What Laban Means to Me...

A great gift is given to any dancer who studies Laban Movement Analysis. LMA has given me tools and a vocabulary that I could never come up with on my own. Without Laban this contribution to the dance world would not exist. I take his work quite seriously because it enables me to look an analyze movement in a specific way and in a language that any dancer who has studied Laban's work could understand. Hardly any of the language has changed over the years, meaning that Laban was ahead of his time. Anyone can dance but not every dancer understands how and why they move. Laban's work should be understood, at least at an rudimentary level. All of the dancers that surround me in class seem to understand corrections differently, in a more complex nature. They use their understanding from LMA and use it to their advantage. It becomes more internal. All of this is knowledge, plus much much more, has come directly from Laban's work. As dancers we should appreciate all of the knowledge he has given us.

Shows how dancers transform Laban's ideas and generated movement material.

A Movement Choir

Consists of 100 dancers and 400 university students.

College Demonstrates Movement Choirs

Laban's Contribution

Rudolf Laban made enormous contributions to dance. He not only gave descriptions to movement and changed the way we talk about it but he also gave a way to notate movement. Today his language is still used in order to describe movement and to train dancers without much of it changing. His notation system is called Laban Movement Notation. This has been used to reconstruct dances that were never recorded on video. Without Laban we could not see some of the works that existed before video was around. Today educated dancers usually undergo some kind of training in his studies. Some of his students used his work to develop something of their own such as Bartinieff Fundamentals. Others have used his tetrahedron to develop other ways to organize compositional techniques to create movement. Another one of his major contributions was the movement choirs which is discussed in the above Youtube video. There are countless contributions he has made to dancers around the world with the work he did.

There is an App for everything! You better believe it!

This shows Laban's dimensional scales in both the cube and the tetrahedron.

Living Architecture: Rudolf Laban and the Geometry of Dance featuring Valerie Preston-Dunlop (an extract)

A look on the Olympics in 1936

The Bigger Picture

Most likely the largest historical influence on Rudolf von Laban's life was the rise of the Nazi's party along with Hitler. Laban was asked by Hitler and Goebbels to choreograph a piece for the 1936 Olympics. Once those men saw the dress rehearsal for Laban's piece they immediately took this away from the world to see. Laban was essentially banished by Hitler and Goebbels and was put on unofficial house arrest. Eventually Laban fled Germany but I do not think that he would ever forget about what these people took away from him considering the amount of people he had moving together in one piece but this is what frightened the political leaders. "There cannot be to leaders in Germany."
In his research, Laban was extremely invested in his geometric and crystalographical discovers in relation to dance. He used these mathematical studies in order to progress and define movement for the rest of the world. During this time he enjoyed studying industrial workers considering the rise of workers that were needed for these fields. He wanted to find efficient ways for these people who are constantly moving to move in the best ways they can. He goes on to contribute his books one of those are "Choreutics." This was one the the first of his many contributions from his studies.
Other inventions that came out during his life included the television (1927), digital computer (1939), and the polaroid camera (1947). This could influence Laban by how dance is shared, documented, and viewed.

Professional Linage and Influences

Laban was influenced from the many folk dances around Europe when he travel across the continent with his family. To name a few the folk dances of Yugoslavia, Turkey, Germany, and ballroom of Vienna. His early studies in dance began in Paris and he also studied at the prestigious Dartington Hall and later became a ballet master. He also was influenced by his education in all the different fields he studied. This seems to be the reason for his precise way of codifying the analyzation of movement. One of the biggest events that happened in his life was the rise of Hitler. His large group choreography for the 1936 Olympics was taken from him by both Hitler and Goebels. When he was able to flee the country he began to work almost exclusively with Lisa Ullmann. She became the person who taught his classes due to his illness. He continued to share his knowledge through his writing so that it could be passed down for generations.

