literally. Unfortunately, Laban does not clearly differentiate literal from figurative uses of polyhedral models of the dynamosphere. This is an important distincti on to clarify, since these differing uses affect the interpretation of models he developed.75 Differen t Models for Diff eren t Domains. Unpublished theoretical documents and drawings dealing with Choreutics and Eukinetics reveal Laban’s extensive experimentation with various three-dimensional forms as potential models. He worked with all five Platonic solids, along with the stella octangula (two intersecting tetrahedra also known as the Star of Kepler). He explored some of the semi-regular polyhedra, notably the cuboctahedron, as well as multi-dimensional forms such as the hypercube. He also worked with shapes of interest to topologists, such as bands, lemniscates (a twisted band having only one side), knots, and Klein bottles (a bottle with only one surface). Some of these models were explored exclusively in relation to either Choreutics or Eukinetics. Other forms, such as the tetrahedron, cuboctahedron, hypercube, and lemniscate, were tested as dual models for mapping both choreutic and eukinetic patterns.
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It would have been convenient if Laban could have found a single form that sufficed for representing both domains. This would have served as a useful visual symbol of the essential unity of space and energy in movement. Experimentation with the forms listed above does not appear to have been satisfactory, however, for the only dual-purpose models that Laban published were the octahedron and cube as representations of effort-space affinities. Even these were not entirely suitable. As Laban writes, it can be noticed that effort elements, incomplete and basic as well as complete efforts, have a strongly stabilizing or mobilizing tendency and evolve therefore in either dimensional or diagonal directions, while the movement shapes themselves seem to avoid as much as possible pure dimensionals and diagonals. This avoidance results in the socalled deviated directions or inclinations of which shapes are built up….76 In other words, Laban recognized that efforts and spatial forms were categorically different. Consequently, these distinct domains of movement needed to be represented by equally distinctive models. Judging from the drawings of certain polyhedra that recur in archival materials dealing with Eukinetics, Laban seems to have settled on three of the Platonic solids —the tetrahedron, octahedron, and cube — as the most suitable forms for modeling the dynamosphere. The other two Platonic solids — the icosahedron and dodecahedron — do not appear to have been utilized for modeling Eukinetics. On the other hand, there are scores of drawings of icosahedra and dodecahedra in archival materials dealing with Choreutics. Laban’s preference for the icosahedron as a model of the kinesphere (in contrast to the octahedron and cube) was discussed in depth in Chapter 4. His exploration of the dodecahedron is relatively unrecognized. Laban did not utilize this form, with its twelve pentagonal faces and twenty corners, to develop a geography of the kinesphere, presumably due to the complexity of the shape. 77 His published writings seldom mention this form. However, the dodecahedron is present implicitly within the icosahedral scaffolding of the kinesphere. The intersection of the transverse rays of the icosahedron create a dodecahedral shape inside the icosahedron. In other words, transversals of the icosahedron are actually edges, or peripheral inclinations, of a dodecahedron that is “hidden” inside the icosahedron.78 If the icosahedron is the explicit model of the kinesphere, the dodecahedron is the implicit form, for these polyhedra are duals. 79
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Thus, while Laban engaged in a variety of model-building experiments, he seems to have settled on the five Platonic solids as being the most suitable. Use of these forms is differentiated, however. The tetrahedron, octahedron, and cube are employed primarily to model formal relationships among eukinetic elements. The icosahedron and its hidden dual, the dodecahedron, are employed to represent the natural trajectories of human movement that are deflections of the pure dimensions and diagonals. Laban’s preferred polyhedral models for the kinesphere and dynamosphere are shown in Figure 6-8.
Kinespheric Models
Dynamospheric Models
Icosahedron
Tetrahedron
Dodecahedron
Octahedron Cube
Figure 6-8. Laban’s preferred models for the choreutic and eukinetic domains.
Not One and Not Two. Laban was aware that space and effort commingle seamlessly in voluntary movement. Nevertheless, observeddistinctions between the choreutic and eukinetic domains necessitated the development of different three-dimensional models for the kinesphere and dynamosphere. If a single model would not suffice to represent the psychophysical phenomenon of movement, how could the intrinsic integration of elements be examined and explained? Laban’s choice of the five Platonic solids provided an elegant solution to this conundrum. As mathematicians and mystics are aware, these polyhedra are related to one another proportionally in a variety of ways. The “harmonic” proportions that tie these forms together are not simple whole number ratios, as in musical harmony, but “a symphony ruled by irrational proportions.” 80 For example, the square root of two is found in the diagonal of a square, the square root of three in the diagonal of a cube, and the square root of five plus one over two is the algebraic expression of the Golden Section that governs the measure of the cardinal planes of the icosahedron. These irrational proportions recur as “determining relationships” among all the Platonic solids. 81 These determining relationships make it possible to “nest” the Platonic solids by placing one inside the other in a variety of ways. One such geometrical process begins with the icosahedron as the outermost form. The crossing of
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the thirty internal rays of the icosahedron creates a dodecahedron within the icosahedron. (These rays correspond to the transversals and long edges of the cardinal planes.) According to Lawlor, The establishment of the dodecahedron automatically gives rise to the cube defined by the 8 vertices of the dodecahedron… The diagonals of the faces of this cube form an interlocking or star tetrahedron… The volume enclosed by the two interlocking tetrahedra defines an octahedron, thus completing the composite group of regular polyhedra.82 Laban’s familiarity with these harmonic proportional relationships is evidenced by his drawings. For example, Figure 6-9, which is based on Laban’s color rendering shown in Plate N, depicts one nest of Platonic solids. Here the icosahedron forms the outermost shape. A dodecahedron is situated inside, and a tilted cube can be distinguished within the dodecahedron.
Figure 6-9. Nested polyhedra: icosahedron, dodecahedron, and cube.
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Figure 6-10, which is based on Laban’s color drawing shown in Plate O, depicts another set of relationships. Here the cube surrounds two interlocking tetrahedra. Their intersections in turn inscribe an octahedron at the very center of the form.
Figure 6-10. Nested polyhedra: cube, interlocking tetrahedra, and octahedron.
Ullmann addresses these harmonic relations in editorial commentary added to Laban’s treatise, The Language of Movement. She explains that the icosahedron, in fact, is a structural whole (it embraces the pentagondodecahedron which in turn is a dynamic compilation of the cube with its octahedral kernel formed by two tetrahedra penetrating one another) which can provide a basis for comprehending the multitude of forms created by the flux of energy as it gives a means for tracing their selection and interrelations.83 The significance of these proportional relationships for the study of movement is elucidated by Bodmer. She notes that “these polyhedra, related in concentric order, form harmonic structures in space. Through and around them, movements performed by the body can be seen to evolve in different ways.” 84 In addition to the pattern of concentric nesting delineated above, a variety of other proportional relationships exist among the Platonic solids. 85 This means that choreutic trace-forms modeled on the icosahedron or dodecahedron can be compared with eukinetic patterns of effort change modeled on the cube, octahedron, or tetrahedron in any number of ways. Thus, morphological
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interconnections between the five regular polyhedra provided Laban with a systematic method for modeling and examining the distinctive domains of effort and space in harmonic relation to one another. 86 A Wor king Def inition of Movement Ha r mony As noted in the preceding sections, Laban’s concept of movement harmony incorporates notions of (1) ratio and proportion, (2) balance, (3) symmetry, (4) unity of form, (5) interrelationship of elements, and (6) individual differences in movement style. These notions may now be integrated as follows. Harmonic movements depend upon a full and rich range of motion. In choreutic terms, the mover must have full access to all areas of threedimensional space. Physical balance of this full range of motion is to be maintained, not through a fixed placement or held muscular alignment. Rather, equilibrium is to be achieved through the experience of flowing trace-forms that oscillate symmetrically around the body’s center. The body center that Laban designates is that of the navel, and this is important for proportional reasons. The navel marks the Golden Section of the height of the adult human being and also coincides with the point of intersection of the three golden rectangles that form the inner scaffolding of the icosahedron, Laban’s preferred model for the kinesphere. This correspondence of corporeal and kinespheric centers establishes a fundamental relationship between the structure of the body and that of space. In eukinetic terms, the prerequisite for harmonic movement is full access to all dynamic qualities. Eukinetic balance is to be maintained through a fluctuating pattern of exertion and recuperation. This fundamental pattern of dynamic change is inherent in fleeting movement phrases as well as across more prolonged sequences of motor activity. Again, Laban models this as an
oscillating shift between contrasting action moods, one which is characterized by gradual change or modulation, analogous to the harmonic progression from key to key in music. Laban views symmetry as the simplest manifestation of harmony, contributing both to a sense of balance and aunity of form. Prototypic movement sequences in the kinesphere and dynamosphere are developed through symmetry operations and mapped or modeled on various Platonic solids. These solids are proportionally interrelated and can be nested in various ways. These various nestings allow for controlled comparison between patterns mapped on one form and those diagrammed on another. In this way, geometrical representation
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facilitates not only the modeling of component domains but also theexploration of systemic interrelationships. Now, based upon the author’s study of unpublished theoretical materials from the final two decades of his career, the following chapters trace how Laban systematically extended the analogic metaphor of movement harmony. Chapter 7 examines his concepts of tone, scale, interval, and transposition in relation to choreutic forms. Chapter 8 examines the concept of modulation in relation to eukinetic patterns. Chapter 9 presents Laban’s culminating model of the harmonic affinities of effort and space and explores the heuristic value of Laban’s theory of movement harmony.
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Notes 11. Laban, Language of Movement, 49. 12. Bergson, Creative Mind, 16. 13. Laban, Language of Movement, 3. 14. Shakespeare, Hamlet, 2,2,316. 15. Laban, Language of Movement, 122-123. 16. Black, Models and Metaphors, 237-238. 17. Ibid., 222. 18. Ibid. 19. Collins, cited in Brown, Poetic for Sociology, 120. 10. Nicomachus, Manual of Harmonics, explains how the diatonic scale was developed by Pythagoras. 11. Jourdain, Music, Brain, and Ecstasy, 77. 12. Livio, Golden Ratio, 183. 13. Laban, Language of Movement, 29. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid., 82. 16. Ibid., 108. 17. Ghyka, cited in Neroman, Le nombre d’or, 138. 18. Johnson, Treat Your Knees, 34. 19. Laban, Language of Movement, 106. 20. Ibid., 107. 21. Schneider, Beginner’s Guide, 124. 22. Lawlor, Sacred Geometry, 45. 23. Schneider, Beginner’s Guide, 124. 24. Doczi, Power of Limits, 96. 25. Schneider, Beginner’s Guide, 126.
26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35.
Laban, Language of Movement, 108. Dürer, cited in Livio, Golden Ratio, 139. Panofsky, Life and Art of Dürer, 267. Panofsky, Codex Huygens, 124. Laban, manuscript, L/E/38/4, Laban Archive, NRCD. Laban, Language of Movement, 5. Ibid., 6. Ibid., 94. Laban, manuscript, L/E/3/3, Laban Archive, NRCD. Laban, Language of Movement, 89.
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36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62.
Albarn et al, Language of Pattern, 20. Giger, cited in Wade, Crystal and Dragon, 119. Hargittai and Hargittai, Symmetry, xv. Wade, Crystal and Dragon, 118. Ibid., 123. Hargittai and Hargittai, Symmetry, 124. Senechal and Fleck, “Patterns of Symmetry,” 14. Hargittai and Hargittai, Symmetry, 16. Longstaff, “Cognitive Structures,” 149. Hargittai and Hargittai, Symmetry, 124. Longstaff, “Cognitive Structures,” 141-142. Ibid., 152. Laban, Language of Movement, 81. Ibid., 79. Ibid., 82. Ibid., 88-89. Vitruvius, cited in Wade, Crystal and Dragon, 119. Vitruvius, cited in Ghyka, Geometry of Art, x. Ghyka, Geometry of Art, xi. Raskin, Architectually Speaking, 60. Ibid. Laban, Language of Movement, 5. Laban, Mastery of Movement, 66, 67. Wölfflin, Prologomena, 712. Raskin, Architecturally Speaking, 60. Endell, “Beauty of Form.” Weiss, Kandinsky in Munich, 36.
63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71.
Laban, Language of Movement, 3. Ibid., 4. Laban, manuscript, E(L)38/4, 9, Laban Archive, NRCD. Copeland, What to Listen for. Laban, Language of Movement, 67. Laban, “Kinetic Harmony,” E(L)18/3, Laban Archive, NRCD. Laban, manuscript, E(L)4/75, Laban Archive, NRCD. Laban, Language of Movement, 93. Laban, manuscript, E(L)18/15, Laban Archive, NRCD.
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72. Lamb and Watson, Body Code; Moore, Movement and Making Decisions; Kestenberg and Sossin, Role of Movement Patterns. 73. Laban, Language of Movement, 111. 74. Ibid. 75. In his discussion of knots and twisted circles in The Language of Movement (95-98), Laban depicts these sequences as kinespheric trace-forms using direction symbols. In the discussion, however, he describes knots and twisted circles as dynamospheric sequences. This type of dual representation is most confusing and necessitates careful interpretation. Similarly, in addition to the cubic models of states and drives discussed in Chapter 5, tetrahedral and octahedral models can be found among Laban’s papers (see Ch. 5, note 54). When these models are nested proportionally in relation to one another, the spatial positioning of effort elements corresponds. Yet these would seem to be formal models of dynamospheric relationships, not representations of effort-space affinities, for it is not sensible to think that a given state or drive “inhabits” only a single zone of the kinesphere. 76. Laban, manuscript, E(L)18/15, Laban Archive, NRCD. 77. Eight of the 2 0 corners of th e dodecahe dron corresp ond to the c ubic diagonals. The other 12 corners are analogous to corners of the cardinal planes of the icosahedron, but these planes reverse the proportional relationships so that, for example, the vertical plane is more wide than tall. In any case, 20 signal points make for a much more complex system of kinespheric orientation than the 12 points of the icosahedron. 78. When Laban draws a figure inside a dodecahedron, he tends to use the shape to represent a slightly smaller kinesphere than that represented by the icosahedron (see Figure 6-2). Similarly, other drawings, such as Plate B, depict a small icosahedron surrounded by a larger dodecahedron, which is in turn encompassed by an even larger icosashedron. These visual representations suggest that the icosahedron serves as a model for the traceforms that are created by fully extended limbs, while the dodecahedron provides a model for trace-forms created by flexed limbs. 79. The icosahedron has 12 corners, 20 faces, and 30 edges. Its dual, the dodecahedron, has the same number of edges, but it has 20 corners and only 12 faces. The dual of the tetrahedron is another tetrahedron (producing the stella octangula). The cube (six faces and eight corners)and the octahedron (eight faces and six corners) are duals, sharing 12 edges but
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80. 81. 82. 83. 84.
85.
86.
reversing the number of faces and corners. For more on duals, see, Pearce and Pearce, Polyhedra Primer. Gyhka, Geometry of Art, 44. Critchlow, “Platonic Tradition,” 167. Lawlor, Sacred Geometry, 101. Cited in Laban, Language of Movement, 195. Bodmer, “Harmonics in Space,” 27. Bodmer notes that the progres sion from one polyhedron to another reveals different modes of expression. For example, she relates the tetrahedron to small, vibratory movements emanating from the center of the body, analogous to an undifferentiated organismic impulse to move. The cube relates to small expressive movements of the trunk, with defined effort qualities. The octahedron is a bridge to space, relating to the dimensional structure of the body (verticality of the spine, horizontal reach of the arms, and sagittal locomotion with the legs). The icosahedron relates to “ enlarged movements of the body …. In contrast, the dodecahedron gives a slight ‘inward drawing’ quality to the movement” (29). Bodmer’s discussion demonstrates the heuristic value of these models and their harmonic relationships as a means for thinking about bodily movement in space. From drawings in the Rudolf Laban Archive, it is clear that Laban examined a number of these relationships. In addition to the duals (cube/octahedron and icosahedron/dodecahedron) his sketches show an interest in tetra hedral/ cubic, cubic/dodecahedral, tetrahedral/dodecahedral, and cubic/icosahedral relationships. It should be born in min d that harmony, in its broadest sens e, brings things that are different into relationship through proportional means. Laban appears to employ proportional relations between polyhedral models in this way.
C HAPTER 7
Tone, Scale, Int er val, an d Tr an sposition This chapter examines harmonic principles as these relate to the choreutic domain of Laban’s taxonomy. Discussion draws on two of Laban’s published treatises that focus on spatial form: Choreographie , written in 1926, and Choreutics, written in 1938-39. 1 This examination is developed further by reference to the oral tradition through which choreutic forms are taught in the dance/movement studio. Finally, unpublished materials from the final two decades of Laban’s career are referenced to round out consideration of how Laban was developing choreutic aspects of his theory of movement harmony. The aim of this chapter is three-fold. First, key choreutic forms are identified and oral transmission as movement practi ces is discussed. and their rhythmic circles are scrutinized for their underlying designSecondly, principlesscales and analogous relations to harmonic concepts such as tone, scale, interval, and transposition. Finally, concepts drawn from topology are introduced to demonstrate how Laban was moving choreutic theory forward at the end of his career. Chronological Development As noted earlier, Laban’s interest in articulating principles of movement harmony initially emerged alongside his efforts to develop a dance notation system. The latter led to the use of Platonic solids to establish coordinate points and prototypic lines of movement. Laban elaborated on these lines of movement by identifying and/or designing “rhythmic circles” and movement sequences that became known as “scales.” By the time Laban published Choreographie in 1926, he had created the following choreutic forms: 1. Dimensional scale (also referred to as the “defense scale”) 2. Planar elaborations of this s cale as transverse twelve-rings (commonly called the “A and B scales”) 3. Cardinal planes as well as tilted planes (also known as “four-rings” and, somewhat curiously, as “two-rings”)
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4. Peripheral three-rings (commonly known as “polar triangles” since these surround the ends of the cubic diagonals where these diagonals pierce faces of the icosahedron) 5. Transverse six-rings (referred to as “axis scales” or “clusters,” since these surround a diagonal axis) 6. Peripheral six-rings (also known as “equators” or “girdles” since these encircle the midline of a diagonal axis). These forms are reiterated in Choreutics. In addition, Laban introduces a peripheral twelve-ring, which is known as the “standard scale” or, alternatively, as the “primary scale.” A posthumous section was added to Laban’s text by his editor, Lisa Ullmann, incorporating additional forms that Laban had developed between the writing of Choreutics in 1938-39 and his death in 1958. Included in these forms are peripheral five-rings, apex swings, peripheral seven-rings, and mixed seven-rings. A further cataloguing, as well as elaboration of Laban’s choreutic forms, is found in Preston-Dunlop’s treatise, Point of Departure. Because this author does not provide references, it is difficult to discern additional forms developed by Laban from those elaborated by Preston-Dunlop herself. Finally, unpublished materials in the Rudolf Laban Archive contain a large number of drawings of many-sided rings situated in various Platonic solids. These demonstrate that Laban applied a consistent method of construction. Only a few of these unpublished rings seem to have been carried forward into practice to become a part of the oral transmission of choreutic theory. Many forms appear to be ongoing theoretical explorations, best viewed as variations on a theme. It is perhaps not entirely far-fetched to say that Laban was fond of certain kinds of mathematical puzzles. Typically, these types of puzzles involve graphs representing maps or roadways, and the challenge is to find a way, for instance, for the lazy street sweeper to clean each road only once, ending back in the spot where he started sweeping. In other cases, the aim is to visit every vertex of a graph only once, ending at the srcinal vertex. 2 Laban appears to have traced out such puzzles using the edges and corners of the Platonic solids, over and over again. Sometimes he follows the rules outlined above, sometime s he makes up his own rules, using edges and visiting corners more than once. In any case, there are copious examples of such explorations among Laban’s unpublished papers.
