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.