Laban Bio

Rudolf von Laban

His pupil Mary Wigman

Another pupil Kurt Jooss

Born as Rudolf von Laban, he is more commonly known as just Rudolf Laban. He was born in  Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1879. Laban's father was a leader in the military and was expected to follow in his father's footsteps.  His family traveled across Europe for his father where he saw the folk dances of Yugoslavia, Turkey, Germany, and ballroom of Vienna. Laban thought everyone should dance. He loved working with amateurs and ordinary workers who would ordinarily never even think to dance. Laban was always learning. He was an established dancer, choreographer, actor, painter, designer, crystallographer, topologist, architect, pianist, and composer. After experimenting with new dance forms, mime, and musical composition he decided to devote his life to dance. Born a teacher, he opened his first summer school, with apprentice teacher assistants in Switzerland. The school included dance, singing, music, and painting. Amongst these pupils was Mary Wigman whom he collaborated with many times. His finest dancers consisted of French and Germans who once worked together, ended up killing each other during the war. He opened a school in Stuttgart where Kurt Jooss, later of Ballet Jooss, became a pupil. Other countries typically had amateurs perform with professional soloist. Laban decided he wanted to organize movement choirs that moved taking the lead from professionals in performance.  He found communal “dance farm” in Switzerland. Through this he discovered that his dramas, songs, and spoken word did not belong to drama or opera but to the world of dance.  Kurt Jooss fled Germany to England. Later Laban reunited with him and Lisa Ullmann, one of his former students and Jooss’s assistant. For Olympics games in Berlin in 1936, Laban created a dance involving thousands of participants. Hitler and Goebels decided to attend the dress rehearsal. They felt threatened by the fact that Laban could get a huge mass of people to move together and that there could not be two masters in Germany. The performance was immediately cancelled and Laban then became exhausted and ill. He was put on unofficial house arrest. His notation was forbidden to be used, name could not be mentioned in school or in books. He fled the country to Paris. After living with Jooss, he lived with two rich philanthropists, Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst, and was giving his own quarters. They encouraged him to working on his theories and to write his masterly book, Choreutics. Laban was not allowed to work in England because of the war. He and Lisa Ullmann moved inland to avoid allowed the enemy to find him. She later smuggled his paper out of Germany and avoided detection.  During the Blitz, bombing in London, many people fled London leaving a place for Laban and Ullmann to live. With influences from the Elmhirst’s they were given work permits. Later the could begin to give class and they soon attracted the attention of physical educationalists and dance teachers. Eventually courses were arranged and lectures were given, mostly relying on Ullmann due to Laban’s health.  Through his work observations could be made about ordinary working. Solving problems for women who take on the heavy workload of men.  His collaboration with Lawerence resulted in the booklet, Laban/Lawrence Industrial Rhythm. This was used to revolutionise the future work in industry and agriculture. Physical educationalists and dance teacher sought to fit Laban in their schedules. The war was at its worse but he and Ullman were invited to teach and give lectures as Modern Dance courses. This established Modern Educationl Dance in Britain.  Ullmann and Laban now live in a large house in Manchester and began giving informal classes in their basement. Beginning at four students and the numbers increased. From this the Art of Movement Studio emerged. At the same time Laban-based dance groups were being formed many parts of Britain. Soon the studio grew too big for their basement and they moved it to a rural place in Addlestone, Surrey. Donated by the Elmhirsts’ son, William who was a student. He now had a faculty of assistants led by Ullmann. This was a pleasant place for him to spend his final years. He died in Weybridge, England in 1958. His work undoubtedly would be carried on by his pupils and assistants. His philosophy was based on the belief that the human body and mind are one and inseparably fused. Many people are influenced by Laban and do not even realize it. He gave us terms such as stance, the dimensional cross, pathways and traces forms, and monolinear and polylinear movements. Also he gave us the effort factors and the dimensional scales. His dance notation system was established in 1927.  Albrecht Knust and Ann Hutchinson made Laban’s system eminently practical and is now use in much of today’s master contemporary dance.  He wrote many books and articles such as The Language of Movement, Rudolf Laban Speaks about Movement and Dance, The Mastery of Movement, A Vision of Dynamic Space, and Modern Educational Dance. These carry on his legacy in which we all learn from and apply to our own studies. Without Laban much of the language and notation would not exist.

About Me (2-14-11)

My name is Janel and I am a 21 years old. I was born in Massachusetts and I moved to Racine when I was three. From the age of three my mom enrolled me in dance. My mom knew the owners of the dance studio that I danced at. I began in ballet as all little ones do and moved to jazz and tap as I got older. I also got into a bit of African at my studio as well as doing competition dance. When I was just getting into middle school my teacher decided to teach elsewhere and she was a great technical teacher. After she left I started to teach at the studio, the younger competition groups and the poms classes. I also taught people the same age as me but also as little as 3 years old throughout the years. As I went onto high school, I still taught at the studio but I also did poms in high school. I felt that this was the time that I lost much of my technique from my previous training because my poms team was not the most technical group. Then when I was going to start college I did not know what I wanted to do. I found out that UWM has a dance dept. and I decided to audition and got into the program. I planned on going through the dance program and getting another degree and then I wasn't too sure about because I loved the program so much. Now I plan on getting my dance degree, getting my somatics minor, and taking the classes I need to go to school for physical therapy as a graduate student. Right now I currently am not teaching but I have worked in retail for about 5 years, 2.5 at Linens-N-Things (before they closed), and 2.5 at Best Buy. Best Buy has affected my life in dance by the interest I have in technology and how it relates with dance. What I currently value in dance is the movement itself. The study of the body and making sure that it is moving healthy and in a beneficial way and not something that hurts the body. This is partly why my interest in somatics and physical therapy. I hope be able to help movers move healthy.