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Choreutic Fo r ms in t he Or al Tr aditio n Choreutic forms have been taught by Laban and his colleagues and students as “practical dance theory of space” since the mid-1920s.3 This oral tradition of transmission provides insight into how abstract geometrical shapes are translated into bodily practices. The oral tradition has preserved Laban’s srcinal admonition that “new dance” should incorporate a “more natural kind of movement” in which the “whole body” takes part in the scalar swings. 4 This leads to a style of embodiment in which the right or left arm leads the whole body through the sequence of spatial inclinations that make up the form. Beyond this, details of performance – e.g., use of the legs and opposite arm, placement of the head, phrasing, and effort content – are often left to the mover to work out. While the order of “points passed through” is specified, and unity of form through full-bodied involvement is advocated, there is room for individual expression as movers work through details of performance on their own. Typically, students learn the scales by following the instructor through the sequence. This repeated practice may be augmented by explanation of the rationale of the order of directions, the use of notated spatial motifs as a mnemonic reference, or compositional assignments based on the forms. Remembering the spatial sequence and maintaining balance and orientation in the off-vertical transverse and peripheral sequences prove challenging to many movers. Moreover, many sequences seem designed to increase range of motion, so certain transitions can be difficult to negotiate. Examples of what Preston-Dunlop refers to as the “congruent behaviour of all body parts,” may be found in the photographs and illustrations of Choreographie, as well as Laban for All.5 In the latter treatise, illustrations and detailed instructions prescribe the manner of performance for the dimensional, diagonal, A, and B scales and seem to preserve the srcinal style
of embodiment. More open-ended suggestions for a variety of approaches to embodying choreutic forms may be found in Preston-Dunlop’s Point of Departure; in addition, the post-modern choreographer William Forsythe has articulated a number of novel compositional techniques that take Laban’s choreutic forms as their starting point but result in dramatically different modes of performance.6 Historic and contemporary approaches to embodiment illuminate differing functions of choreutic forms. When these designs are meant to stand as exemplars of harmony, an emphasis on full body involvement and a congruent style of performance may serve to deepen the mover’s experience of the unity
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of form and its orderly progression. On the other hand, when these spatial designs serve as a point of departure for choreographic invention, an openended and highly individualistic approach to embodiment is more likely to facilitate the compositional process. Both approaches demonstrate ways in which links may be found between abstract theory and embodied action. The harmonic principles that Laban established are embedded in the choreutic forms themselves. The oral tradition indicates that Laban viewed embodiment as a sufficient means of understanding harmonic form. This is, of course, a knowing from within, a kind of gnosis through direct kinesthetic experience. While this kind of knowing from within may suffice for the dancer, it does little to open the dancer’s experience of harmony to broader and more public consideration. Thus, to better articulate principles of harmony embedded in choreutic forms, my discussion moves on to explore analogic relationships in music and movement between tone, scale, interval, and transposition. This discussion begins with a simple description of balanced symmetry and order in selected choreutic forms. Balance d Symmetr y and O r der in Choreutic Forms As noted in Chapter 4, Laban’s formulation of the dancer’s space started with the cardinal directions encapsulated within an octahedral geography. This theory unfolded to a consideration of the diagonal directions of a cubic geography. These two geographies of the kinesphere allowed Laban to identify central lines of motion that represent, respectively, stable and mobile trajectories. The sequences of movement that Laban designed along these axes provide the first examples of how he embedded balanced symmetry and order in choreutic forms. Dimensional and Diagon al Sequences. By the mid-1920s Laban had
created ordered sequences or movement “scales” traversing these axial lines. These scales were designed to familiarize the dancer with salient features of the kinesphere, both experientially and conceptually. The sequences that Laban developed were based upon the reflective symmetry of moving first in one direction and then in the opposite direction along a given axis. The order of these directional movements was not chosen arbitrarily. For example, Laban drew the sequence of the dimensional or “defense” scale from the opening movements of fencing. The sequence alternates directions, moving along the vertical, horizontal, and sagittal axes in a pattern of up/down, crossed/ open, backward/forward that is based upon a logical defense of vulnerable areas of
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the body. This pattern is shown in Figure 7-1, which represents the sequence being led by the right arm.
Figure 7-1. Defense scale led by right arm.
The diagonal scale follows a similar pattern of reflective symmetry, moving in one direction and then its opposite along the cubic diagonals. Movement along each diagonal always begins at the upper end and traverses to the lower end. In addition, there is an orderly progression from axis to axis, starting with the diagonals that rise toward the cubic corners in front of the body and fall into the space behind the body, then shifting to the diagonals that rise toward the cubic corners behind the body and fall forward. This sequence is shown in Figure 7-2, which represents the pattern being led by the right arm.
Figure 7-2. Diagonal scale led by right arm.
The dimensional and diagonal scales are not “rhythmic circles,” as they are not usually performed by returning to the point of srcin. In this sense these sequences seem to have served a didactic purpose in the oral transmission of choreutic theory, establishing key lines of motion that stand as the prototypes of stability and mobility. Transformin g the Dimensional Scale: Th e A Scale. As Laban expanded his taxonomy of space to incorporate the cardinal planes and an icosahedral geography, he appears to have found a way to transform the dimensional scale, shifting trajectories from central lines of motion to transversals and, in the process, generating a rhythmic circle that touched every corner of the icosahedron before returning to the point of srcin. This rhythmic circle is known as the “A scale.” Although the process of discovery is not documented, it may have emerged from movement classes in which students were instructed
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to perform the defense scale as a series of “big looping swings.” Such freely swinging motions tend to lose the spatial precision of the dimensions, and to deviate towards the deflected directions of the planes.7 Thus the up/down, across/open, backward/forward order of the defense scale was transformed to yield the first six planar inclinations of the A scale, shown in Figure 7-3.
Figure 7-3. Right A scale, first half.
Laban was able to derive the second half of the A scale by applying the symmetry operations of reflection and retrograde, following “a reverse performance of the directions of the swings.” 8 In this case the order becomes down/up, open/across, forward/backward, deviating into the planes, as shown in Figure 7-4.
Figure 7-4. Right A scale, second half.
The A scale can be performed continuously by swinging back to theopening corner of the vertical plane, making it a rhythmic circle that touches all “12 basic directions” of the icosahedron.9 If the A scale is reflected laterally, the trace-form is translated to tranversals more easily reached by the left arm, and a mirror version results, as shown in Figure 7-5.
Figure 7-5. Left A scale as complete circle.
The B Scale: Echo of the A Scale. Symmetry operations appear to have played a role in the development of the B scale, another tranverse twelve-ring that can be thought of as the companion or echo form of the A scale. It is
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possible that Laban discovered this scale through a compositional exercise in which two dancers face each other and join right hands. Laban specifies that the hands are to stay joined all the time. If one dancer leads, swinging the A scale, while the second dancer simply follows, the second dancer will create an “echo” of the inclinations of the A scale.10 This echo form reverses the sequences of opening and crossing and advancing and retreating, while maintaining the same pattern of upward and downward trajectories. The first six directional inclinations of the A scale and their B scale echo are shown in Figure 7-6.
Figure 7-6. In echo form, open/across and forward/backward patterns are reversed, while level stays the same.
Diagonal Influence in the A and B Scales. In both Choreographie and Choreutics, Laban describes the A scale as having a defensive quality, while the B scale has an attacking nature. 11 Laban attributes these qualities to the diagonals that are present or absent in the scale. Since these scales follow transversals of the icosahedron, rather than diagonal pathways of the cube, Laban’s rationale may strike the reader as rather obscure. This seeming obscurity can be dispelled by elaborating two points. First, Laban viewed the deflected directions (planar diameters, peripherals, and transversals of the icosahedron) as deviations of both dimensions and diagonals. Of the 24 internal rays of the icosahedron that Laban identified as transversals, six are roughly parallel to (or deflected from) each of the four diagonals. Secondly, Laban associated the two diagonals that rise upward and fall backward as having a more passive, defensive quality, while the diagonals that rise backward and fall forward were thought to have a more active, attacking quality, as shown in Figure 7-7. This association seems to have been based upon his observations of martial arts, in which an offensive movement downward and forward is stronger and more active than a defensive movement backward and downward, which places the mover in a more vulnerable position.
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(a)
(b)
Figure 7-7. (a) Cubic diagonals fall backwards. (b) Cubic diagonals fall forwards.
In the right A scale, interestingly, all the transversals that are roughly parallel to the diagonal [(high, back, right low, forward, left; see Figure 77(b)] are missing. The absence of one of the “fighting” diagonals gives the scale a more passive quality. In fact, the majority of transversals making up the right A scale are more or less parallel to the two “passive” diagonals that fall backwards [Figure 7-7(a)]. The same situation applies to all the A and B scales. Ironically, however, the diagonal hidden from view is “often referred to as the ‘axis’ of the scale,” since a geometric-model of the A- or B-scales reveals that this absent diagonal is the axis of rotational symmetry for the scale.” 12 Laban’s discussion in Choreographie of the influence of the diagonal axes on the nature of choreutic forms is the first example of the salient role that these axial lines play in his harmonic theory. As to be seen, each of the cubic diagonals functions as a harmonic center for a number of related choreutic forms. These forms cluster around the diagonal axis, just as the spokes of a wheel converge on the hub. The spokes are visible, while the hub is empty. Similarly, the lines of the choreutic forms related to a given diagonal axis are enacted as visible trace-forms, while the axis itself functions as the invisible hub around which the other visible forms rotate. It is interesting to note that Laban attributes the characteristic kinetic quality of different choreutic forms as much to the missing axis as to the visible lines of motion that make up the trace-form. Transverse and Peripheral Six -Rin gs. By 1926, Laban had identified two more types of scales situated within the icosahedron: the axis and the equator
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or girdle. There are four axis scales, each surrounding one of the cubic diagonals. Each axis scale is made up of six transversals that are roughly parallel to its diagonal axis. These transversals can be joined to create a sharply angled traceform that veers from a corner of the icosahedron near the upper end of the diagonal to a corner of the icosahedron near the lower end of the diagonal. The zigzag progression is orderly, veering from the vertical to the sagittal to the horizontal plane until the trace-form returns to its point of srcin. The sequence is shown in Figure 7-8. The total trace-form looks like a hexagon turned inside out. Laban associates this to-and-fro movement around a diagonal axis with pendular movements, such as “the swaying of a drunken man, or one who is tired or falling asleep.”13
Figure 7-8. Axis scale around
diagonal.
In contrast, each of the four equator scales circles the center of one of the four cubic diagonals. These are peripheral sequences, tracing edges of the icosahedron. The order of progression moves from a corner of the vertical plane, to a corner of the horizontal plane, to a corner of the sagittal plane, and so on, until the trace-form circles back to its point of srcin, as shown in Figure 7-9. The hexagonal equator is roughly perpendicular to its diagonal axis. The equator does not lie in a single plane, however, for three of its corners are closer to the upper end of the diagonal while three of its vertices are closer to the lower end. Consequently, the equator traces a wavy circle around the middle of the axial line. Laban identifies the equator with “emphatic gestures and
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actions” used in dancing and fighting.14 Off-vertical turns and movements that spiral towards or rise from the floor often follow a part of an equator.
Figure 7-9. Equator scale around
diagonal.
The axis and equator do not immediately reverse direction along a single line of motion, but shift from plane to plane around a diagonal axis. Nevertheless, there are patterns of reflective symmetry and retrograde motion in both these scales. As in the A and B scales, symmetry operations are introduced halfway through the sequence. For example, the first and fourth tranversals of the axis scale shown in Figure 7-10 are parallel reflections of one another. In the opening movement of the sequence, however, the dancer sinks and retreats, while the parallel fourth inclination is traced in the opposite direction; that is, as a rising and advancing motion.
Figure 7-10. Parallel transversals of axis scale.
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Peripheral and Transverse Three-Rings. Peripheral three-rings are also called “polar triangles.” Laban identified eight of these three-rings, each circling one end of one of the four cubic diagonals. As noted earlier (p. 135), when the cubic diagonals are situated within the icosahedral model of the kinesphere, they each pierce two faces of the icosahedron. The polar triangles are formed by the edges of the faces pierced by the diagonals. Each corner of a polar triangle belongs to a different plane. The triangles at either end of a diagonal reveal a pattern of glide reflection (see p. 200). The polar triangles around the diagonal are shown in Figure 7-11.
Figure 7-11. Peripheral three-rings.
Laban also identified eight transverse three-rings, two related to each of the cubic diagonals. These three-rings are situated around the middle of the diagonal axis. Each corner of these triangles belongs to a different plane. The two three-rings around each diagonal reveal a pattern of glide reflection. The transverse three-rings around the diagonal are shown in Figure 7-12.
Figure 7-12. Transverse three-rings.
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Cardinal and Tilted Pla nes: T he Fou r-Rings. The cardinal planes have already been identified as forming the inner scaffolding of the icosahedron. These rectilinear planes are “mixed four-rings,” with sides of different types. The two longer sides are internal rays of the icosahedron. 15 The two shorter sides are peripheral edges of the icosahedron. The cardinal planes form an intersecting set of rings that are perpendicular to each other. This set of rings is situated in the icosahedron so as to be either plumb or perpendicular to the line of gravity. Laban also identified additional intersecting sets of four-rings that are neither plumb nor perpendicular to the line of gravity.16 These four-rings may be thought of as tilted planes. There is only one set of cardinal planes, but there are four sets of tilted planes: one derived from the right A scale, one from the left A scale, one from the right B scale, and one from the left B scale. For example, Laban constructed one set of these planes by selecting three pairs of parallel tranversals from the left B scale. These pairs of parallel transversals are shown in Figure 7-13.
Figure 7-13. Transversals labeled with same letter are parallel.
Peripheral edges of the icosahedron can be used to link these tranversals, creating a rectilinear plane that is obliquely situated in the kinesphere. Each tilted plane has two corners in one cardinal plane, and two corners in a different cardinal plane. For example, one tilted plane has corners in the vertical and horizontal planes. This trace-form resembles a door that is coming unhinged and starting to swing obliquely. Another tilted plane has corners in the sagittal and vertical planes. It resembles a wobbly wheel that is starting to tilt to one side. The third tilted plane has corners in the horizontal and sagittal planes. It resembles a slanting table that is no longer level. The intersecting set of tilted planes derived from the left B scale is shown in Figure 7-14. Following the edges of either type of four-ring produces an oval traceform that is flat and planar. Cycles in the cardinal planes, however, create wall-like shapes that are steadfastly situated so as to bifurcate the kinesphere.
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Figure 7-14. Set of tilted planes related to diagonal axis of left B Scale.
Cycles in the tilted planes, on the other hand, cantilever through several zones of the kinesphere. These oblique planes do not cut through space divisively; instead, they seem to project, spread, or hover at an angle. The Standard Scale and t he Chr omatic Scale Laban had identified all the choreutic forms discussed above by 1926, for all are included in Choreographie. On the other hand, his culminating creation, the standard scale, evolved in the late 1930s, and was introduced for the first time in a chapter of Choreutics written during this period. Laban identified four of these standard scales, each oriented around one of the cubic diagonals. Each scale meanders along edges of the icosahedron, tracing soft curves and touching each of the twelve corners of the cardinal planes before returning to the point of srcin.
Laban designed the standard scale as the analogue model of the chromatic scale in music. The chromatic scale establishes a set of ordered tonal relationships from which additional scales and chords may be constructed. Analogously, the standard scale (also known as the primary scale) establishes a set of spatial relationships from which additional harmonic trace-forms may be developed. In order to illuminate this relationship, it is necessary to discuss similarities between the sphere of sound and the sphere of movement. Th e Soun d Sphere and the Kinesphere . Sound is a vibratory phenomenon that travels through space. Helmholtz characterized this motion as a “spherical propagation in all directions,” leading Vandenbroeck to note that “sound is
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volume.” 17 Consequently, the musical universe is “three dimensional, conceivable as a vertical dimension of harmonics or overtones, a horizontal dimension of interval and the third dimension of sound reaching the ear.” 18 Other musicologists “have described harmony as music’s third dimension, its depth dimension (with the breadth of time and height of pitch space as the first two dimensions).”19 In either case, sound is conceived as a spatial phenomenon as well as a temporal one. Sound is produced when an object is set into vibratory motion. The frequency of the vibration affects pitch — the height or depth of the sound. Pitches range along a continuum. Some sounds are pitched beyond the perceptual range of the human ear, while other irregular and indefinite sounds are considered “unmusical.”20 Music concerns itself with sounds of a definite pitch called “tones.” “In the Far East music can move from one level to another through very small degrees called MICROTONES,” Holst observes, “ but in the West, composers limit themselves to a few definite levels of pitch.”21 Thus tones divide pitch space, ordering it in definite intervals and laying a foundation for musical harmony. The first division of pitch space in Western music is the octave. Its discovery is credited to the Greek mathematician Pythagoras, who found that a string divided at the mid-point emits the same tone as the one sounded when the whole string is plucked. The only difference is pitch. The divided string vibrates twice as fast, sounding the note an octave higher. As Jourdain chronicles, “a pure Pythagorean scale was used in the West for almost two thousand years, as much for the way it is constructed as the way it sounded. It is a geometer’s delight, with the most important intervals formed by simple frequency ratios.”22 He goes on to describe the development of this scale as follows: the octave midpoint is key to partitioning an octave-wide range of frequencies into the twelve perceptual categories we call C, C-sharp, D, D-sharp, and so on. Scale building begins by selecting a frequency that will be called “C,” doubling it to form an octave, then halving the octave to obtain G. The G is then doubled into an octave, which in turn is halved to produce D. D is used as the basis of the next octave, and on it goes until twelve tones have been produced. The midpoint of the last octave arrives back at the starting point, C. So the process leads to the twelve-note scale quite neatly.23
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The new notes are spread over a wide range of frequencies, but “they can be halved in frequency until all fall within the starting octave to make a continuous scale.”24 Unfortunately, because frequency rises logarithmically with rising pitch, the final note of the Pythagorean scale was not precisely in tune with the starting note of the scale. This problem was resolved during the Baroque period through the introduction of “tempered tuning.” This procedure “evened out distances between notes so that each would rise in frequency by the same 5.9 percent as the note before.” 25 This resulted in the creation of an orderly row of twelve tempered semitones that has come to be known as the “chromatic scale.” Every key on the piano represents one of these semitones. Thus the chromatic scale can be heard “by playing up or down through every black or white key between one octave and the next.”26 Western music is built on these twelve half-steps through the octave. They provide equidistant tonal markers on the sphere of sound, at least for audiences who are used to this structuring of tonal space. Laban detected a “structural congruity” between the twelve tempered semitones that define the spherical pitch space of Western music and the twelve corners of the icosahedron that give definition to the dancer’s space.27 As a regular polyhedron, the corners of the icosahedron are evenly distributed in three-dimensional space, providing equidistant spatial markers for the kinesphere. Moreover, these corners correspond to the endpoints of the diameters of the cardinal planes. As noted in Chapter 4 (pp. 129-131), the planar diameters are “deflected directions.” These lines of motion literally “lie between” the cardinal dimensions and the cubic diagonals. In Laban’s view, the planar diameters “temper” the stability of the dimensions as well as the mobility of the diagonals. This leads him to draw an analogy between the twelve corners of the icosahedron and the twelve tempered semitones, for these equidistant landmarks divide the movement space of kinesphere in a regular and orderly way just as the tempered semitones evenly divide the pitch space of the sound sphere. Constru cting the Standard Scale. A scale is not a scale, however, until its tones are arranged in some sort of order. The Pythagoreans generated their ordered twelve-tone scale by doubling and halving tones to fill in gaps between notes. Laban does not fully articulate the process by which he generated his standard scales, other than to indicate that he drew points from the axis and equator in alternation. This makes sense if the axis scale surrounding a diagonal is taken as the initial scaffolding for the standard scale of that diagonal. The
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axis begins and ends at the same location, as a good scale should, but the points it passes through are widely scattered in the kinesphere; that is, the signal points of this scale can be thought of as whole tones. Laban had to find a way to fill in the gaps between these points in order to circuit the kinesphere in an orderly sequence of half-steps. He did this by halving each transversal to find the next point in his standard scale sequence. For example, a steep transversal connecting corners of the vertical and sagittal planes passes through the horizontal plane. By diverting this steep trajectory so that it passes peripherally through the nearest corner of the horizontal plane, a half-step can be found that links the vertical and sagittal planes. The signal points that can be used to divide the transversals of the axis scale are those found within the equator scale. Thus, by skillfully inserting a point of the equator between two points of the axis scale, Laban was able to generate a “chromatic sequence” of half-steps. The standard scale traces edges of the icosahedron, moving from a corner of the vertical plane to an adjacent corner of the horizontal plane, and on to the nearest corner of the sagittal plane. In this way the Standard Scale winds through the kinesphere, visiting all twelve “signal points,” before returning to its starting location. The resulting sequence is depicted in Figure 7-15.
Figure 7-15. Standard scale around
axis.
M ath em atic al A spects of th e Stan dard S cale. Laban’s published explanation of the construction of the standard scale may be disingenuous. He might have solved this puzzle with his pencil, by tracing various edges of the
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icosahedron, so as to visit each corner only once while circling back to the starting point. From a mathematician’s point of view, the icosahedron is a regular graph on a sphere, and the standard scales identified by Laban are “Hamiltonian circuits” that visit every corner once and return to the starting corner. The four circuits identified by Laban are not the only Hamiltonian circuits that may be traced on this graph. Indeed, Valerie Preston-Dunlop has identified ten more. 28 The ones that Laban identified, however, follow rigorous rules of composition. These meandering pathways move through only six of the eight zones of the kinesphere. The polar zones that surround the ends of the diagonal axis are to be avoided, as is the equatorial area that surrounds the middle of axis. In other words, Laban creates a kind of “no fly”zone around the diagonal axis. Nevertheless, he still finds a way to touch every corner of the icosahedron by following edges of the six remaining polar triangles. Tracing two edges of each triangle results in a set of six curves that meander, first clock-wise, then counter-clockwise, gracefully winding through the kinesphere while avoiding the diagonal “no fly” zone. Laban may have found the sequence of the standard scale through trial and error, for as noted earlier (see p. 220 and note 2), working out Euler and Hamiltonian circuits on polyhedral graphs appears to have been a favorite pastime. On the other hand, Laban might have found these Hamiltonian circuits through a process of elimination that goes something like this. The icosahedron has 30 edges that can be used as potential pathways through space. However, the choreutic forms that Laban identified avoid using the shorter edges of the cardinal planes. 29 These lines, which lie within one plane, are only two dimensional lines of motion, whereas the other peripheral lines of the icosahedron are three-dimensional. So, these six peripheral lines may be removed from consideration, as shown in Figure 7-16.
Figure 7-16. Icosahedron without peripheral edges of the cardinal planes.
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Secondly, as noted above, Laban’s standard scale avoids the edges of the polar triangles surrounding the scale’s diagonal axis. So these six peripheral lines may be removed from consideration. The edges around have been removed in Figure 7-17.
Figure 7-17. Icosahedron without peripheral edges of the polar triangles around axis.
Finally, Laban’s standard scale avoids the kinespheric zone around the middle of the diagonal axis; that is, the edges of the kinesphere marked by the equator. These six lines have been removed in Figure 7-18.
Figure 7-18. Icosahedron without peripheral edges of the equator.
When these 18 edges are eliminated from consideration, the trace-form remaining is the twelve-sided standard scale shown in Figure 7-19 for the axis. This Hamiltonian circuit is symmetrical in three planes. The shape of the trace-form above the horizontal plane is a glide reflection of the shape of the trace-form below this plane, the portion of the trace that lies to the left of the sagittal plane is a glide reflection of the shape to the right of this plane, and so on.
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Figure 7-19. Remaining peripheral edges of icosahedron reveal standard scale around axis.
Emp ir ical Cor r espondence s: The S ta nda r d Scal e and R ange o f Moti on While Laban may appear to be doing nothing more than playing an elaborate game, the standard scale sequences outline relationships between range of
motion and trace-forms. Each abstract scale replicates pathways that arise naturally in “peripheral movements occurring in the outer limits of one’s kinesphere, usually initiated by the extremities.” 30 Consider, for example, what happens when the right arm begins to move from the upper right corner of the vertical plane towards the back deep corner of the sagittal plane. Due to rotational limitations of the shoulder joint, the fully extended arm will tend to abduct as it moves downward, widening into the horizontal plane before sinki ng and narrowing toward the midline of the body to reach the back low corner of the sagittal plane. In this trajectory, shown in Figure 7-20, the limb literally traces a path that follows the edges of the icosahedron. The path traced is a part of the standard scale.
Figure 7-20. Peripheral pathway mirrors natural range of motion.
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In only a few instances does the trajectory indicated by the standard scale deviate from a naturally-occurring pathway. For example, in reaching with the right arm from left side low to forward high, it is not necessary to deviate into the horizontal plane by circuiting through left forward middle (see Figure 721). The deviation prescribed by Laban, however, increases range of motion and also preserves the full volume of the kinesphere by staying on an edge rather than cutting transversely through the interior space of the icosahedron. Thus, the standard scale serves a descriptive purpose – representing prototypic peripheral pathways – as well as a prescriptive aim – specifying sequences designed to extend range of motion throughout the kinesphere.
Figure 7-21. Peripheral pathway designed to increase range of motion.
Har monic Cor r espondence s in th e Stan dar d Scale As Jourdain notes, “the choice of scales is important in determining what can and cannot be constructed.” 31 He goes on to observe that “twelve subdivisions of pitch space seem to be just about the right number. There are enough tones to drive the brain to the limits of what it can easily categorize, but not beyond. At the same time the scale provides a large enough number of
tones to build a harmonic system.” 32 Laban appears to feel this way about his partitioning of the kinesphere, for he writes that “the twelve points of the kinesphere not only make a division of space possible, but also are in themselves units of harmonic interrelations. The criterion by which harmonic relations can be evaluated are the standard scales.”33 According to Laban, each standard scale contains “a series of shapes which are the basic elements of almost all trace-forms employed in movement.”34 In order to understand how the standard scale can be mined to generate these shapes, it is necessary to investigate the analogy of tonal interval and spatial interval in relation to the polygonal shapes of choreutic rings and scales.
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Tonal Interval and Spatial Interval. If the moving body were to leave vapor trails in the kinesphere, most of these movement traces would be curvilinear. The curved nature of movement trace-forms was first recognized by Leonardo da Vinci, who perceived the circle as the correct pattern of movement for the human body, thereby fusing “the theory of human proportion with a theory of human movement.” 35 Laban refined Leonardo’s theory of movement by substituting polygonal figures for circular ones. These manysided circles have a spatial rhythm; moreover, their angular corners can be matched to the geometrical scaffolding of the Platonic solids that Laban uses to define the kinesphere. All regular polygons are constructed by dividing the circumference of the circle into equal parts. For example, a circular clock face marks the hours by dividing the circumference of the circle into twelve equal parts. A regular dodecagon, or twelve-sided polygon, can be formed by linking adjacent points, as shown in Figure 7-22a. These edges are called one-point links. Other shapes will be generated by linking alternate points, as shown in Figure 7-22b. These internal rays can be thought of as two-point links. A different shape will emerge when every third point is linked, as shown in Figure 7-22c.
a)Onepointlinks
b) Two point links
c)Threepointlinks
Figure 7-22. Different regular polygons can be generated from a circle divided into 12 parts.
By now, the compositional principle is becoming evident: any interval can be used to generate additional shapes by linking every other point, every third point, every fourth point, etc. When direction symbols are substituted for the numbers on the clock face, the order of one of Laban’s standard scales can be recreated by correlating the starting point of the scale with the number 1 and moving clockwise around the circle, as shown in Figure 7-23 (next page).
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The scale represented in Figure 7-23 is the one around the
diagonal axis.
Figure 7-23. Standard scale.
When every other point is linked, two hexagons (or six-rings) emerge, as shown in Figure 7-24. These correspond to the axis and equator scales around the diagonal axis.
Figure 7-24. Axis and equator scales.
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Linking every third point will generate the cardinal planes. Linking every fourth point produces the polar triangles and transverse three rings associated with this diagonal axis. Linking every fifth point creates a twelve-sided star. The star shown in Figure 7-25 represents the left B-scale. (A similar star, shown in Plate P, represents the right A-scale.) Finally, linking every sixth point produces a set of intersecting lines that correspond with the planar diameters.
Figure 7-25. Left B scale.
As there are only six internal rays of the dodecagon, we have now exhausted the number of regular forms that can be generated. Increasing the span of points linked begins to replicate forms in retrograde order. So linking every seventh point produces the twelve-sided star again, which is the left B-scale in retrograde. Connecting every eighth point yields the polar and transverse threerings. Linking every ninth point produces the planes, and so on. Choreutic Forms and An alogous Mu sical Forms. The distance between signal points of the icosahedron can be thought of as spatial intervals that are analogous to tonal intervals. Plate P shows one of Laban’s attempts to draw these parallels. The outer circle depicts the chromatic scale. The inner star, whose points are coded with letters, depicts the right A-scale, establishing tonal correlations of the perfect fourth with its spatial intervals. Movement analysts Pamela Schick and Carol Schouboe, working without access to L aban’s unpublished drawings, have hypothesized similar musical correlations,36 as shown in Figure 7-26.
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Relating Moveme nt to Music
Standard Scale – 1 interval – The Chromatic Scale Axis and Equator – 2 intervals – Major and Minor Seconds Cardinal Planes – 3 intervals – Minor Third Polar and Transverse Three-rings – 4 intervals – Major Thirds Transverse A or B Scales – 5 intervals — Perfect Fourth or Fifths Diameters – 6 intervals – Augmented Fourth or Diminished Fifth Figure 7-26. Hypothesized Musical Correlations. Adapted from Schick and Schouboe.
The one relationship that Schick and Schouboe fail to point out is that the axis and equator scales correspond to the two whole tone scales used in Western music. This is a significant correlation, indicating that Laban sets an equivalency of spatial interval within these two forms, even though the axis links are transversals, and hence longer than the peripheral equator links. This means that there is not a perfect correspondence between spatial distance and spatial interval; the analogy Laban draws is one of ratio, not quantity. In any case, the exact correspondences of tone and direction are of less consequence in Laban’s model than the principles of pattern generation inherent in the concept of spatial interval. In terms of pattern, the particular choreutic forms identified by Laban are all highly symmetrical. He has carefully kept the interval intact in each form, rather than mixing intervals. Any number of other choreutic shapes could be generated by using a simple processof transformation. The process is as follows: from any corner of a polygon a continuous line is drawn, touching all other vertices of the polygon before returning to the srcinal corner. These circuits may mix spatial intervals, thereby generating a variety of novel multi-sided figures. For example, four different pentagonal forms and eleven different hexagonal or six-sided shapes can be generated when mixed spatial intervals are used, as shown in Figure 7-27. As the number of sides of the polygon
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increase, “we notice a rapid increase in the permutations and many crossreferences that enable families of shapes to be found.” 37 Laban’s sketches demonstrate his familiarity with this method of generating polygonal figures (see Figure 2-9 in Chapter 2 and Plate D). He created very few mixed rings, however. The most salient, from a harmonic point of view, are the mixed seven-rings that are analogous to the diatonic scales.
Figure 7-27. As internal rays increase, so do possibilities for shape generation.
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Mixed Seven-Rings and th e Diat onic Scales While the chromatic scale contains the twelve tempered semitones of Western music, most compositions are based upon an abridged seven-note sequence called a “diatonic” scale – “dia for ‘through,’ and tonic in reference to the scale’s first note, its tonal center. So diatonic scales consist of notes that are harmonically closest to the scale’s first note.”38 Unlike the chromatic scale, which proceeds by even half-steps through the octave, “the steps of a diatonic scale are not all the same size.”39 Diatonic scales are of two types, either major or minor. The pattern of tonal interval in each type of scale is different. For example, a major diatonic scale is made up of two tetrachords connected by a whole tone. A tetrachord consists of two whole tones followed by a half tone. A major diatonic scale follows the pattern shown below: whole tone, whole tone, half-tone [whole tone] whole tone, whole tone, half tone
The octave is added at the end of the scale so that “if you play the white keys on the piano from C to C you will hear this series.” 40 A major scale can be centered around any of the seven tones designated by the letters A, B, C, D, E, F, G. While C major has no sharps or flats, scales centered on the other tones will have to add sharps or flats to sustain the tonal pattern of whole tones and half-tones. Constructi ng the Mix ed Seven-R ings. To develop an analogous pattern in terms of spatial intervals, Laban had to abandon the perfect symmetry of his other choreutic forms and introduce sequences that use both transverse and peripheral links. The “mixed seven-rings” are the sequences that Laban constructed as analogue models of some of the diatonic scales. By doing this, Laban was able to replicate the tonal pattern as a spatial pattern. In Laban’s construction of the standard scale, the axis and equator scales are both composed of whole tones intervals. To move from a point in the axis to an adjacent point in the equator (or vice versa) introduces a half-step. This correlation of tonal values allows Laban to replicate the tetrachord–whole tone –tetrachord pattern of major diatonic scales by combining segments of the axis with sections of the equator. The pattern is as follows: three points of the axis scale are linked to four points of the equator. The mixed seven-ring, analogous to C major, is shown in Figure 7-28. This sequence connects the first three signal points of the axis, tracing two transversals that are equivalent to whole tones. Then the pattern shifts to the adjacent point in the equator to create a peripheral half-step. This addition completes the first tetrachord. The
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sequence progresses to the next point along the equator, introducing a whole tone link. The equator is followed around two more corners; these links are equivalent to whole tones. The final link returns to the srcinal starting point of the axis, introducing the final half-step needed to complete the second tetrachord of the scale.
Figure 7-28. Seven-ring analogous to C major scale.
Laban designed 24 mixed seven-rings. Six are clustered around each of the cubic diagonals and drawn from the standard scale that belongs to that diagonal. Each ring starts on the next point of the axis, and links to the next point in the equator, as shown in Figure 7-29. It should be noted that the mixed seven-rings designed by Laban correspond to only six of the twelve major scales–those with an even number of sharps or flats. These rings follow a consistent pattern of transverse and peripheral links. It is also possible to develop mixed seven-rings that are analogous to the major scales having an uneven number of sharps or flats. These forms preserve the tetrachord–whole tone– tetrachord pattern, but introduce a different arrangement of transverse and
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peripheral links. Laban seems to have opted to keep the spatial pattern uniform within the rings he designed, although this meant sacrificing a perfect musical correspondence of forms.
Figure 7-29. Harmonic Progression of Two Seven-Rings.
Em bodying the Mixed Seven-Rings. Laban seems to view the mixed sevenrings as a harmonic blending of the characteristics of the axis and equator. The axis scale penetrates the kinesphere as it veers sharply up and down alongside its diagonal axis. The equatorencompasses kinespheric space as it gently girdles the diagonal. In an unpublished treatise on space harmony, Laban relates the character of the axis and equator respectively to the “arabesque” and “attitude” maneuvers of ballet. His associations seem to have to do more with the spatial characters of these forms than with specific motions of the legs. Laban characterizes arabesques as typifying “the straight penetration of space,” while 41 attitudes “show an all around enjoyment of several space directions.” Moreover, the direct arabesque “is rarely final,” while the flexible attitude “invites a stop.” These contrasting spatial characteristics lead Laban to ask, “which arabesques are easiest or most harmoniously linked to definite attitudes?”42 Laban qualifies “harmonious” in this instance as “coordinations which are more balanced and easier in their flow.” 43
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The rest of this unpublished treatise introduces the reader to “7 changes of directions” consisting of “an arabesque, an attitude, and their preparations and transitions.”44 Laban describes this sequence as “a circular chain, in which the last (the seventh) link flows back into the first one. The 7 directions of the circular chain however do not form a circle. The outline resembles an asymmetrically shaped flower, say, an orchid.” 45 Laban goes on to walk the reader through an embodied experience of one of these sequences. Since the asymmetrical chain links seven out of “12 points of space surrounding the body,” there are five points that are “not occupied.” 46 Physical exploration begins by finding these non-occupied space points. This is followed by intermediary exercises to find the seven points of “the elementary movement sequence.” 47 These points are located by simple weight shifts stepping forward and backward, while the arms gesture simultaneously in specified directions. Finally, Laban directs the reader through a choreographed performance of this mixed seven-ring, with clear indications of weight shift, use of arms and legs, and the degree of torso involvement. The arabesque form is realized through a leg extension using the spatial points taken from the axis scale, while the attitude is primarily a curved sweep along the path of the equator led by the arm. There is a momentary pause at the end of the attitude, in which the arm and torso curve toward back high while the right leg also curls around in this direction. This pause is followed by a “vigorous short step of the right leg forward, accompanied by a quick reaching of the right arm from back high to high right.” From this point, “the whole shape can be immediately repeated.”48 These archival traces demonstrate how carefully Laban worked through the links from abstract spatial forms to embodied practices. The mixed sevenrings were rigorously constructed to be consistent with their analogous musical forms at the structural level. In addition, there had to be a kind of body logic to the spatial form that allowed it to be translated into a flowing movement sequence. In the process of performing the sequence, the dancer had to be able to sustain balance and coordination to achieve a unity of form. While the labile spatial coordinates of the mixed seven-rings are challenging, the forms are coherent. Laban appears to have carefully negotiated the relationship of theory and practice in order to promote his concepts of movement harmony. His unpublished draft on space harmony contains notes for additionalcontent. These include an outline for concluding remarks “about the value of the knowledge and training of harmonious sequences.”49 Laban notes these values as including
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“development of kinesthetic feeling and awareness of the significance of movement, control of movement coordination, understanding of the rules of dance composition, and enrichment of movement imagination.”50 In addition, much of the treatise focuses on symmetry operations that are embedded in the mixed seven-rings. The symmetry operations that Laban explicates do not deal with the shape of the seven-ring itself – he notes that this is an asymmetrical form. Instead, Laban addresses how these forms may be mirrored. One mirror operation has to do with transferring the pattern from the right side to left side. In addition, Laban discusses the “echo” form that arises when two dancers face: “It must be imagined that one joins hands with the facing partner and is guided by him to the double reverted sequence. The result will be not left-right symmetrical, but back-forward symmetrical.”51 He goes on to note that the 24 mixed seven-rings (six around each of the four diagonals) are “all of exactly the same shape but they aretransferred and inverted into different space positions.”52 In other words, Laban is outlining the harmonic principle of transposition. Transposition In musical terms, transposition deals with moving a musical form while maintaining the structural unity of the form. The form moved may be a scale, a melody, or a chord. The movement may be one of pitch or of key. In the first instance, the musical form may be transposed up or down in pitch. For example, the C major scale may be played using the octave between middle C and high C. Or the scale may be transposed an octave lower, so that the scale moves between low C and middle C. The similarity of these two scales will be apparent to the listener due to the phemomenon of “ octave equivalence.” As Jourdain explains, “octaves are formed by doublings of frequencies. Middle C doubles
the frequency of low C, and high C doubles middle C. What’s interesting is that we call all three notes ‘C.’”53 He goes on to observe that “octave equivalence lets us transpose music up and down by octaves without changing key or dramatically altering harmony.”54 The second type of transposition involves moving a scalar sequence, melodic contour, or chordal progression from one key to another. As Machlis outlines, “suppose a certain melody begins on G. If you felt that the song lay a little too high for your voice, you might begin on F instead of G and shift all the tones of the melody one step lower. Someone else might find that the song was too low. That person could begin on A and sing each tone of the melody
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one step higher than it was written.”55 This act of shifting all the tones of a musical composition a uniform distance is another type of transposition. This shift of tonal center will change the key of the composition, but the scalar pattern and melodic and harmonic structure will retain its recognizable form. Laban developed analogous approaches for moving choreutic forms from one location in the icosahedron to another. In addition, he explored ways to shift trace-forms from the kinespheric geography of the icosahedron to that of the cube or octahedron. These methods of transposition are surveyed below. Transposition through Sym metry Operations. Symmetry operations allow shapes to be moved through space in certain orderly ways. In reflection, a given shape is reversed to produce a mirror image. In rotation, the shape is moved a certain number of times around an axis. In translation, the shape is moved a set distance and repeated; while glide reflection combines the movements of translation and reflection, moving a shape a constant distance and also reversing it. Mathematicians refer to these symmetry operations as utilizing “rigid movements.” What is meant by the term “rigid” is that the shape itself cannot be altered as it is moved through space, for the shapes in any symmetrical motif must be congruent. The rigid movements of symmetry operations allowed Laban to transpose choreutic forms from one area of the kinesphere to another without altering the shape of the trace-form. Simple shapes, like peripheral or transverse threerings, can be transposed to another kinespheric zone through the symmetry operations of translation, reflection, or glide reflection. More complex forms, such as axis and equator scales, transverse twelve-rings, or standard scales that are developed around a particular cubic diagonal, can be rotated to shift the whole form to another diagonal axis. For example, in an unpublished document Laban notes that the standard scales are “established by 3 turns: over the wheel, door, and table planes.” 56 In other words, by rotating the entire trace-form, its mirror and echo forms may be found. For example, a three-dimensional model of the standard scale around the diagonal can be depicted by wrapping colored yarn around the edges of a skeletal icosahedron. It is not necessary to unwrap this yarn and then restring it to depict the mirror-version of the scale. A simple 180 degree somersault through the sagittal plane will transpose the shape so that the standard scale around the diagonal is revealed. Cartwheeling the icosahedron 180 degrees through the vertical plane or spinning the form halfway around the horizontal plane will transpose the standard scale trace-form to other diagonal orientations. This
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kind of rotational transposition allowed Laban to work out a choreutic form around a single diagonal axis and then replicate its shape through other orientations in the kinesphere. Archival traces demonstrate his awareness of the procedure, for it seems that he often worked out a pattern around one diagonal, without bothering to map the trace-form on all four diagonals. Transpositions involving a change of key can be seen in the set of mixed seven-rings situated around a single diagonal. Each of these seven-rings retains a fundamental shape, but changes the coordinate points of its trace-form. Laban actually depicted these transpositions in the series of drawings shown in Plate C. These drawings also incorporate the transpositions of the associated mixed five-rings that follow the icosahedral signal points that are excluded from the seven-ring scales. Of course, Laban also employed rotation to transpose the six-scale set of mixed seven-rings to the other diagonals axes of the icosahedron. Transposition throu gh Topological Man ipulations. The rigid movements of symmetry operations allowed Laban to transpose choreutic trace-forms in various ways through the icosahedral geography of the kinesphere. It is not possible, however, to transpose an icosahedral trace-form to the cube or octahedron. Differences in the angles of the corners of these forms means that a shape mapped in one geography cannot be superimposed on another geography. In other words, the shapes of icosahedral trace-forms are not congruent with the shapes of cubic or octahedral trace-forms. These shapes can only be transposed if the shape itself is changed, so that the angles between sides are made wider or more acute, the sides themselves made longer or shorter, or the whole shape compressed, stretched, or twisted. Laban discovered that if he wanted to shift choreutic forms from one geometric geography to another, he had to go beyond the rigid movements of symmetry, employing procedures that would allow the shapes themselves to be altered. He found these procedures in the field of topology. Topology may be thought of as a kind of geometry in that it studies properties of shape and space, albeit in a fairly abstract way. As Barr elaborates, “a topologist is interested in those properties of a thing that, while they are in a sense geometrical, are the most permanent – the ones that will survive distortion and stretching.”57 For example, the roundness of a circle will not survive stretching or distortion – the property of roundness is not permanent. As Barr explains, “one can tie or glue the ends of a bit of string together and make it into a circle, and, without cutting or disconnecting it, make it into a square. But the fact that it has no ends remains unchanged.”58
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A second permanent property of the circle can be illustrated as follows. If numbered beads had been strung on the circular string, “they would retain their order even if we tied it in knots,” or “if we used elastic instead of string, because we could alter the distance between the beads – not their order.”59 Thus topology replaces the rigidmovements of symmetry operations with elastic movements, allowing shapes to be stretched, twisted, pulled, and bent without altering certain intrinsic properties. Rather than congruence, topological manipulations explore the homeomorphism of shape, to see which intrinsic properties are unchanged despite stretching, twisting, bending, etc. For example, “you can distort if you don’t alter the way a figure is connected, and in the case of a polygon, although you may smooth out the angles, you must retain the vertices as points marked on it.” 60 An example of this type of topological distortion is shown in Figure 7-30.
Figure 7-30. Topological distortion of hexagon.
Topological manipulations introduced a whole new range of ways to play with shape, and Laban applied these to the problem of transposing rhythmic circles from one geometric geography to another. Figure 7-31 and Plate Q show a twelve-sided circle traced around edges of an octahedron being stretched and twisted to fit around the edges of an icosahedron. The two shapes Laban depicts are homeomorphic. Both retain the property of being closed circuits. Moreover, the vertices are retained as points marked on the circle. From the mover’s perspective, this means that the order of directional changes has not been altered, even though the exact spatial locations have been changed.
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Figure 7-31. Topological distortion of skeletal octahedron. Rudolf Laban Archive L/E/17/16 ©NRCD.
Archival materials, such as those shown in Figures 7-32, 7-33, and 7-34, indicate that Laban was exploring various forms of topological interest in the final years of his career. These explorations included surfaces such as circular bands (a two-sided curved surface), Moebius strips (a twisted band that has only one surface), Klein bottles (a bottle with only one surface), knots, and hypercubes (four-dimensional cubes). Laban’s own writings, both published and unpublished, suggest that many of these explorations were inconclusive. Nevertheless, this evidences a theoretical movement on Laban’s part from the consideration of movement as line in three-dimensional space to its conceptualization as a surface in multi-dimensional spaces. If Laban was unable to develop these theoretical directions fully, his initial topological explorations have enriched his movement taxonomy in various ways. First, topological alteration of choreutic trace-forms allows a shape mapped on the coordinates of one Platonic solid to be transposed to another. These transpositions move beyond obvious congruity of shapes to illuminate homeomorphic kinships. For example, Figures 7-35~37 show three six-rings situated respectively in the octahedron, cube, and icosahedron. The last figure will be familiar to readers as an axis scale. All three trace-forms are
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Figure 7-32. Laban’s sketch of Klein bottle. Rudolf Laban Archive L/E/14/34 ©NRCD.
Figure 7-33. Laban’s sketch of a trefoil knot inside a tetrahedron. Rudolf Laban Archive L/E/15/36 ©NRCD.
Figure 7-34. Laban’s sketch of a lemniscate inside a hypercube. Rudolf Laban Archive L/E/12/26 ©NRCD.
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homeomorphic. Transpositions such as this make it possible to organize clusters of movement forms in an entirely new way, illuminating homeomorphic relationships in movement patterning that extend beyond superficial resemblances.
Figure 7-35. Octahedral six-ring.
Figure 7-36. Cubic six-ring.
Figure 7-37. Icosahedral six-ring.
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Body Transfer, Translation, and Size Scaling. Laban’s initial work on topological transformation of trace-forms is not merely a taxonomical curiosity. Rather, potentially heuristic connections to theories of motor control and spatial cognition may be suggested. For example, experiments have been conducted in which participants are asked to trace a shape in space in a variety of ways such as drawing it with the right arm, the left leg, or the shoulder (body transfer); tracing the shape in front of the body, to the side or on the floor (spatial translation); and altering the size of the shape (size scaling). Participants found these transformations equally simple to execute. This has suggested that the “engram” for all these variations in performance must be similar. Juhan defines the engram as “a sensory record of a particular gesture or series of gestures.”61 Sensory engrams influence motor control i n the following way: “When a person wishes to accomplish some act …he begins by remembering how it felt to do it. The motor systems are then set into motion to reproduce the remembered sequence of sensations.”62 Dancers sometimes refer to this as “muscle memory.” Longstaff, however, notes that in the case of body transfer, sizing, and translation of kinespheric forms, “the body use can differ greatly between different transformations.” This suggests that the engram guiding these transformations is “based on the exterior spatial form” rather than muscle memory.63 Bernstein refers to this movement memory code as the “engram of a given topological class,” noting that “it is extremely geometrical, representing a very abstract motor image of space.” 64 Thus, experiments in body transfer, sizing, and translation of kinespheric forms suggest that the apparatus for producing such movements may be based upon a cognitive formulation of spatial form that is fundamentally topological in nature. Har mony o f Spatial Form s
Laban averred that “between the harmonic life of music and that of dance there is not only a superficial resemblance but a structural congruity.” 65 This chapter has explored Laban’s observation by examining musical analogies between tone, scale, interval, and transposition in the choreutic forms that Laban developed. This examination has demonstrated how carefully Laban embedded harmonic elements such as proportion, balance, symmetry, order, kinship, and unity of form in choreutic sequences, while providing scope for individual expression. Laban’s choice of the icosahedron as the preferred map of the kinesphere allowed him to draw analogies between the twelve corners of the cardinal
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planes and the twelve semitones of Western music. Laban elaborated on these tonal relationships to generate movement sequences analogous to the chromatic, whole tone, and diatonic scales, along with forms that parallel other significant musical intervals. These movement scales and sequences achieve a structural unity through Laban’s careful use of multiple symmetry operations. Movement in one direction are always balanced by movement in the opposite direction. An orderly progression from plane to plane is established so that each scale sweeps through the kinesphere in a series of clockwise and counter-clockwise curves or moves to and fro in retrograde trajectories. Beyond balanced symmetry, families of harmonic forms emerge, extending the taxonomy of kinesthetic space. For example, scales can be clustered by type, such as the four axis scales, the eight polar triangles, the four A and B scales, etc. Alternatively, the different types of choreutic forms that evolve around one diagonal can be grouped together. This grouping, based on intervals of a standard scale, reveals a different type of kinship. Choreutic forms may also be categorized in terms of kinesthetic characteristics. For example, the transverse axis scales as well as the A and B scales have a penetrating character, while the peripheral equators and standard scales encompass and surround. In addition, transposition of polygonal “rhythmic circles” from the icosahedron to the octahedron and cube reveal topological kinships that extend beyond superficial similarities. The harmonic elements of unity of form and individuality emerge from how these abstract geometrical sequences are translated into physical practice. Unpublished materials demonstrate that Laban was capable of prescribing a manner of embodiment in great detail. In his published work, however, spatial forms “are simply listed with brief instructions on their bodily performance … or presented as abstract spatial models without any explicit connection to human body movement.” 66 When brief instructions are provided, these generally delineate the side of the body that is to lead the sequence. This has led to a conventional style of embodiment that emphasizes whole body actions. In this style, the leading arm traces the prescribed pathways in a swinging motion so that the trace-form seems to oscillate around the center of the kinesphere, which is identified with the navel center of the mover’s body. Unity of form is achieved either through symmetrical countertensions in the limbs or by a congruent “graining” of the body toward the dominant directions of the trace-form, supported by a matching weight shifts.
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While the oral transmission of choreutic forms has preserved a particular style of embodiment, Laban wrote that “it is useful from many points of view to omit entirely all precise instructions as to bodily execution and dynamic intentions.”67 Laban was aware that “expressive movements in dance” are “not bound to definite and equilibrated spatial harmonies.” He adds that “for a great number of modern dancers [spatial] inclinations have a kind of individuality and they use them, mostly intuitively, with remarkable freedom.” 68 These remarks suggest that while “unity of form” remains an essential ingredient of harmonious movement, Laban does not conflate unity with any particular“style” or canon of “beauty.” A close examination of choreutic forms demonstrates how Laban extended the analogic metaphor of musical harmony to spatial design in dance. The consistency with which harmonic elements areembedded in the forms, however, invites a question: are these forms “discovered” or “invented”? The rigorous coherence of these movement sequences suggests the latter view, while Laban’s own assertions regarding the empirical foundation of his work support the former interpretation. Is there really a “natural” harmony that governs the spatial unfolding of human movement? Stravinsky’s remarks regarding musical harmony provide an angle of approach to this question. He begins with a banal example of the pleasure one may experience upon hearing natural sounds such as the murmur of a brook or birdsong. While such sounds may be “music to one’s ears,” Stravinsky acknowledges, it is not yet music. Such sounds are merely promises of music; it takes a human being to keep them: a human being who is sensitive to nature’s many voices, of course, but who in addition feels the need of putting them in order and who is gifted for that task with a very special aptitude. In his hands all that I have considered as not being music will become music. From this I conclude that tonal elements become music only by virtue of their being organized, and that such organization presupposes a conscious human act. 69 Stravinsky’s comments suggest that musical harmony isneither discovered nor invented; harmony isboth discovered and invented. Music has as its referent natural sounds that are pleasing, and these sounds must be consciously ordered to become truly musical. The same observation would seem to apply to space
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harmony. Laban based his theory on naturalreferents, on empirical observations of spatial emplacements of the body and the natural sequential unfolding of dance and movement forms. He also imposed a coherent organization on what he observed. This interpretation is consistent with what is known about Laban as a naturalistic artist-researcher: he shifted between real life observations of movement in the field and theoretical formulations of these empirical data at a more abstract level. In this sense, choreutic harmony was both discovered and invented. Spatial form is only one part of Laban’s theory of movement harmony, however. Before further discussion of the whole theory can take place, it is necessary to explicate other aspects of Laban’s theoretical enterprise. Thus discussion now turns to dimensions of effort harmony.
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Notes 11. Choreutics was published posthumously in 1966. The American version came out in 1974, under the title The Language of Movement. 12. In mathematical terms, a simple path that uses every edge of a graph and begins and ends at the same corner is known as an “Euler circuit.” A “Hamiltonian circuit” visits every corner of a graph exactly once and ends at the same corner where it began. These types of paths were named after the mathematicians who discovered them. Puzzles based on these types of networks were popular mathematical games at the end of the 19th century, and this may be how Laban became familiar with them. 13. Maletic, Body Space Expression, 88. 14. Laban, Choreographie, Longstaff, ed., 12. 15. Preston-Dunlop, “Choreutics,” 142; Newlove and Dalby, Laban for All. 16. Prest on-D unl op, Point of Departure; Forsythe, Improvisational Technologies. 17. Laban, Language of Movement, 80. 18. Laban, cited in Maletic, Body Space Expression, 69. 19. Ibid. 10. Laban, Language of Movement, 80-81. 11. Ibid. 12. Longstaff, editor’s notes in Choreographie, 40. 13. Laban, Language of Movement, 70. 14. Ibid. 15. Although the longer sides of the cardinal planes are internal rays of the icosahedron, they are not considered to be transversals due to the fact that they lie in one plane. True transversals are internal rays that connect the corner of one plane to the corner of another plane by passing through the
third plane. Consequently, these oblique lines follow three-dimensional trajectories through the kinesphere. 16. The tilted planes are perpendicular to one another, although each is out of plumb. 17. Vandenbroeck, Philosophical Geometry, 22. 18. Ibid. 19. Jourdain, Music, Brain, and Ecstasy, 93. 20. Holst, ABC of Music, 2. 21. Ibid. 22. Jourdain, Music, Brain, and Ecstasy, 71.
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23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.
29.
30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40.
Ibid., 69-70. Ibid., 70. Ibid., 72. Holst, ABC of Music, 97. Laban, Language of Movement, 117. Preston-Dunlop, Point of Departure.These additional twelve-rings include six that are oriented around diametral axes as well as four “twisted” standard (or primary) scales around diagonal axes. Laban, Language of Movement, 71. In fact, Laban introduces the standard scale by using a cuboctahedral scaffolding of the kinesphere. The 14-sided cuboctahedron is a semi-regular solid that combines the six square faces from the cube with the eight triangular faces of the octahedron. This form has 12 corners, like the icosahedron, but the cuboctahedron has only 24 edges (rather than 30). Its missing edges correspond to the short sides of the cardinal planes of the icosahedron, thereby neatly eliminating these peripherals as possible paths for the standard scale. Dell, Space Harmony, 4. Jourdain, Music, Brain, and Ecstasy, 66. Ibid., 78. Laban, Language of Movement, 82. Ibid., 72. Panofsky, Meaning in Visual Arts, 97. Schouboe and Schick, manuscript, author’s collection, 1996. Albarn et al, Language of Pattern, 58. Jourdain, Music, Brain, and Ecstasy, 71. Holst, ABC of Music, 4. Machlis, Enjoyment of Music, 179.
41. Laban, “Spa ce Harmony of Human Movement,” E/L/38/2 7, I, Laban Archive, NRCD. 42. Ibid., II-IIa. 43. Ibid., Ia 44. Ibid., III, IIa. 45. Ibid., III. 46. Ibid., Va-VI. 47. Ibid., VIIa. 48. Ibid., XIa. 49. Ibid., XIIa.
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50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69.
Ibid. Ibid., Va. Ibid. Jourdain, Music, Brain, and Ecstasy, 67. Ibid. Machlis, Enjoyment of Music, 181. Laban, manuscript, E(L)/4/67, Laban Archive, NRCD. Barr, Experiments in Topology, 2-3. Ibid., 3. Ibid. Ibid., 12. Juhan, Job’s Body, 266. Ibid. Longstaff, “Cognitive Structures,” 144. Bernstein, cited in Longstaff, “Cognitive Structures,” 144. Laban, Language of Movement, 117. Longstaff, “Cognitive Structures,” 19. Laban, Language of Movement, 111. Ibid., 125-126. Stravinsky, Poetics of Music, 23.
C HAPTER 8
Modulati on and Har monic Phr asing In his investigations of the movement from mood to mood, Laban noted that “the sequences of emotions have a perceptible flow in which certain harmonic unfoldings can be noticed.”1 This chapter elaborates on Laban’s ideas of the harmonic unfolding of effort mood by extending the analogic metaphor of harmony to incorporate notions of modulation. Discussion begins with a brief review of the “law of proximity” and how this eukinetic concept is analogous to modulation from key to key in music. This is followed by examination of three rhythmic circles that Laban developed as models of effort modulation and phrasing. The first model to be discussed is a symmetrical eighteen-link ring mapped on the cube. This model primarily addresses modulated patterning of action moods, although an adaptation for modeling modulation for the other drives is demonstrated. In addition, reference is made to the cubic model of effort states and drives, introduced in Chapter 5; this model of “kinship” can also be used to develop modulated effort sequences of broad dynamic range. Two additional “standard scalesof the dynamosphere” are explicated. These include an asymmetrical nine-ring that Laban called a “knot,” and another asymmetrical six-ring that Laban referred to as a “twisted circle.”2 Laban’s preliminary explorations of lemniscates (Moebius strips) and hypercubes (fourdimensional cubes) are also examined. The chapter closes with reflection on the seemingly paradoxical description of these effort patterns as spatial forms. Music al Modulation and the La w of Pr oximity Western musical compositions are written in a particular key. Key in this context refers to “the scale upon which the prevailing harmony is constructed.”3 For example, a ballad written in the key of C major mostly employs the notes of the C major scale, “with special emphasis on the harmonically dominant notes of that scale.”4 As Jourdain explains, “the first note of a scale is not the only one that is harmonically important. A scale’s fifth note (the octave midpoint) also exerts a strong pull, as do the third and fourth notes.” 5 Harmony
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is based upon combinations of simultaneous tones. One combination that sounds particularly consonant is the “triad consisting of the first, third, and fifth notes of the prevailing scale.”6 The C major triad, or C major chord, consists of C-EG and “reflects the structure of the overtone series. When C is played as the tonal center of a C-major scale, its overtones include the C above, then G, then C again, then E, then another G, and yet another C. And so you have the notes of the triad.”7 In lengthy musical works, composers often develop the composition by introducing changes in key. The movement from one key to another is called “modulation.”8 Shifts in key are governed by laws of harmony in the foll owing sense. Certain keys have more tones in common than others. For example, the dominant tone in the C major scale is G. This dominant note becomes the tonic, or first note, of the G major scale, which shares six tones with C major, differing only in one note. Consequently, modulation from C major to G major is a gradual shift in tonality that makes sense to the listener. As Jourdain elaborates, “our minds step among tonal centers just as they step among scale tones in a melody, deriving a comparable pleasure.” 9 On the other hand, “once a tonal center and its system of triads have been established, music can travel in many directions along a vast web of permissible transitions from chord to chord. But relatively few chord progressions work very well.”10 Consequently, it behooves composers to be familiar with the “vocabulary of common progressions” that are standard in Western music, for these “musical clichés” can be employed both to satisfy and surprise.11 As discussed in Chapter 5, Laban detected a “law of proximity” that affects the harmonic unfolding of effort moods. According to his observation it is relatively easy to transition between moods that have effort qualities in common. For example, the transition from a pressing movement to a wringing movement … can be easily performed without a perceptible break, but it is impossible to make an equally smooth transition from a pressing to a slashing movement. However, the transition from wringing to slashing, or vice versa, is easily done. Thus we see that there are certain action-moods which are closely related to each other, and that some are loosely linked, whilst others are diametrically opposed.12 This observation leads Laban to conclude that “a bodily feeling for harmonious movement does not permit immediate transition between distant
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action moods.”13 The shift between effort moods makes sense when these moods have elements in common. Thus it may be said that the law of proximity is to effort phrasing what modulation is to tonality. A Graph ic Model of Proxim ity for Action Moods. Musicians have developed a model known as the “Circle of Fifths”that represents key signatures for all the major and minor diatonic scales in terms of their number of sharps and flats. The positioning of keys around this circle also provides information about relationships between keys, for keys that share tones are closer to one another while those whose tones are more contrasting are positioned further around or across the circle from one another. Key signatures are seen as “an important part of the grammar of music,” according to Holst. When these are learned “by sound and feel . . . it becomes possible to understand what happens when a piece of music moves away from its own key and enters another key.”14 In other words, the Circle of Fifths provides a graphic model for understanding harmonic principles of modulation. It will be recalled that Laban developed a similar device for representing relationships between Action Drive combinations. This model, which was introduced in Chapter 5, associates action moods with particular corners of a cube, as shown below. Effort combinations that differ in all three qualities (e.g., float and punch) are placed at opposite corners of the cube. In Laban’s view, it is not possible to transition immediately between these moods. Action moods differing in two qualities while sharing one (e.g., glide and punch) are positioned at opposite corners of a face of the cube. Although these moods have more elements in common, a seamless transition can be difficult. Finally, action moods differing in only one quality while sharing two (e.g., glide and float) are located at opposite ends of an edge of the cube. These effort combinations are positioned the closest to one another, and modulation between these moods is easy to accomplish spontaneously.
Figure 8-1. Cubic model of Action Drive kinships.
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Mapping Modulations of Action Moods. As Jourdain noted above, “music can travel in many directions along a vast web of permissible transitions from 15 chord to chord. But relatively few chord progressions work very well.” Laban’s effort cube can be thought of as a kind of graph representing a “vast web” or network of permissible effort transitions, while his law of proximity suggests that only some of these will work well. In his search for workable transitions, Laban resorted to mapping rings on this cubic graph. The aim was to move between the completely contrasting action moods situated at opposite corners of the cube by traveling only along edges of the cube. This type of progression would ensure that the shift in mood was modulated by changing only one effort quality at a time. Laban’s rough draft of this pattern of modulated effort change is shown in Figure 8-2. The reader will note the similarity to other rhythmic circles and scales that Laban created in relation to studying choreutic forms. However, this eukinetic pattern is neither an Euler circuit nor a Hamiltonian one. This is because two corners of the cube are touched three times each, while edges are traced more than once. In fact, it is this pattern of repetition that provides the key to the meaning of this model.
Figure 8-2. Laban’s working notes on modulation. Rudolf Laban Archive L/E/6/62 ©NRCD.
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A finished drawing of the modulated shift between a floating action and a punching action is shown in Figure 8-3.16 This depicts an eighteen-link circuit that moves along three edges of each of the six faces of the cube, returning to its srcinal starting point.
Figure 8-3. Finished drawing of “18-er” (float-punch). Rudolf Laban Archive L/E/53/2 ©NRCD.
Laban developed this model by employing symmetry operations. Starting at the right forward low corner, the eighteen-ring circuits the front face of the cube, the left wall, and the top wall, then reverses direction and circuits the back wall of the cube, the right face, and the bottom surface, returning to the starting point. This process is illustrated in Figures 8-4 and 8-5.
Figure 8-4. Symmetry operations, first half of “18-er.”
Figure 8-5. Symmetry operations, second half of “18-er.”
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Although Laban uses symmetry, this three-dimensional model does not represent movement through a cubic geography of the kinesphere, for literal spatial pathways are not being depicted here. Rather, this is a formal eukinetic pattern representing a balanced oscillation between the contrasting moods of floating and punching. This becomes obvious when the model is translated into a series of effort phrases, for, as Laban notes, “between one action-mood and its extreme contrast there are six possible series of connection.”17 One set of six phrases in the float – punch oscillation are shown below. From Float to Punch 1) float – glide – press – punch
//
From Punch to Float 2) punch – dab – glide – float
3) float – flick – dab – punch
//
4) punch – slash – flick – float
5) float – wring – slash – punch
//
6) punch – press – wring – float
Laban writes that the other three pairs of contrasting action-moods (gliding– slashing, dabbing–wringing, and flicking–pressing) “have similar series of connection… In these sequences are found all natural links which arise in the bodily execution of simple dynamic action-moods.”18 These “natural sequences” are not elaborated in Laban’s writings. But once the principles of symmetrical construction are understood, three other patterns of effort modulation may be worked out. For example, the diagram shown in Figure 8-6 maps one of the modulated oscillations between the contrasting moods of flicking and pressing.
Figure 8-6. “18-er” showing modulated phrasing, flick—press.
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One set of six modulated effort phrases in the flick – press oscillation are shown below. FromFlicktoPress 1 ) flick – dab – glide – press
//
FromPresstoFlick 2) press – punch – dab – flick
3) flick – slash – punch – press
//
4) press – wring – slash – flick
5) flick – float – wring – press
//
6) press – glide – float – flick
It may be surmised that Laban views this rhythmic and symmetrical fluctuation between contrasting moods asa model of effort harmony. The energy oscillates freely in a balanced manner, rather than getting “stuck” at one polar mood or the other. Moreover, the process of change is gradual, as a fighting quality replaces an indulging quality (or vice versa) one motion factor at a time. Modulated change would also appear to be a hallmark of effort harmony, for as Laban notes, the “chemistry of effort follows certain rules, because the transitions from one effort quality to another are either easy or difficult. 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.” 19 Mapping Modulations for Other Moods. Phrases of modulated change can also be found for the Passion, Vision, and Spell Drives by adapting the effort cube and its Action Drive correlations. Laban declares that each one of the basic actions can, through change in its speed, or its degree of strength, or the curvature of its path, be modified more and more until it finally becomes one of the other basic actions. This change can be compared with the grading one into another of the colours in a rainbow. As the many shades of colour can be understood as transitions or mixtures of the basic colours of the spectrum, so also can the great variety of actions observed in our movement be considered and explained as transitions or mixtures of basic actions.20 The first step to finding these transitions is establishing a model of proximity for each of the other three drives using the cube. For example, there are eight configurations of Passion Drive combining the motion factors of weight, time, and flow. These eight configurations can be arrayed on a cubic model to depict their kinship by following the pattern established by Laban’s arrangement of action moods. The logical way to do this is to replace the fighting and indulging
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qualities of space found in Action Drive combinations with the fighting and indulging qualities of flow found in Passion Drive configurations. Qualities of weight and time common to both drives remain the same. For example, the Action Drive configuration of floating combines the indulging effort qualities of decreasing pressure, decelerating, and indirecting. The Passion Drive corollary of floating combines the indulging effort qualities of decreasing pressure, decelerating, and free flow (the weight and time qualities stay the same, while free flow replaces indirecting). Thus this Passion Drive configuration would take the position of the action mood of floating on the cubic model. In this way, all eight Passion Drive combinations can be situated on the cubic model so as to represent their degrees of kinship, as shown in Figure 8-7. bound, light, sustained
free, light, sustained bound, light, sudden
free, light, sudden
bound, strong, sustained free, strong, sustained free, strong, sudden bound, strong, sudden
Figure 8-7. Cubic model of Passion Drive kinships.
Once a model of kinship has been established, it is possible to map patterns of modulated change by following the same principles of symmetrical construction that have been described in relation to the Action Drive. Since each drive has four sets of contrasting moods, there are four different eighteenlink rings for each drive, each representing a network of modulated effort phrases. Each “18-er” in the cube provides a systematic way to study and embody nuanced transitions between combinations of fighting and indulging effort qualities within a given drive. Such study has heuristic implications, for Laban explains that “the fighting against or indulging attitude toward a motion factor forms the basic aspects of the psychological attitudes of hatred and love. So it is useful if the artist realizes how these two poles of emotion are related to other forms of inner attitude, and how their relationship is mirrored in the
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movements of different characters.”21 His aim, it seems, is to support movementthinking. This kind of thinking “does not, as thinking in words does, serve orientation in the external world, but rather it perfects man’s orientation in his inner world in which impulses continually surge and seek an outlet in doing, acting and dancing.”22 Laban’s mapping of the landscapes in this inner world begins with action moods and their patterns of fluctuating change. But, he observes, “anybody can start with any of the basic action moods, whether it is habitual to him or not. He can then with greater or less effort mobility run through whatever 23 scale of moods he likes, or which outer circumstances compel him to assume.” This “scale of moods” introduces shifts between states and drives, necessitating new models. Model ing Ha r monic Phr asing for Oth er States and Dr ives In addition to patterns of harmonic effort phrasing discussed above, the cubic model of the states and drives introduced in Chapter 5 provides another model of kinship that can be mined to delineate patterns of modulated effort change. As the reader may recall, in this model Laban has situated the four effort drives at four corners of the cube (Figure 5-8). The motion factor that is latent in each drive is placed diagonally opposite the drive, indicating extreme contrast. Each of the six effort states is positioned on a face of the cube, between the two motion factors that make up the state and between the two drives that the state has in common (Figures 5-10 and 5-11). Laban’s fanciful drawing of this model is shown in Figure 8-8. Here the effort network is rendered as a cubic arrangement of stylized flowers, petals, and stems, augmented with notations for the drives, states, and motion factors.
Figure 8-8. Fanciful rendering of proximity of states and drives. Rudolf Laban Archives L/E/17/48 ©NRCD.
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Laban did not go on to develop rhythmic circles based upon this cubic model. However, if his three-dimensional model is simplified and reduced to a two-dimensional square, a “road map” may be derived illustrating how the states link with each other and with each of the drives. (See Figure 8-9.) This map makes it possible to modulate from one drive to another by finding the state they have in common. For example, it is possible to shift from a passionate mood to a more practical one by concentrating on the rhythmic weight/time combinations of the near state that link the Passion Drive to the Action Drive (see Figures 5-4 and 5-6).
Figure 8-9. Relationship of states and drives.
This map of effort networks also indicates possible ways to shift between contrasting states. For example, a dream state (weight and flow) can be modulated into the contrasting awake state (space and time) by changing one motion factor at a time. There are four possible transitions: dream (weight/flow) – mobile (flow/time) – awake (time/space) dream (flow/weight) – near (weight/time) – awake (time/space) dream (weight/flow) – remote (flow/space) – awake (space/time) dream (flow/weight) – stable (weight/space) – awake (space/time)
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There are many more variations if the mover is diverted into another state or effort drive along the way. The various “18-ers” in the cube as well as the cubic model of the states and drives are Laban’s attempt to discern ordering principles that govern the movement from mood to mood. The patterns he delineates draw upon notions of balanced oscillation. Since movement harmony rests upon a full range of effort expression, access to each indulging quality must be matched by access to the opposite fighting quality. Organic transitions between different moods are determined by the kinship of eukinetic elements. Laban noted that “experience proves that extreme contrasts of dynamic actions … cannot be performed by the body immediately one after the other.”24 However, effort balance can be achieved by finding the appropriate modulations in dynamic expression within a given mood and across a range of states and drives. Stab ility and Mobil ity in E ffort Phr asing While the eighteen-ring in the cube represents a model of balanced
oscillation between contrasting dynamic moods, Laban developed two other prototypic eukinetic sequences – knots and twisted circles. “In investigating the secondary movements which in fact are muscular tensions and which produce the dynamic variations of speed, force and directional flux,” Laban notes, “we find two interesting sequences which are based on two contrasting actions used in almost every activity.”25 He characterizes these actions as tying and untying: “the untying or untwisting, which is to separate, and the contrary, the tying or twisting into a knot, which means to unite, both lead to completely different inner and outer attitudes.”26 For example, a circle can be twisted into a figure eight and then untwisted. On the other hand, “ a knot in the circle of string cannot be untwisted as long as the circle remains uncut.” 27 Laban goes on to observe that “our movement sometimes traces circles which can easily be transformed into the shape of the figure eight and other twisted shapes. At other times they are knotted, so to speak, and can be transmuted into other lines only after being cut by a complete stop and by a new impulse. Here we have examples of discontinued or interrupted movements.”28 Laban depicts both the prototypic knot and the twisted circle as kinespheric trace-forms, although later he describes these as eukinetic forms belonging to the dynamosphere. Therefore, each rhythmic circle will be discussed initially as a formal shape with reference to an icosahedral scaffolding,
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and then transposed to the cubic model of the dynamosphere and discussed as an effort pattern. Knots . Knots are described in Laban’s posthumously published work, The Language of Movement. This discussion is by no means transparent,and perhaps for this reason, knots are seldom taught as a part of the oral tradition of Laban’s work. What follows is the author’s interpretation of knots. This begins with an examination of Laban’s description of knots. He observes that “in moving inwards towards the centre of our body we follow trace-forms which resemble knots,” 29 and relates knotting with qualities of meeting and uniting, and consequently with stability. His description of a knot form is couched entirely in spatial terms, using the planar direction symbols related to the icosahedron to map its trajectory. For some reason, Laban simplifies the icosahedron into a three-level scaffolding, as shown below. The particular knot depicted, which is centered around the diagonal , is a mixed nine-ring composed of three transverse and six peripheral lines. The three tilted planes associated with this diagonal axis provide much of the scaffolding of the knot. One transversal and adjacent peripheral edge from each tilted plane is used. Because these six edges of the tilted planes are perpendicular to each other, Laban notes that “they have a tendency towards stability.”30
Figure 8-10. Transverse and peripheral edges of tilted planes used in a knot.
The remaining peripheral links are taken from the equator around this diagonal, as shown in Figure 8-11. Laban observes that these equator links are perpendicular to the peripheral edges of the tilted planes, “thus reinforcing stability.”31
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Figure 8-11. Peripheral edges of equator used in the knot.
While the knot evolves around a diagonal, it is oriented toward one end of this axis. In the example Laban describes, the knot is oriented toward the lower end of the diagonal. All three transversals of the tilted planes lie to one side of the equator that girdles the diagonal. The points of the polar triangle surrounding the upper end of the axial diagonal are not touched by the knot form. Consequently, Laban characterizes the knot form as being basket-like; that is, woven around one end of the diagonal and opening towards the other end, as seen in Figure 8-12. He goes on to explain that “the chain of the knot can be followed in a clockwise as well as in a counter-clockwise direction.”32 (The notated sequence in Figure 8-12 moves counter-clockwise.) In either case, “the chain cannot be untwisted as long as the circle is not cut by an interruption of movement.”33
Figure 8-12. The complete knot.
Start
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The looping pattern of this nine-ring creates a trefoil knot. If the threedimensional trace-form were flattened, a looped form would be seen whose lines cross other lines six times before returning to the point of srcin. The crossings alternate, going under then over, or vice versa, depending upon the direction of motion, as shown in Figure 8-13.
Figure 8-13. Trefoil knot.
Laban describes this knot in spatial terms, using planar symbols related to the icosahedron to map its form. Nevertheless, he refers to these nine-rings as one form of the “standard scale of the dynamosphere.” 34 This remark suggests that knots are dynamospheric forms analogous to the standard scales of the kinesphere. Unlike the standard scale of the kinesphere that shares this flick/ press diagonal axis, the knot form touches only nine of the twelve corners of the icosahedron. It avoids the corners that make up the polar triangle around the upper end of its diagonal axis. Thus it seems to be asymmetrically “knotted” around the lower end of the diagonal, while it opens out in the opposite direction, avoiding all the planar points that are closest to the upper end of the diagonal. This provides a clue as to its character as a dynamospheric form. To understand this character, the knot can be topologically manipulated to fit in a cube. First, the outer loops are pulled away from one another to tighten the center, as shown in Figure 8-14a. Since each loop of the deformed knot consists of two peripherals and one transversal, these loops can be manipulated to become right triangles, with the two peripheral edges forming a 90 degree angle while the transversal becomes the oblique hypotenuse, as shown in Figure 8-14b.
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Figure 8-14a. Tightened knot.
Figure 8-14b. Deformed knot.
Now the knot can be transposed onto a cubic model of the dynamosphere. The tight center is positioned at the corner of the cube that corresponds with the lower end of the knot’s diagonal axis (press), while the three triangular loops are aligned with the walls of cube that meet at that corner, as shown in Figure 8-15. This positioning means that the loops are perpendicular to one another. Peripheral edges of each loop are aligned with edges of the cube, while each transversal is made to conform respectively to an oblique line across the front, left, and bottom walls of the cube. The knot never touches the corner (flick) at the upper end of its diagonal axis. On the other hand, it keeps circling back to the corner (press) at the lower end of the diagonal.
Figure 8-15. Deformed knot transposed onto cube.
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When the Action Drive combinations associated with the corners of the cube are considered, the knotted sequence centers around a pressing mood. Each loop moves away from this mood, but then returns to it, as shown in the series of effort phrases below.
press – float – glide – press — slash – wring – press — dab – punch—press When viewed in this way, the nine-link knot can be interpreted as a dynamospheric form that relates to the eighteen-link circuit shown in Figure 8-6. The eighteen-link circuit oscillates between the contrasting moods of press and flick, shifting from mood to mood in a balanced pattern of gradual change. The nine-link knot is simply half of this pattern. Unlike the “18-er,” however, the nine-link knot keeps returning to one effort combination (press), without ever shifting to the opposite combination (flick). The key to understanding the knot as a dynamospheric form is to remember that knots are binding. Thus, in the knot which Laban identifies, the dynamic progression from mood to mood keeps spiraling back to the same mood. It is as if the mover is unable to shift out of this pressing mood effectively. Consequently, there is a lack of effort balance. Perhaps this is why Laban notes that knotted movements may be seen in the movement behavior of the mentally ill.35 Twisted Circles. The twisted circle is a six-link mixed ring that has been twisted into a three-dimensional figure 8. Laban relates this form to the beginning of a movement that is initiated by “a twisted contraction from which it flows outward in an untwisting, opening movement.” 36 Unlike the knot, this circle can be untwisted without cutting and so, according to Laban, it has the possibility of “evolving continuously in ever-new shapes.” This freedom to evolve “gives the twist its mobility.”37 The twisted circle contains the same three transversals used in the knot, but mixes in three different peripheral links. Like the knot to which it is related, the simple twist still touches the three points of the polar triangle around the lower end of its diagonal axis, while avoiding the polar triangle points around the upper end of this diagonal. Like the knot, the twisted circle is an asymmetrical form, as shown in Figure 8-16. If the twisted circle is transposed to the cube, the transversals become diagonals, while the peripheral lines shift to the edges of the cube. Transformed
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in this way, the twisted circle avoids touching both corners that mark the diagonal axis, as shown in Figure 8-17.
Figure 8-16. Twisted circle.
axis
Figure 8-17. Twisted circle transposed onto cube.
When this pattern is translated into action moods, the following effort sequence emerges:
punch – float – wring – dab – glide – slash – punch With the twisted circuit, Laban introduces yet a third effort pattern. The eighteen-link ring oscillates between flicking and pressing, repeating each of these moods three times. In contrast, the nine-link knot repeatedly shifts away from pressing, but inevitably returns to this seemingly inescapable mood. This knotted effort sequence never achieves a balanced oscillation to the contrasting mood of flicking. The knot shows a “restriction of evolution.” 38 On the other
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hand, the six-link twisted circle shifts between contrasting and closely related moods, avoiding the axial moods of flicking and pressing altogether. In Laban’s view, this last pattern has “the freedom to evolve.”39 Perhaps because movements are not bound to a particular “corridor of action,” there is greater latitude for a variety of moods to crystallize. Explo r ing Other Model s of the Dy nam ospher e Much of Laban’s research work can be seen as a relentless search for suitable ways to perceive, describe, and think about the ineffable experience of movement. He characterizes movement-thinking as “a gathering of impressions of happenings in one’s own mind, for which nomenclature is lacking.”40 He further notes that “man has been unable to find the connection between his movement-thinking and his word-thinking.”41 Consequently, he conceives the contemporary challenge to be one of finding ways and means “to penetrate into the mental side of effort and action so that the common thread of the two kinds of thinking can finally be re-integrated in a new form.”42 Laban was tireless in his own explorations of new forms that might serve as useful vehicles for conveying ideas about the kinesphere, the dynamosphere, and the harmonic interpenetration of these two domains. These efforts led to theoretical excursions into hyperspace and engagement with non-Euclidean shapes. Two of these excursions are discussed below. Lem niscates. A number of drawings and fragmentary writings about lemniscates in both German and English are found among unpublished papers dating from the final two decades of Laban’s career. In Laban’s published works, references to lemniscates appear primarily in The Language of Movement. What he writes about these twisted bands is far from transparent. As is the case with knots and twisted circles, Laban describes lemniscates in
spatial terms, while indicating that these twisted bands have a relation to effort. The exact nature of this relationship is never spelled out clearly. The following points may be surmised, nevertheless. Laban appears to have experimented with lemniscates in two ways: (1) in relation to an exploration of movement as surface and, (2) as a symbolic form representing the unity of effort and space. In first instance, Laban wrote that “the observation of the pathway remains very primitive if it is described as a line. Several important features – as for instance, twists – cannot be expressed in this way. The description of the pathway as a surface, a band, or a bulging hollow is more adequate to the
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natural feel of movement.”43 In this unpublished paper, Laban gives the example of tracing a figure 8 in two ways. First, one can trace this pattern as if drawing a figure 8 with a piece of chalk on a chalk board. In this instance “the limb remains on one side of the band.” 44 Alternatively, one could trace the shape so that the palm slides over one curve, then the lower arm and wrist twist so that the back of the hand traces over the next curve. Laban appears to view this type of movement as tracing a twisted band, or a lemniscatic surface. It is possible that these topological forms suggested a way to capture movements in which a surface of a limb seems to inscribe a planar curve rather than a line. Shifts in the surface of the limb touching this virtual planar curve are brought about by twisting, and Laban may have seen these changes in rotation as analogous to the twist that produces a Moebius strip. On the other hand, the lemniscate may have served as symbolic device. Laban conceived of human movement as a psychophysical phenomenon. His taxonomy identifies two distinctive domains: the outer domain of space and the inner domain of effort. While each domain has its own set of descriptive categories, Laban insisted that “a definite movement with a definite traceform is always connected with inner happenings such as feelings, reflections, 45 determinations of the will and other emotional impulses.” Since the lemniscatic 46 band has “no division between inside and outside,” Laban may see it as representing the essential unity of movement in which the inner impulse to move takes physical form in space. Indeed, at the end of the chapter in which lemniscates are introduced, Labanwrites that “movement is man’s magic mirror, reflecting and creating the inner life in and by visible trace-forms, and also reflecting and creating the visible trace-forms in and by the inner life.” 47 The Hypercube. While the lemniscate provided a symbol for the unity of effort and space, Laban struggled to find other ways to express the mutual influence of these two domains on one another. Many of Laban’s writings, both published and unpublished, contain repeated attempts to express the bonding of the psychological with the physical in human movement. It seems that he grappled over and over again with how to describe the influence of the unseen (thought and feeling) on what can be seen (dynamic movement through space). According to Laban, “the linking of any action-moods produces a kind of trace-form which does not always take on a definite kinespheric shape but influences the dynamic expression of the move. This might be looked upon as a ‘shadow-form,’ which connects the centralized living energy with actions in kinespheric space.”48 He goes on to characterize shadow-forms as “very small
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expressive movements of the face, hand and other parts of the body,” adding that these “almost invisible shadow-forms” can be compared to the “almost inaudible overtones in music.”49 In extending this musical analogy, Laban observes that “in music, the tone and its octave appear first and then the other nuances.”50 On the one hand, “the first things we perceive in movement are the fine nuances of the shadow-forms, and only when the emotional tone or action-mood is determined does the real trace-form become visible in the kinesphere.”51 This statement appears merely to reiterate the fact that the inner impulse to move both precedes and determines the nature of purposeful action. On the other hand, Laban claims that these very small, almost invisible shadow-forms have “a spatial architecture, which can be controlled and investigated.”52 In searching for a suitable architecture to represent effort, Laban experimented with the hypercube—a four-dimensional cube. From the mathematician’s point of view the hypercube is the four-dimensional object that results when “we move cube in a fourth dimension perpendicular to all its edges.”53 This hypothetical form has sixteen vertices, and this appears to be the feature that interested Laban. As shown in Plate R, Laban used these vertices to situate all sixteen combinations of full effort actions, that is, effort configurations composed of weight, time, space, and flow. In other words, the hypercube provided a geometrical scaffolding that could be used to represent all four dimensions of the eukinetic domain, if only hypothetically. However, this model may account for the term “shadow-form,” for if a four-dimensional object is going to be visible in three-dimensional space, it will only be visible as a shadow form. La ba n’s Vision of Dyna mic Space
Many of the models of eukinetic harmony presented in this chapter are confounding due to Laban’s proclivity for representing effort in spatial terms. Perhaps this is because The Language of Movement was written prior to the development of the effort symbols. Consequently, Laban used the direction symbols affined with the dimensions, planes, and diagonals to generate a kind of “pidgin” symbology for effort qualities and action drive combinations. Unfortunately, this use of direction symbols makes it difficult to ascertain whether a three-dimensional model is figurative or whether it is to be taken literally. The potential value of Laban’s theoretical work depends on reading the intent of the model correctly. The following points, based upon the author’s
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practical exploration of these models, may be relevant. The eighteen-link circuits in the cube appear to be figurative models representing effort sequences rather than spatial pathways. These effort patterns may be performed anywhere in the kinesphere; it is not necessary to link them to a cubic scaffolding or to particular directions in space. In fact, it is much easier to perform these phrases by letting the spatial form emerge from the effort content, rather than vice versa. In fact, these modulated phrases are eminently performable. As practical movement exercises, theyhave the potential to awaken “a feeling for appropriate transitions, rhythms and forms within movement sequences,” albeit in a highly organized manner.54 In the case of knots and twisted circles, it is difficult to discern whether Laban means for these to be figurative models of dynamospheric patterns, or literal maps of trace-forms, or perhaps a bit of both. He depicts the spatial coordinates and describes the shape of these forms with great specificity, but he does not articulate their effort content. In the case of the knot form, its odd kinespheric orientation and asymmetrical shape are not particularly pleasing to embody as a spatial sequence. However, if the knot is freed from its spatial scaffolding and performed as an effort sequence, this form comes to life, revealing many expressive and dramatic possibilities. The twisted circle, which is essentially a three-dimensional figure 8 shape, is easier to perform in relation to the signal points specified by Laban. Unlike the knot, which always loops around and around its diagonal in the same direction (clockwise or counter-clockwise), the twisted circle alternates between clockwise and counter-clockwise loops. This alternation lends plasticity to the form and makes it easy to shift its orientation in the kinesphere. Nevertheless, when transposed into an effort sequence, the twisted circle has awkward jumps in mood that make fluid transitions difficult. Embodying these forms makes it possible to hypothesize links between the effort content and spatial form of the knot and twisted circle. In the case of knots, for example, it is possible to speculate that a persistent mood from which the mover cannot escape may find spatial expression in repetitive gestures that tend to cluster in or keep returning to a single zone of the kinesphere. This might or might not be the particular zone delineated in Laban’s model. Nevertheless, the model serves to indicate potential connections that could be examined empirically. In the case of twisted circles, fluid changes in dynamics may arise spontaneously from the smooth reversal of direction that occurs when tracing
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figure 8 shapes in three-dimensional space. However, these dynamic changes may or may not be precisely the ones extrapolated from Laban’s formal models. What is being suggested here is that Laban’s models are all, to some degree, figurative approximations of natural movement behavior. Too literal an interpretation may in fact restrict the heuristic potential of the model as a vehicle for further empirical analysis of human movement. In giving form to his vision of dynamic space, Laban explored lemniscatic bands, hypercubes, and other hypothetical shapes and spaces. His work in these areas is intriguing but obscure – perhaps for good reasons. Laban was gifted with a rich visual imagination and obvious ability as an amateur geometer, but these gifts may have proved insufficient for the further exploration of topological forms and spaces. As Barr observes, “really high-bouncing topologists not only avoid anything like pictures of these things, they mistrust them. This is partly because it is not only impossible to make a visually recognizable picture of some oftheir ‘spaces,’ but meaningless.”55 While interest in higher dimensions of space began in the 19th century, Banchoff feels that “modeling techniques of 100 years ago were inadequate” for the depiction of multi-dimensional figures. “Eventually higher-dimensional geometry came to be based not only on analogy but on coordinate geometry, which could translate geometric concepts into numerical and algebraic form.”56 This mathematical language did not make it possible to “see” objects like hypercubes, but “thanks to striking developments in computer graphics, it is now possible for us to have direct visual experience of objects that exist only in higher dimensions.”57 Laban seems to have grasped intuitively the potential application of topological concepts such as networks, knots, surfaces, and multi-dimensional spaces in the study of human movement. However, his mathematical and graphic skills do not appear to have been sophisticated enough for his explorations to have yielded concrete results. It is interesting to speculate how Laban might have extended these explorations with greater mathematical expertise and access to computer graphics. While the hypercube did not prove fruitful as a way to theorize the affinities linking the four-dimensional eukinetic domain with the three-dimensional choreutic domain, Laban eventually developed a mature model of effort/space affinities. These harmonic correlations are surveyed in the last chapter.
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Notes 11. Laban, Language of Movement, 66. 12. Ibid., 94. 13. Jourdain, Music, Brain, and Ecstasy, 338. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid., 106. 16. Ibid., 108. 17. Ibid. 18. Holst, ABC of Music, 88. 19. Jourdain, Music, Brain, and Ecstasy, 107. 10. Ibid., 109. 11. Ibid. 12. Laban, Language of Movement, 55. 13. Ibid., 67. 14. Holst, ABC of Music, 87-88. 15. Jourdain, Music, Brain, and Ecstasy, 109. 16. The finished drawing shown here is taken from th e unpublished first draft of the work by Laban and Lawrence that later became Effort. A similar model is found in The Language of Movement, but the sequence is written with direction symbols rather than effort symbols. The model is discussed as a “natural sequence in the dynamosphere between contrasing effort moods.” See Language of Movement, 57-58. 17. Laban, Language of Movement, 57. 18. Ibid., 59. 19. Laban, Mastery of Movement, 124. 20. Ibid., 126. 21. Ibid., 122.
22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31.
Ibid., 17. Ibid., 124. Laban, Language of Movement, 56. Ibid, 92. Ibid. Ibid., 93. Ibid. Ibid., 92. Ibid., 96. Ibid., 97.
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32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57.
Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 94. Laban, manuscript, E/L/2/61, Laban Archive, NRCD. Laban, Language of Movement, 97. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Laban, Mastery of Movement, 17. Ibid., 19. Ibid., 20. Laban, manuscript, E/L/2/61, Laban Archive, NRCD. Ibid. Laban, Language of Movement, 100. Ibid., 98. Ibid., 100. Ibid., 58. Ibid., 66. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Banchoff, Beyond the Third Dimension, 9. Laban, Mastery of Movement, 120. Barr, Experiments in Topology, 2. Banchoff, Beyond the Third Dimension, 10. Ibid., 11.
C HAPTER 9
The Har monic Unity of For m a nd Ener gy Laban’s recognition of human movement as a psychophysical phenomenon led him to grapple with one of the most trying of problems of the ages – the relationship of body and mind. The Zen philosopher Suzuki has described this relationship as a paradoxical one, for “our body and mind are not two and not one… Our body and mind are both two and one.” 1 Laban was well aware of this paradox. The dichotomy of the physical and mental is reflected to some extent by the separation of choreutic and eukinetic elements in his movement taxonomy. As he writes, “there are two seemingly incommensurable things… the purely mechanical functions of our bodies which follow the laws of physics on the one hand, and on the other, the stream of ideas and feelings, which are intangible in themselves, and which seem to follow laws often directly contrary to those of physics.”2 Phenomenologists differentiate the physical body, which is distinguishable from without, from the lived body that is experienced and known from within. As Levin puts it, “the body must be a material, objective, physical, worldly substance, a living, animal nature that somehow is also human, ensouled, spiritual.”3 Hanna, philosophical spokesperson for the contemporary somatics movement, has framed this as a distinction between a third-person and firstperson view. The human being seen from the “third person view”is a body – “an objective entity, observable, analyzable, and measurable in the same way 4
as any other object.” Soma is the term Hanna coined to represent the alternative “first-person view” of the lived body,the human being observed from the inside through one’s “own proprioceptive senses.”5 These senses “feed back a rich display of somatic information which is immediately self-observed as a process that is both unified and ongoing.”6 From Hanna’s point of view, “body and soma are coequal in reality and value, but they are categorically distinct.” 7 Nevertheless, as Levin points out, “the so-called ‘problematic of the body’ must then refer to the question of the relationship between our animal nature and our human nature, our animal being (as a physical body) and our human being (as a spiritual being endowed with reason and speech).” 8 Welton agrees,
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noting that “the distinction between physical and lived body still leaves open the question of how they are related.” 9 For Laban, the body and mind are joined through the medium of movement. In his view, “the forms which result from this joining, are the traces and ornamental lines which we create with our bodily movement, inspired by the inner movement of our minds.”10 He goes on to explain that “an observer of a moving person is at once aware, not only of the movement, but of the mood of the lines which the body traces in the air. Thus we see that the shapes of the movements through space are more or less colored by that which we call a feeling or an idea.”11 While Laban is undoubtedly aware that the outside observer has limited access to the proprioceptive experience of the mover, he asserts nevertheless that “the content of ideas and feelings which we have when moving or seeing movement, as well as the forms and lines in space, can be analysed.”12 This assertion arises from his observations of intrinsic relationships between spatial forms and kinetic energies. This chapter explores the further reaches of Laban’stheoretical formulation of the effort/space relationships. This exploration begins with a review of the published theory of effort/space “affinities” and its limitations. Discussion then moves on to consider unpublished theoretical developments on the part of Laban, which the author has reconstructed from archival materials. The chapter closes with a critical assessment of Laban’s harmonic theory, reflecting on what he accomplished and considering potential lines for further research. Existing Theor y of Effor t/Space A ffinities Laban published two basic schemes connecting effort and space. The first scheme relates dimensional lines of motion to the motion factors of weight, time, and space. The second scheme correlates diagonal trajectories and Action
Drive combinations (see Chapter 5, p. 163, Fig. 5-7, and p. 175, Fig. 5-13). Laban writes that “I have taught that the eight basic efforts [Action Drive compounds] can be best performed by the body in the directions of the eight diagonals of the cube around the erect body. The coordination of each one of the basic efforts with a definite diagonal (see my books Effort and Modern Educational Dance) has been empirically found to be sound and is generally accepted.” 13 While Laban avers these correlations to be based on empirical evidence and defends their validity, these published models are incomplete. First, he has
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not specified any directional correlation for the motion factor of flow. Secondly, Laban has not identified effort affinities for the deflected directions, notably for the transverse and peripheral pathways of the icosahedron. Archival traces indicate that Laban was aware of these gaps in the theory of effort/space affinities and worked to remedy them. Outlines of this work appear in papers written in German, which may be presumed to date from Laban’s arrival in England in the late 1930s. Other drawings and fragmentary papers in English suggest that Laban continued to work on this problem, approaching it from a variety of angles. More finished drawings and writings are undated, but suggest that Laban settled upon a theoretical solution, possibly by the late 1940s. Unfortunately, Laban did not publish this solution as such. Before discussing Laban’s mature theorization of effort/space relationships, certain foundational ideas must be reiterated. These include the dual concepts of direction as destination or motion; the salience of the diagonals in Laban’s models, and factors that may influence the manifestation of the affinities. Destination or Motion. In order to develop an effective notation system, Laban was forced to conceptualize movement through space in two ways: as a path to a particular kinespheric destination and as motion away from a starting point that could be anywhere in the kinesphere. These dual concepts mean that there are several ways to interpret the spatial aspect of effort/space relationships. If destination is used, the spatial pathway will be conceived in relation to a specific kinespheric geography that situates the mover at the center of a scaffolding of fixed coordinate points. Effort affinities are either associated with lines in space arriving at specific destinations within this fixed scaffolding or viewed as “inhabiting” certain zones of the kinesphere. In the first instance, a floating action would be associated with a diagonal trajectory leading to the open forward high corner of the cube. In the second instance, floating actions might be associated with any movement of the right side of the body occurring in the zone of the kinesphere that is above waist level, to the right, and forward of the mover. In either case, this is a very literal reading of Laban’s concept of effort/space affinities, allowing for very few degrees of freedom. On the other hand, if the spatial pathway is conceived as motion away from a starting point that can be anywhere in the kinesphere, there is greater freedom of interpretation. From a variety of starting positions, any number of diagonal pathways that rise, open, and advancemay be found. As a consequence, the associated floating effort is no longer bound to only one spatial trajectory,
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or even to a single zone of the kinesphere. Rather, a floating quality may be conceived to accompany any oblique motion of rising, opening, and advancing. Laban’s models of effort/space affinities are always situated within fixed geometrical scaffoldings. In the oral transmission of Laban’s work, students are coached to embody the effort affinities by moving along specific lines to specific destinations. However, naturally-occurring movements are not so rigidly constructed. Consequently, observational attempts to discern relationships between spatial form and effort tend to conceive directional pathways in terms of motion, not merely in terms of destination. It is likely that Laban himself shifted between these perspectives in his attempts to model relationships on the basis of empirical evidence. Salience of the Diagonals. In Chapter 4 it was noted that the four diagonals of the cube were particularly important to Laban for several reasons. First, the ends of these lines serve as markers for zones of the kinesphere. Secondly, Laban correlated each diagonal with two contrasting action moods. Thus each diagonal delineates a kind of corridor of action. In addition, Laban writes that from the point of view of movement possibility the fundamental directions of the immediate region of the reaching space around us are the eight corners of a cube-like box in which we can imagine ourselves to be placed. Why the eight corners and not up and down, and right and left, and forwards and backwards? These six directions are geometrically very important and useful, but they have nothing to do with movement. The real harmonies of movement in space are the inclinations leading out of the rigid balance of three-dimensionality.”14 Based upon this observation, Laban developed whole families of multisided rhythmic circles and choreutic scales surrounding each of these diagonal axes. Eukinetic patterns were also theorized, based upon rhythmic oscillation between the contrasting moods that Laban associated with these lines in space. In addition, as shall be seen shortly, these invisible axes provide a conceptual anchor for Laban’s mature theory of the affinities. Factors Influencing Manifestation of Affinities. While Laban avers that there will always be “a connection between outer movement and the mover’s inner attitude,”15 he recognizes that there are several factors that influence the nature of these connections. For example, Laban notes that the correlation of qualities of weight, time, and space with simple dimensional movements is most obvious in “freely-flowing movement” rather than more restrained
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actions.16 The use of bound flow introduces greater control of motion, and Laban acknowledges that “different correlations arise” between effort and spatial form in these instances.17 Laban also flags complexity and the aim of a given sequence of actions as affecting the manifestation of affinities. He admits, that “simple movements of any outer inclination can have almost any effort content. This freedom changes radically in a series or combination of movements of a purely expressive character, where particular inner inclinations are connected [more easily] with certain inclinations than with others.”18 Finally, Laban recognizes individuality as integral element of movement harmony. Certain types of movements will suit one person more than another; “some will prefer narrow and restrained movements, others may like to move freely in space, and so forth.”19 In fact, later empirical studies of expressive movement patterns have revealed significant individual differences in correlations of effort and space when these are compared to Laban’s models.20 These differences do not invalidate the model; they merely indicate that the correlations Laban identified are subject to many factors that affect whether or not these relationships hold in a particular movement event. Steps in t he E mer gent Th eor etical P r ocess In writing about kinetic harmony, Laban flags the term “inclination” as a key to his thinking about effort/space relationships:
The word “inclination” is used in the study and practice of movement in both meanings given to it in everyday language. Not only is there an inner inclination to colour stillness and stir in various combinations and grades of [effort] intensity, but external movement is always characterised by changes of direction which are inclined in definite angles to one another in space.21 This statement provides insight into the progression of Laban’s thinking about movement harmony. His initial explorations revealed that “angular distance in body articulation corresponds with angles in movement shapes.” 22 Laban pursued this observation, studying “thousands of movement circuits” in order to distill these “into some typical circuits with definite angular distances between their lines.”23 (These “typical circuits” include the rings and scales that Laban identified as harmonic intervals of the standard scale.) In addition, he theorized kinetic energy as consisting of four motion factors, each of which
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may be seen to vary between two contrasting “fighting” versus “indulging” qualities. Laban was able to draw simple correlations between dimensional and diagonal lines in space and the motion factors, effort qualities, and effort combinations. Looking for more complex correlations between the effortful “inclinations” that color movement and the typical spatial circuits that he had identified proved to be the next logical extension of harmonic theory. From Line to Angle. Laban appears to have examined the type of effort variation that accompanies spatial inclinations, defined as “the angle between two directions.” 24 His aim was to correlate effort rhythms with the spatial rhythms of directional change. Laban experimented with various models, but eventually settled on a set of four prototypic inclinations: a “steeple” measured at 30 degrees, a “volute” measured at 60 degrees, a right angle measured at 90 degrees, and a “blunt angle” measured at 120 degrees. He correlated these with motion factors as follows: Steeple inclinations with variations in flow Volute inclinations with variations in time Right angle inclinations with variations in space Blunt inclinations with variations in weight. 25 In order to fill in the gaps in the theory of affinities, all these inclinations were conceived as relating to the transverse or peripheral lines of the icosahedron. 26 Moreover, in an earlier document in German, Laban related these angular inclinations to trace-forms that can be derived from the standard scale. In this scheme the steeple inclinations are related to the axis scale, the volute inclinations to the polar and transverse three-rings, the right angle inclinations to the tilted planes, and the blunt inclinations to the equator.27 Prototypic Sh apes. The concept of angular inclination introduces the idea of effort being associated not merely with single linear trajectories but with line complexes; that is, with shapes. And, indeed, Laban appears to have shifted from the study of effort and space to the study of effort and shape. He writes, “it is for us easier to speak about space, time, weight, and flow separately and to forget that all these movement factors have definite fundamental shapes.”28 Laban toyed with various terms for these flow, time, space, and weight shapes so as to capture both the Gestalt of the trace-form as well as its orientation in the kinesphere. For example, he describes the flow shape as moving “through the Centre;” it has a “penetrating” character. The time shape moves “around the Centre,” it has a “constricting” or “circumventing” character.29 The space shape extends “across or away from theCentre;” it has an “irradiating” character.
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The weight shape is tied “into the Centre;” it has an “enclosing” character. 30 Additional information about kinespheric orientation isprovided by Laban’s observation that “one will find that there exist four Flow, four Time, four Weight, and four Space shapes; these four are always identical in structure but displaced in the fundamental diagonal directions.”31 In other words, these characteristic shapes are organized in families around each of the cubic diagonals, which serve as their axes. The Mat ur e Theory of Effo r t/Shape A ffinities Archival traces scattered across categorical headings of the Rudolf Laban Archive suggested that Laban was pulling together various theoretical strands, but only a vague outline of this theoretical consolidation could be discerned. Eventually, documents that spelled out the connections of effort and shape in detail were found. This discovery allowed the full set of correlations that Laban developed to be mapped clearly, using 24 of the peripheral edges and 24 of the transversals of the icosahedron. Each shape identified as relating to a motion factor is composed of six transversals and six peripheral lines. All the inclinations that he chose to use are off-vertical. In keeping with his view that movement inclines in space, Laban avoids using any of the edges of cardinal planes. The correlations cited and illustrated below are those worked out by Laban around the diagonal axis.32 These correlations are also represented by the set of carefully finished drawings, shown in Plates S – V, in which Laban has depicted each icosahedral shape within a larger dodecahedron.
Figure 9-1. FLOW shape: “penetrating.”
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Th e Flow Shape . The flow shape, shown in Figure 9-1 and Plate S, uses the six transversals that make up the axis scale around the diagonal axis. In addition, Laban specifies six edges of the icosahedron as belonging to this configuration. Each of these peripherals spins off from one corner of the polar triangles that surround the diagonal. These peripheral lines incline in a direction roughly parallel to one of the transverse links of the axis scale. Laban describes this form as “a tube-like shape provoking the action mode of penetrating which characterises Flow.”33 He later used the terms “arrow” and “pin” to refer to this shape. Th e Time Shape. This shape is composed of the two polar triangles that surround the ends of the diagonal axis and the two transverse three rings that gird the middle of this diagonal. The polar triangles contribute the six peripheral lines, while the transverse three-rings contribute the six transversals. Laban notes that these four rings form “plane-like shapes around their axis with a circumventing action mode, and a division which characterizes Time.” 34 He later used the term “screw” to refer to this shape, shown in Figure 2-9 and Plate T.
Figure 9-2.TIME shape: “circumventing.”
The Space Shape. The shape associated with space effort is composed of a set of three interlocking tilted planes. The short edges of each plane are peripheral edges of the icoashedron, while the long edges are transverse rays. Laban describes these forms as tending or irradiating “away from their axis…. This gives them an action mode of spreading which characterizes Space.”35 He
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later used the term “wall” to refer to this configuration, shown in Figure 9-3 and Plate U.
Figure 9-3. SPACE shape: “irradiating.”
The Weight Shape. The weight shape is composed of the six peripheral edges of the icosahedron corresponding to the equator around this diagonal axis. In addition, Laban associated six transversals with weight. These transversals all intersect the diagonal axis. Three of these transversals intersect near the upper end of the axis, while the other three form a nexus nearer the lower end. Laban describes these intersections as creating a “double funnellike shape” that “gives a concentrating action mode and characterizes Weight.”36 He later used the term “ball” to refer to this shape, shown in Figure 9-4 and Plate V.
Figure 9-4. WEIGHT shape: “enclosing.”
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Misinterpretation of Shape. As noted earlier, Laban did not publish his mature theory of effort/shape affinities as such. However, he did refer to his work on shape in The Mastery of Movement. In this publication he uses the term “ball” for the enclosing weight shape, “pin” for the penetrating flow shape, “screw” for the circumventing time shape, and “wall” for the irradiating space shape. He introduces these terms in relation to “body carriage.” 37 While this association retains the sense of shape as a configuration of lines in space, it has led over time to acceptance of these terms as ways to describe “still shapes.”38 Laban’s own presentation of these concepts is responsible, at least in part, for their misinterpretation. Perhaps he felt the need to simplify his conceptual work in order to meet the needs of his practical work with actors and primary school educators. On the other hand, Warren Lamb, who studied with Laban in the late 1940s, recalls Laban’s own oral transmission of these shapes as follows: “He [Laban] referred to the kinesphere and shaping within it as ball, pin, wall, screw. Always, to me, it looked like movement he was doing when he demonstrated these terms. He was not playing statues.” 39 Nevertheless, Laban’s own simplification of these concepts effectively obscured the advanced theoretical work in which he was engaged.
A Shift in P er spective Laban’s advanced work on effort/shape harmonies represents a shift in perspective in several significant ways. Earlier models, it will be recalled, are based upon simple one-to-one associations of effort qualities with linear trajectories. The visible line of motion can be identified and related, hypothetically at least, to its effort affinity. The mature model shifts the association of motion factors to complex configurations of lines around a diagonal axis. Dynamic energies are no longer correlated with only one motion
but many motions, no longer married to a single spatial direction but tied to many directions radiating sequentially from an invisible hub. Identification of the harmonic correlations of effort and shape in this scheme is much more demanding, and various issues would have to be resolved before the model could undergo further concrete empirical examination. On the other hand, this model is more representative of the complexity of movement, which seldom follows a single line in space. As Bodmer explains, harmonic movement is much more intricate. While the central movements of the trunk establish the “body stance,” stressing either
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dimensional, diagonal or transversal direction, the outer peripheral movements of the extremities are more complex. Through the body stance, the central structure is strengthened and reinforced, and this enables us to counter-balance the peripheral movements. The whole action of the body is thus a three-dimensional network of poised, reciprocal, and balanced movements.40 Laban’s mature model of effort/shape affinities shifts perspective in anothe r way. In the earlier dimensional and diagonal models, Laban associated each polar effort quality with a particular direction in space, so that, for example, decreasing pressure was conceived to accompany upward movement, while the contrasting quality of increasing pressure was linked to downward movement. In the mature models, Laban does not appear to have associated the fighting and indulging qualities in the same way. Nevertheless, there is fragmentary evidence that Laban was exploring a more general scheme of association, in which it is theshift in direction, rather than the particular direction itself, that quality marks aofchange in dynamic quality. the fighting or indulging flow would be expected to For varyexample, in conjunction with the rhythmic shift in angular direction between adjacent links of the penetrating shape.41 In general, Laban’s mature theoretical explorations evidence a move from simple to more complex formulations. His speculations become increasingly abstract. At the same time, the models he is developing continue to reveal a rigorous consistency. There is a beautiful coherence, for example, in his correlations of effort elements with the shapes associated with the harmonic intervals of the standard scales. Moreover, archival materials indicate three lines of advanced exploration. While none of these may be considered as definitive or conclusive, each line of inquiry is of sufficient interest to merit discussion. Each elaboration is surveyed briefly below. Correlating Effort States with Deflected Directions. Laban extended his model of affinities to develop line complexes relating to each of the six effort states. Each model is a twelve-link ring, with half of the links derived from lines associated with one motion factor, and the other six links derived from lines associated with the second motion factor composing the effort state.42 All the forms are Hamiltonian circuits that touch all twelve corners of the icosahedron only once, returning to the point of srcin. The effort correlations of these forms are somewhat surprising. For example the remote state combines
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the motion factors of space and time. Its twelve-ring is composed of the six peripheral edges of the tilted planes (space shape) and the six peripheral lines extending from the axis scale (flow shape), asshown in Figure 9-5. The resulting twelve-link peripheral ring is, in fact, the standard scale around the diagonal . Laban appears to be associating the nature of this trace-form (which meanders circuitously around the edges of the kinesphere, always maintaining its distance from center) with a pensive mood of fluid variations in focus.
Figure 9-5. Effort relationships — standard scale. Another surprising correlation is found in the stable state ring. This circuit is composed of six transversals drawn from the space shape (the long edges of the tilted planes) and six transversals drawn from the weight shape (the rays that intersect the diagonal axis), as shown in Figure 9-6. When these lines are linked, the left B scale results. Again, this suggests that Laban associated a stable mood of focused determination with the swooping pathways of this transverse scale.
Figure 9-6. Effort relationship — left B scale. The other four states (mobile, dream, near, and awake) are mixed rings. Six links are still drawn from each of the two shapes associated with their component motion factors. However, these shapes mix transverse andperipheral lines. Some of the resulting patterns are symmetrical; others are not. Perhaps these patterns were “works-in-progress.” Laban writes that, aside from “SpaceFlow-Remoteness,” which is associated with the standard scales, and “SpaceWeight-Stableness,” which is correlated with the transverse A and B scales, the shapes of the other states are “not closed scales but open meanders,” which Laban sees as “semi-harmonious.”43 While all these patterns demonstrate his skill in constructing Hamiltonian circuits, they should be viewed as theoretical excursions, for Laban does not appear to have finalized these models.
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M otion Factors as M ulti-Dimen sion al Ph en om en a. In addition to associating the four motion factors with line complexes, Laban also experimented with other types of geometrical correlations. He outlines these associations in an unpublished manuscript dealing with the “tectonic implications” of the four effort factors. In yet another attempt to find a way to express the unity of energy and form, Laban writes that, “in any movement, the body (or one or several parts of it) draws, or follows, or creates an architectural or tectonic form of visible configurations in the air. Movement along each of the four basic configurations shows a definite character of expression.”44 For example, Laban discusses time as a struggle between past and future that manifests as changes of pace affined to a line. The struggling elements in space effort, however, are not “quickness and slowness, but a shortest possible way and a circumferential way.” 45 While this could be expressed by a straight line versus a roundabout line, Laban insists that “our feeling of space has nothing to do with lines but with surfaces.” 46 For this reason, he chooses a band or twisted band as the tectonic form related, respectively, to directing and indirecting. In the case of weight effort, he offers the following analogy: “Like a table or photographic tripod that must have at least three legs to stand upon in order to support a weight, so any movement needs also three main directions in which its weight can develop.” 47 Laban envisions this three-dimensional tectonic form as “something like the corner of a body” in which “three directions cross each other.” 48 It should be clear by now that Laban is building up a model of dimensional complexity in relation tomotion factors. As he writes, time“could be symbolized by two points building one line with a two-way traffic”; space, “by two lines building one surface with inside and outside traffic”; weight, “by three surfaces building one funnel with entering and outgoing traffic.” 49 The tectonic shape
for flow, then, must be four-dimensional. This dimensional progression is depicted in Figure 9-7. At this point in the manuscript, even Laban’s literary powers fail him and it becomes extremely difficult to visualize the flow shape as “two funnel-like features” that open in “contrasting directions” while “having one surface in common.”50 However, this could be his attempt to describe a Klein bottle, “an object that has a flexible neck that wraps back into itself to form a shape with no inside or outside.”51 Laban was familiar with this shape, for he attempted a depiction in Figure 9-7. In any case, he claims that the “flow shape contains all
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elements: linear axes where time variations occur, surfaces where space variations occur, and single funnels where weight variations occur.” 52 Curiously, Laban’s abstract speculations seem to have a kernel of truth. The effort factor of flow has been found to predominate in the movements of infants. Through painstaking movement analysis, Kestenberg and her associates have identified a discrete number of patterns of flow fluctuation. 53 Moreover, their longitudinal studies of movement development have revealed that, as children gain mastery of bodily actions, “Weight, Time, and Space appeared, and Flow diminished.”54 These studies support Laban’s intuition that flow is the basic motion factor from which all other effort elements emerge.
Figure 9-7. Laban’s sketches of multi-dimensional forms. Rudolf Laban Archive L/E/14/34 ©NRCD.
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From Angle to Surface. While Laban’s “tectonic” correlations should be viewed as speculative, they indicate his efforts to develop more complex models. Another example of this shift is evidenced by Laban’s interest in surface. His earlier concepts centered on skeletal three-dimensional models in which movement was primarily conceived as lines traced in space. He then went on to consider the intersection of these lines, elaborating a theory of effort/shape affinity based upon angular relationships. Planar surfaces can be conceived to lie within the angle of two intersecting lines. These surfaces begin to build more complex three-dimensional solids. And indeed, there is graphic evidence that Laban experimented with conceiving movement lines andangles as building three-dimensional forms of certain shapes. For example, in Figure 9-8, Laban has combined lines from the space and weight shapes to generate intersecting planes, creating an unusual three-dimensional form.
Figure 9-8. Weight/space shape. Rudolf Laban Archive L/E/18/62 ©NRCD.
While few of these examples of Laban’s theoretical excursions appear conclusive, they represent ways in which he continued to work to grow his theories of human movement. These are flights of fancy in many instances. Nevertheless these traces indicate that Laban was looking for conceptual tools that would allow him to theorize movement in increasingly complex ways. The general trend of his inquiry was away from the atomism of his early work, which had given rise to his analytical taxonomies, toward more complex and wholistic models. As Bartenieff summarizes,
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All of Rudolf Laban’s life – whether asa dancer/choreographer, teacher/ theoretician, or philosopher/humanist – was an intensive, constant involvement with all facets of movement. It was an unending process of defining inner and outer manifestations of movement phenomena in increasingly subtle shades and complex interrelationships. Thus, we see him working with constellations of qualities rather than with isolated facts or single aspects: the attempt was always to get at the core of the movement process, behavior, and expressiveness.55 Reconsider ing the Theory of Mov ement Ha r mony In his attempts to get at the core of bodily action and expression, Laban recognized that the outer manifestation of movement in the kinesphere is categorically different from the inner flow of thought and feeling in the dynamosphere. On the other hand, he was convinced that these distinctions were dissolved in the actual process of moving. Based upon this insight, he employed “harmony” as an analogic metaphor to theorize how the mental,
emotional, and physical seamlessly fuse in human movement. In earlier chapters it has been argued that Laban employed a naturalistic research methodology, studying movement in a variety of contexts over his long career as an artist-researcher. Through systematic analysis of this observational data, Laban was able to identify “significantclasses” of movement elements and the “ properties which characterize them.”56 These discoveries allowed him to develop a movement taxonomy and to generate notational symbols and rules of syntax for representing movement in terms of these elemental classes. However, development of a system of analytic description was only part of Laban’s research enterprise, for he was also searching for key linkages between classes of elements. Harmony became Laban’s guiding metaphor, the “grounded key” for theorizing movement as a unified field of human experience.57 Auerbach and Silverstein propose that the credibility of a grounded theory should be evaluated on the basis of its “transparency, communicability, and coherence.” 58 When steps in the research process are well-documented so as to demonstrate a logical link between data collection, analysis, and interpretation, a theory is said to be transparent. When interpretive themes and theoretical constructs are readily understood by others in a given discipline, a theory is considered to be communicable. And when theoretical constructs fit together so as to provide a plausible explanation of the phenomenon under examination,
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a theory is said to be coherent. The credibility of Laban’s harmonic theory may be considered in relation to these elements. Coherence is the strongest attribute of Laban’s theory of movement harmony. By employing harmony as an analogic metaphor, Laban identifies structural congruities between the harmonic components of music and those of dance. His analogic modeling incorporates elements such as tone, interval, scale, transposition, modulation, phrasing, and harmonic relationship. Consistent principles of development can be detected in how Laban theorized the movement equivalents of these elements. For example, the prototypic spatial sequences that Laban identified as scales meet his internal criteria for harmonic forms: ratio and proportion, balance, symmetry, unity of form, relationship of elements, and individuality. Choreutic scales are based upon congruent ratios between angles of bodily motion and the angular scaffoldings that Laban used to map movement space. Circuits traverse the space around the body in ordered sequences that are balanced and achieve a unity of form due to the multiple symmetries Laban has embedded in them. Kinship among forms can be discerned, based upon similarity of shape, shared orientation around a diagonal axis, or topological homeomorphism. Conventions of embodiment, preserved in the oral transmission of choreutic forms, specify consistent whole body participation led by one side of the body. Laban’s written guidelines seldom delineate how these forms are to be embodied; instead he advocates individual interpretation. Moving on to the eukinetic domain, kinship of effort moods is used to model modulated shifts between contrasting configurations. Laban has developed these phrasings through symmetry operations, ensuring a balanced range of dynamospheric expression. Processes of transposition permit patterns modeled on one geometric form to be transferred to another. This allows for the controlled comparison of patterns both within and across domains. Due to proportional relationships among the Platonic solids which Laban uses for modeling movement sequences, octahedral trace-forms can be transposed to the cube or icosahedron. Similarly, dynamospheric patterns mapped on the cube can be projected onto the icosahedral model of the kinesphere, and kinespheric forms can be transposed onto the cube. This controlled modeling helps Laban theorize the mutual influence of inner motivation and outer action, giving rise to a mature theory of harmonic relationships between form and energy. Unfortunately, the dense coherence of Laban’s harmonic theory, along with
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its complex geometric representation, negatively impacts communicability. His harmonic ideas have primarily been conveyed through the oral tradition of studio practices. This has provided a way to transmit this work as a vocabulary of movement. However, it has not necessarily been a sufficient means for conveying the more abstract formulations underlying this vocabulary. While Laban refers to the harmonic structure of movement in many publications, his major treatise, Choreutics (also known by the title,The Language of Movement), was published posthumously. Other advanced theoretical work remains unpublished. These factors have also impeded communicability of his harmonic formulations, for this work simply has not been available for wider public or scholarly review. Finally, Laban averred that his harmonic theory was based upon empirical evidence. However, he does not present these data systematically in any of his published works. He does not document his analytical processes or articulate how he identified themes and links between emergent conceptual categories. As a consequence, it is difficult to substantiate the transparency of his theory. Judging the credibility of Laban’s theory of movement harmony by these criteria is not entirely fair, of course, for Laban was not trained in research methodology. Moreover, protocols for conducting naturalistic research and constructing grounded theory were not developed until after his death. Had Laban been familiar with these protocols, he might have made his research process more transparent. Had he been able to publish more in his lifetime and benefit from peer review and discussion, he might have been able to surmount some of the difficulties of explaining his ideas. Nevertheless, these technical problems and accidents of fate should not overshadow Laban’s considerable theoretical accomplishment. In my reconstruction of Laban’s work, I have endeavored to redress issues of transparency and communicability in the following ways. Links between Laban’s first career as a visual artist and his subsequent work as a movement theorist demonstrate how he applied his visual skills and imagination in the study of movement. Discussion of themovement taxonomy he developed aimed not merely to present these movement elements but also to illuminate the underlying logic of the system. Discussion of the theory of movement harmony drew upon close study of published and unpublished materials. My aim is to present the theory of movement harmony clearly, as a plausible preliminary explanation of the means through which the various elements of human movement cohere in meaningful action.
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Futu r e Hor izons Communicating Laban’s theory is only a first step. My real aim is to arouse curiosity about these ideas; and beyond that, to encourage additional inquiry. While Laban’s accomplishments are surely substantial, many constructs must still be viewed as hypothetical. Thus there remain many avenues to be explored. Serious reconsideration of Laban’s ideas needs to take into account their historical, cultural, and philosophical bases. At the moment, Laban is still of most interest to dance scholars. But there is a tendency for dance historians to situate Laban as a historical figure in dance within the Expressionist/ modern dance movement in central Europe between the two World Wars. This is too narrow a frame of consideration. While Laban’s career in dance is bracketed chronologically, his career as a movement theorist is not. Failure to consider his initial career as a visual artist and his culminating movement studies in industry, theatre, education, and psychotherapy can lead to a misapprehension of the breadth of his work. An additional difficulty with assessing Laban’s work arises from its subsequent subdivision into various specialties. In the United States, for example, Labanotation and Laban Movement Analysis are seen as separate areas of study. A variety of different organizations exist to provide training and to support the development and application of these two seemingly discrete disciplines. While the notation and movement analysis communities overlap to some degree, avenues for shared discourse and systematic cross-fertilization of ideas are only beginning to be developed. Moreover, credentialing as a notator or analyst has evolved as the purview of various independent training organizations. Relegation of Laban’s work to a specialist credential has worked against wider integration of his theory in movement disciplines. This is particularly unfortunate, since the analytic and wholistic aspects of
Laban’s theories provide terminologies and concepts for the multi-lateral description of movement as a dense and coherent form of human expression. There is, in Laban’s work, the foundation for a general theory of human movement that could be of value to the many disciplines that are obliged to deal with this elusive phenomenon. While Laban claimed that his theoretical formulations were based on empirical data, this cannot be fully substantiated. Consequently, there is a need to test Laban’s hypothetical formulations against fresh sets of natural data, with the aim of verifying or amending the explanatory scheme. Video recording, motion capture, and computer graphics provide some new technologies for
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examining movement that were not available to Laban. His grounded theory processing of rich experiential data has generated many hypotheses that invite further examination. Here are several questions that may be immediately pursued. Do deflected directions predominate in human movement? Are sequences or constellations of movements organized around diagonal axes? Are choreographed and improvised dances composed of fragments of the prototypic alphabet of spatial forms identified by Laban? Is the law of proximity manifested in natural effort sequences? Do knotted moods exist? If so, what is their spatial form? Are there organic affinities between motion factors and prototypic spatial forms? Can these be observed in complex movements that manifest around diagonal trajectories? How would the concept of movement as surface alter perception of spatial form? How might Laban’s topological explorations of movement form be extended? Of course, these questions enumerate only a few of the ways in which Laban’s pioneering work might be carried forward. The disciplines of dance and movement study have come a long way since 1913, when a little-known Hungarian painter set his heart on “the most despised profession in the world.” Nevertheless, there is still much to be done. Movement penetrates every human endeavor; yet this omnipresent element of experience continues to be takenfor-granted. In daily life we move our bodies in fits and starts, sporadically responding to passing needs and whims. If there is any pattern or meaning to this nonverbal stuttering, it eludes us. Even dance, though more redundantly patterned than everyday movement, continues to be regarded as an insubstantial art—one condemned by its transitory nature to remain intrinsically insignificant. But what if this were not the case? What if human movement were a highly patterned phenomenon, despite its ephemeral appearance? What if dance, like its sister art, music, were to reveal an underlying, complex harmonic structure based upon number and mathematical ratio? What if these kinetic harmonies could be recorded, analyzed, and enhanced through conscious physical performance? These are the kinds of “what if’s” that drove the theoretical explorations of Rudolf Laban and led him to dream that movement has an order and a meaningful coherence. If his assertion that movement has a harmonic structure analogous to music seems to be merely a poetic fiction or the stuff of dreams, it is worth remembering that “we need a dream world in order to discover the features of the real world we think we inhabit.”59 For as Bronowski points out,
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“every theory is an imaginative extension of our experience into realms which we have not experienced.” 60 It takes imagination to posit human movement as a patterned unity of space, time and energy governed by harmonic laws. By framing movement in this way, Laban has provided ways of thinking about a very elusive yet significant phenomenon. The complexity of the task he so assiduously wrestled with remains a challenge. His insightful hypotheses, taken seriously as grounded observations, have the potential to deepen our understanding of movement as an omnipresent and unifying dimension of human experience. This is no small matter. For, as we come to understand more about the psychophysical phenomenon of movement, we can come to a deeper comprehension of the real world, which is “mobility itself.”61 With this recognition, “reality no longer appears then in the static state, in its manner of being; it affirms itself dynamically, in the continuity and variability of its tendency. What was immobile and frozen in our perception is warmed and set in motion. Everything comes to life around us, everything is revivified in us.” 62
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Notes 11. Suzuki, Zen Mind, 25. 12. Laban, manuscript, E(L)/3/3, Laban Archive, NRCD. 13. Levin, “Ontological Dimensions of Embodiment,” 126. 14. Hanna, “What Is Somatics?” 342. 15. Ibid., 341. 16. Ibid., 342. 17. Ibid., 343. 18. Levin, “Ontological Dimensions,” 126. 19. Welton, “Introduction,” 4. 10. Laban, manuscript, E(L)/3/3, Laban Archive, NRCD. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid. 13. Laban, manuscript, E(L)/38/6, Laban Archive, NRCD. 14. Laban, manuscript, E(L)/4/75, Laban Archive, NRCD. 15. Laban, Language of Movement, 27.
16. 17. 18. 19. 20.
Ibid., 31. Ibid. Laban, manuscript, E(L)18/5, Laban Archive, NRCD. Laban, Language of Movement, 111. For instance, Warren Lamb has condu cted thousands of interviews with senior managers, studying effort/space relationships in their expressive nonverbal behaviors. His studies show individually distinct patterns of consonant and dissonant pairings. These differences are believed to influence interaction style. See, Moore, Movement and Making Decisions, 86-90. 21. Laban, manuscript, E(L)/18/3, Laban Archive, NRCD. 22. Laban, manuscript, E(L)/18/7, Laban Archive, NRCD. 23. Ibid. 24. Laban, manuscript, E(L)/18/3, Laban Archive, NRCD. 25. Laban, manuscript, E(L)/15/64, Laban Archive, NRCD. 26. Laban, manuscript, E(L)/38/6, Laban Archive, NRCD. 27. Laban, manuscript, E(L)/15/70, Laban Archive, NRCD. 28. Laban, manuscript, E(L)/18/7, Laban Archive, NRCD. 29. Laban, manuscript, E(L)/4/46, Laban Archive, NRCD. 30. Laban, manuscript, E(L)/18/7, Laban Archive, NRCD.
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31. Laban, manuscript, E(L)/38/6, Laban Archive, NRCD. 32. Laban worked out a numerical code for corners of the icosahedron and used this to denote a standard scale and its various harmonic intervals as he correlated these with motion factors. The following unpublished manuscripts were relevant to deciphering this way of representing effort/ shape affinities: E(L)/17/52, E(L)/17/44, E(L)/17/45, E(L)/17/46, E(L)/4/ 46, and E(L)/4/47, Laban Archive, NRCD. 33. Laban, manuscript, E(L)/4/47, Laban Archive, NRCD. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid. 36. Ibid. 37. Laban, Mastery of Movement, 69-70. 38. Hackney, Making Connections, 221. 39. Lamb, “Framework for Laban’s Concepts,” 19. 40. Bodmer, “Harmonics in Space,” 27-28. 41. Laban, manuscripts, E(L)/4/46; E(L)/4/47, Laban Archive, NRCD. 42. Laban, manuscript, E(L)/7/52, Laban Archive, NRCD. 43. Laban, manuscript, E(L)/17/44, Laban Archive, NRCD. 44. Laban, manuscript, E(L)/5/67, Laban Archive, NRCD. 45. Ibid. 46. Ibid. 47. Ibid. 48. Ibid. 49. Ibid. 50. Ibid. 51. Pickover, Möbius Strip, 82. This “impossible” shape was described by the German mathematician Felix Klein in 1882. 52. Laban, manuscript, E(L)/5/67, Laban Archive, NRCD. 53. Kestenb erg, Children and Parents; Kestenberg and Sossin, Movement Patterns. 54. Moore, Movement and Making Decisions, 40. 55. Bartenieff, “Space, Effort, and Brain,” 37. 56. Schatzman and Strauss, Field Research, 110. 57. Ibid., 111. 58. Auerbach and Silverstein, Qualitative Data, 84. 59. Feyerabend, Against Method, 22.
Role of
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60. Bronowski, Visionary Eye, 29. 61. Bergson, Creative Mind, 150. 62. Ibid., 157.
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Index
Action Drive, 162, 163, 165, 166, 168, 169 diagonal affinities, 172, 173-175, 179, 265 kinship of action moods, 176-178, 265 modulations of, 266-269 affinities, effort-space, 150, 171-172, 184n67, 206-207, 209, 284 angular correlations, 291-292 factors influencing, 174-175, 289-
Art Nouveau (continued) sources and stylistic features, 9293, 107n106, 107n112 ideological influence on Laban, 96-101. See also empathy Art of Movement Studio, 27, 28, 38 Art theory, 3 axial-skeletal technique, 70 foreshortening in figure drawing, 66, 67, 70, 87
291 gap in theory, 174-176, 288-289 linear correlations dimensions, 172-173, 179 diagonals, 172, 173-175, 179 mature theory of, 214, 290, 292297 other experimental models, 282, 297-302 analogic metaphor, 5, 6, 188-189, 214, 263, 302 Appia, Adolphe, 19 architecture
See also empathy; proportion asymmetry, 50, 247, 248, 276 awake state, 159, 165, 168, 272
of human body, 115-116, 126 symmetry in, 201-202 relation to dance, 202-204 Arp, Hans, 20 art academies, European, 14, 15, 61, 69, 70, 102n28 Art Nouveau, 2, 14, 15, 16, 62-63 ideology, 90-91 commitment to modernity, 91-92, 96
Bergson, Henri, 138, 187 critique of photography, and cinematography, 81-84 influence on choreutic theory and notation, 84-85 intellect versus intuition, 83-84 privileged moments of movement, 88-90 Bereska, Dussia, 23 Bing, Siegfried, 15 body/mind relationship, 287-288
balance, 122-123, 190, 195 as oscillation between opposites, 196-197, 268, 273 chordic tension, 123, 205 countertension, 51, 86, 123, 205 relation to gravity, 203, 204-205 relation to symmetry, 197, 198, 201 Ball, Hugo, 20, 104n63
322 Bragaglia, Anton Giulio, 79-81, 90, 105n86 cardinal dimensions/directions, 113116, 120, 122, 129 central lines of motion, 124 effort affinities, 172-173 dimensional (defense) scale, 222-223 relation to stability, 115-116, 128, 130-131 cardinal planes, 116-117, 120, 126, 205, 230, 235, 241, 260n29 Carpenter, William, 29, 35n84 Champernowne, Irene and Gilbert, 28 chord. See harmony, musical terms Choreographic Institute, 24, 37-38 Choreographie , 34n61, 37, 219, 221, 225, 226, 231 Choreutics, defined, 142n5 taxonomy of, 140-141, 181 Choreutics , 35n73, 84, 106n87, 219, 220, 225, 231, 259n1 choreutic forms oral tradition, 221-222, 223, 256257 rings, 133 four-rings (see cardinal planes; tilted planes) three-rings, peripheral (polar triangles), 229, 236, 241, 242, 292, 294 three-rings, tranverse, 229, 241, 242, 292, 294 mixed seven-rings, 244-248 unpublished designs, 220 scales, movement, 219-220 A scale, 223-226, 241, 242
choreutic forms continued axis (cluster) scale, 226-228, 233-234, 240, 242, 244-247 292, 294 B scale, 224-226, 241, 242 diagonal scale, 223 dimensional (defense) scale, 222-223 equator (girdle) scale, 226-228, 234, 236, 240, 242, 244-247 292, 295 standard scale (primary), 231242 Church, Esme, 28 congruence, 197-198, 250, 252 cube, 112, 113, 130, 210-213, 217n79, 218n84, 226, 277, 279 Action Drive affinities, 175, 265 “law of proximity,” 176-178 models of dynamosphere, 166-169, 210, 271 models of kinesphere, 117-118, 120 modulation, 266-271 diagonals, cubic, 117-118, 120, 122 axes of prototypic forms, 134-135, 225-226, 274-280, 290, 293 central lines of movement, 124 effort affinities, 173-175 relation to mobility, 117-118, 128, 131, 140 relation to planar diameters, 130 relation to zones of kinesphere, 135 diameters, planar, 122, 127, 242 axes of icosahedron, 117 central lines of motion, 124 relation to cardinal dimensions/ diagonals, 129-130, 233
323 dodecahedron, 46, 112, 194, 209, 210, 211, 212, 217n77-78, 218n84 dream state, 159, 165, 168, 272 Duchamp, Marcel, 79 Dürer, Albrecht, 64, 67, 68, 69, 86, 87, 141, 194 dynamosphere, 159, 179 defined, 155 models of, 166-169, 176, 184n54, 207-210, 217n75, 280-282 relation to kinesphere, 155, 171, 181, 187 (see also affinities) Eakins, Thomas A. , 76, 80 Effort , 28 effort, 147. See also Eukinetics; eukinetic forms affinities (see affinities, effortspace) combinational analysis, 158-159, 179 complete efforts, 158, 169, 179, 282 drives, 158, 159, 161-169, 179 states, 158-161, 179 defined, 147, 151, 161, 183n46 development of theory, 147-150, 184n48 exertion/recuperation, 159, 165, 169-171, 179, 181 “law of proximity,” 176-178, 185n73, 205, 265, 270, 271-273 modulation, 263-271 motion factors, 150-153 fighting/indulging attitudes/ qualities, 151-155, 156, 170, 178, 269-271 phrasing, 178, 263, 271-273 psychological correlations, 155158, 162-166, 179
effort continued relationship of states and drives, 165-169, 271-273 Elmhirst, Dorothy and Leonard, 26, 27, 34n72, 35n73, 38 empathy, theory of, 93-96, 203-204, 206 relation to abstract art, 98- 99 influence on Laban theory, 98-101 Endell, August, 94-96, 98, 100, 101, 203 Eukinetics, 4, 181. See also under movement taxonomy relation to effort, 147-150 eukinetic forms. See also hypercube; lemniscates eighteen-rings, 266-271, 273, 278, 279, 283 knots (nine-rings), 263, 273-278, 279, 283 shadow-forms, 281-282 twisted circles (six-rings), 263, 273, 278-280, 283-284 Euler circuits, 235, 259n2, 266 Fricke, Martha, 14, 16 Fuchs, Georg, 17 Fuller, Buckminster, 52, 60n33 Fuller, Loie, 15, 31n22 functions of consciousness, Jungian, 150 correlations with motion factors, 156-157, 179 Golden Section, 88, 106n100, 193, 210, 213 grounded theory, 40-41, 59n24 evaluating movement harmony as, 302-304 hypotheses arising from, 306-307
324 Guimard, Hector, 15 Gymnastik und Tanz, 34n61, 37 Hamiltonian circuits, 46, 51, 235, 236, 259n2, 260n28, 266, 297 harmony, movement, 1, 5-6, 26, 57, 100-101, 148, 149, 150, 188-190 elements, 255-258 balance, 195-197 individuality, 207 interrelationships, 204-207 ratio and proportion, 190-195 symmetry, 197-201 unity of form, 201-204 in physics, 201 working definition, 213-214 musical analogies, 214, 255-258 harmonic ratios, 190-192, 232233, 242 harmonic relationships, 292295, 296 interval, 232, 239-243 modulation, 205, 213, 263-273 scales, 51, 99, 100, 222-246 tones, 233-234, 238, 244-246 transposition, 248-255 harmony, musical terms and concepts chord/chord progression, 263-264 chromatic scale, 231, 233, 241, 242, 244 development of Western scale, 232-233 diatonic scale, 243, 244-246 interval, 238-243 key, 244-246, 248-249, 250, 263, 264, 265 modulation, 263-264 octave, 190, 232, 248, 282 semi-tones, tempered, 233, 238 tetrachord, 244-245
harmony, musical terms and concepts continued transposition, 248-249 whole tones, 234 whole tone scales, 242 Hennings, Emmy, 20 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 74 Huelsenbeck, Richard, 20 human proportion. See under proportion hypercube, 48, 208, 253, 263, 281282, 284 icosahedron, 45, 46, 50, 52, 88, 112, 116, 120, 126-128, 131, 135, 140, 207-213, 217n77-78, 218n84, 233238 individuality, 207, 256, 257 interrelationship of movement elements, 190, 204-207. See also affinities; “law of proximity” body and space, 62, 73, 87-88, 126-128, 191-192, 237-238 effort and shape, 292-297 effort and space, 171-176, 206-207 interval, spatial and tonal, 239-243 Issacs, John D., 75 Jacopo de Barbari, 67 Jacques-Dalcroze, Emile, 19 Janco, Marcel, 20 Jooss, Kurt, 25, 26, 27 Jung, Carl Gustav, 150, 156 Kandinsky, Wassily, 17, 30n17, 32n28, 95, 101, 203 Kestenberg, Judith, 207 key. See harmony, musical terms Kindes Gymnastik und Tanz, Des, 34n61, 38
325 kinesphere, 110-118, 120, 123-125, 140-141 analogous to sound sphere, 231233 center, 119, 124, 126-127, 136, 201 defined, 111 icosahedron as preferred model, 126-131 Platonic solids as models of, 112118, 207-210 relation to dynamosphere, 155, 171, 181, 187 zones of, 126, 135 Klein bottles, 48, 208, 253, 299, 300 knots. See under eukinetic forms Laban Centre, 38 Laban, Rudolf artworks, 42 archival source of, 2-5, 38, 41, 42, 44, 56 architectural sketches, 52-53 caricatures, 39, 54-55 figure drawings, 42-44, 62, 63, 70-73, 86-90 geometrical forms, 44-48 human and geometrical forms, 48-50, 57 landscapes, 53-54 portraits, 54 three-dimensional constructions, 50-52 biographical information, 1, 30n3, 31n24 art studies and career, 14-18, 2122, 42-43, 50, 61-63 dance career, 18-26 early interests, 11-13 educational work, 10, 27
Laban, Rudolf continued family background, 10-11 industrial studies, 10, 27-28 research career, 29, 37-38 psychological studies, 10, 2829, 36n84 theatrical work, 28 books Choreographie, 34n61, 37, 219, 221, 225, 226, 231 Choreutics, 35n73,84, 106n87, 219, 220, 225, 231, 259n1 Effort , 28 Gymnastik und Tanz, 34n61, 37 Kindes Gymnastik und Tanz, Des, 34n61, 38 Language of Movement, The, 35n73, 106n87, 138, 274, 280, 282 Life for Dance, A , 11, 30n3 Mastery of Movement on the Stage, The, 28 Modern Educational Dance, 35n77 Principles of Dance and Movement Notation , 38 Schrifttanz , 24, 38 Vision of Dynamic Space, A, 60n31 Welt des Tänzers, Die, 22 Lamb, Warren, 28, 207, 308n20 Language of Movement, The, 35n73, 106n87, 138, 274, 280, 282 Lawrence, F.C. 27-28 “law of proximity,” 176-178, 179, 185n73, 263, 264-265 Lederer, Maja, 16, 21 Leeder, Sigurd, 26 lemniscates, 48, 51, 208, 253, 263, 280-281, 284, 299
326 Leonardo da Vinci, 64, 69, 71, 126, 141 concept of circular motion, 66-67, 68, 132, 239 “second form of human body,” 68, 73, 86 Life for Dance, A, 11, 30n3 lines of motion, 121, 123, 131 central, 124, 141 deflected, 128-131, 135, 140 peripheral, 125, 141 relation to stability and mobility, 128-131 transverse, 125, 141 transversal, 125, 144n34, 259n15 Lipps, Theodor, 93, 95 Littlewood, Joan, 28 Majsch, Eduard, 12 Marc, Franz, 17 Marey, Etienne-Jules, 75-76, 78, 79, 80, 81 Mastery of Movement on the Stage, The, 28 mobility, 115, 117, 128-131, 140, 141, 196, 273 mobile state, 159-160, 165, 168, 272 modern art movements, 2, 42, 62, 79. See also Art Nouveau; nonrepresentational art Dada, 20-21, 33n46, 79 Expressionism, abstract, 16, 33n46, 203 Futurism, 33n46, 79-81, 96, 104n62-63 Modern Educatonal Dance, 35n77 modulation, 205, 213, 263-273 motion factors. See under effort movement analysis, 1, 5, 187-188
movement continued choir, 23, 25, 33n56, 35n76 notation, 1, 9, 18, 23, 24, 37, 51, 61, 62, 73, 85, 96, 100 development of, 109, 135-138, 142n3, 148 direction of gestures, 136-137, 138 direction symbols, 118-121 effort symbols, 153-155 floor plan, 110 motion versus destination, 137139 representation of time, 90 systems of reference, 137 taxonomy, 1, 5-6, 109-110, 140141, 147, 178-181 choreutic elements of, 109-139 eukinetic elements of, 147-178 thinking, 271, 280 Meisenbach, Jo, 21 Meissonier, Ernest, 76 Mylius, Adolf, 11 Muybridge, Eadweard, 74-77, 80, 88-89, 103n37 National Resource Centre for Dance, 2, 38, 41, 42 National Socialists (Nazis), 22, 25, 26, 34n67-68 naturalistic research, 40, 59n24 navel center of body, 126-128, 136, 140, 201 near (rhythm) state, 159, 165, 168, 272 non-representational art, 94-96, 101 Obrist, Hermann, 14, 31n19, 94-95, 100, 101
327 octahedron, 112, 113-115, 120, 184n54, 211, 212, 218n84 dual uses as model, 207-210 effort affinities, 172-173 transposition, 252, 254 octave. See harmony, musical terms Oedenkoven, Henri, 18 organic deflection hypothesis, 128129 Passion Drive, 162-163, 165, 166, 168, 269-270, 272 Perrottet, Suzanne, 19, 20, 31n24 phi. See Golden Section Phidias, 193 photography, 61-62 artists’ reactions, 76-78 chronophotography, 75 early attempts to capture movement, 73-76 influence on avant-garde artists, 78-81 planes. See cardinal planes; tilted planes Platonic solids, 112-113, 217n79 dual uses as models, 4, 207-208, 217n75, 282-283 in Laban’s artworks, 44-52, 86-90 models of kinesphere, 112-120, 140, 143n10, 207-210 models of dynamosphere, 166-169, 176, 184n54, 207-210 proportional interrelationships, 210-213, 218n84-85-86 plumb line of gravity, 115, 117, 119, 121, 122, 140, 204 Polyclitus, 64, 65 polygons, 239, 243. See also under shape; trace-forms
Principles of Dance and Movement Notation, 38 proportion, 62, 63-64. See also ratio applied to movement study, 86-90, 126-128, 190-195, 201-203, 213 interrelationships of Platonic solids, 210-213 representation of human figure, 63-69 geometrical devices used in, 6568, 126, 193-195 numerical ratios, 64-65, 70, 190-193 traditional canon, 65, 69, 192 traditional canon in Laban’s figure drawings, 70-73, 192 Pythagoras, 64, 190, 232
range of motion, 46, 62, 73, 87-88, 128, 131, 140, 191-192, 207, 237238 ratio, 63. See also proportion Golden Section, 88, 106n100, 193 harmonic ratios, 64, 190-191, 210213, 232-233 whole number ratios, 64-65, 190192 Remington, Frederic, 76 remote state, 159, 165, 166, 167, 168, 272 research author’s methodologies, 2-5 Laban’s methodology, 37-41, 55-58, 59n24, 179-180, 302 (see also analogic metaphor; grounded theory) Reuss, Theodor, 21 Rodin, Auguste, 77-78, 86 rhythm, 202-204
328 rhythmic circles. See under shape; trace-forms rings. See under choreutic forms; eukinetic forms Savage, Henri, 15 Schrifttanz , 24, 38 Schlee, Alfred, 24 scales. See under choreutic forms; harmony, movement; harmony, musical terms Sendlein, Antoine, 11 shape affinity to motion factors, 293-296 formal elements of line, 131-132, 138, 139 modes of shape change, 138-139 polygonal rings, 132-134, 141 shape qualities, 139 spatial tension, 121-123, 141. See also under balance Spell Drive, 164, 165-168, 272 stable state, 159, 160-161, 165-166, 167, 168, 272 stability, 115-116, 128-131 140, 141, 196, 273, 274 Stanford, Leland, 74, 75 symmetry, 50, 57, 123, 197-198, 200-201, 202, 222-229, 248 symmetry operations, 47, 57, 198, 248, 249, 267 glide reflection, 200, 229, 236, 249 reflection, 198, 222, 223, 224, 228, 249 retrograde motion, 200, 224, 228 rotation, 199, 226, 249-250 translation, 199, 249 Tauber, Sophie, 20
tetrachord. See under harmony, musical terms tetrahedron, 112-113, 184n54, 208, 209, 210-213, 218n84 tilted planes, 219, 230-231, 274-275, 292, 295 tones. See under harmony, musical terms topology, 219, 250 manipulation of shape, 47, 48, 51, 250-251 homeomorphism, 251, 252, 254 relation to motor control, 255 transposition of choreutic forms, 250-255 transposition of eukinetic forms, 276-277, 278-279 trace-forms, 46, 85, 86, 88, 98, 141 as generic shapes, 131-132, 138139 as polygons, 87, 89, 132-133, 194195, 239-241 style of embodiment, 136 transposition, 214, 248-255 Tzara, Tristan, 20 Ullmann, Lisa, 26, 27, 28, 35n73, 35n75, 38, 41, 56, 60n31 unity of form, 201-204, 221, 256 Villard de Honnecourt, 67 Vischer, Robert, 93 Vision Drive, 163-164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 272 Vision of Dynamic Space, A., 60n31 visual arts, 9, 61, 126, 132, 192. See also architecture; Art Nouveau; art theory; modern art movements; non-representational art; photography
329 Vitruvius, 64, 65-66, 201 Wedekind, Frank, 17, 32n33, 104n63 Welt des Tänzers, Die, 22 Wigman, Mary, 19, 20, 23, 25, 27, 35n75 Winterstein, Otto, 12 Wölfflin, Heinrich, 93-94, 203 Worringer, Wilhelm, 99
