Rudolf Laban and Labanotation

Who is Rudolf Laban?

I won't spend long on talking about Laban's past.

Laban was a Hungarian dancer, director a theorist. He was born into a rich family that governed provinces within the Austro-Hungarian empire. So, he had a pretty happy childhood. He originally moved to Paris in order to study architecture, but then gained an interest in the relationship between human movement and space. It wasn't until Laban was thirty that he began to study, in Munich, the art of movement, known as Ausdruckstanz (no, I have absolutely no clue on how to pronounce that). He had connections to the Nazi Party, but that's not really too important at the moment. All in all? He's been pretty successful. Good for him.   

Why should I learn about him?

Mentioned above, Laban was interested in the link between movement and space. He wrote several books on this topic, such as A Life For Dance, The Mastery of Movement and Laban's Principals in Dance and Movement Notation. So, yes, he wrote a lot. However, as the title suggests, in my dance class, we are focusing on Labanotation.

What's Labanotation?

Besides being a fantastic word to use in Hang Man, Labanotation is a systematic way of noting down movements. You see, Laban felt that there wasn't an efficient enough way to note down dance moves. So, as all great minds do, he created his own method. Unlike using stick figures and words, he used a series of shapes and shades, as shown in the above picture, lovingly displayed by Laban himself. 

Laban used his notation for the following:

• To show the direction and level of the movement
• Which part of the body was actually doing the movement
• How long the movement occurred for
• The Dynamic quality of the movement

Hold the phone, if you're anything like me, you're currently wondering 'hmmm, what in the world is the dynamic quality of the movement. The stone cold truth is, it's the way the movement is done. Fast, gracefully, slow, frantically. So how would I write the dynamic quality of the movement?

• The way the movement is performed.

Much more simple, wouldn't you say?

Why is Labanotation worth learning?

If I drew a stick figure spinning, it'd A), look horrendous and B), not give you all the information that's needed.

You see, I could give the same horrible stick figure drawing to five people in my class. Dionne, for example, may want to do the twirl gracefully, taking her time. Luke may want to do it quickly. Summer might want to do it with one hand in the air. Anthony might do it whilst moving across the dance studio.

But I, the original creator of the horrendous stick figure drawing might want it to be done in a sinister way. There are so many different interpretations of that one drawing that, unless I were to write out exactly what I wanted in as much detail as possible, the movement could be completely different to what I actually want. Since writing it out in so much detail is a waste of time (and my handwriting is awful), I would want to use a method that tells the dancers exactly what I want. And which method does that?

LABANOTATION!

Sorry, I got excited. But yes, Labanotation tells the dancer what to do with their entire body. Let me show you with exciting graphs.

So, it's a bit like Dance Dance Revolution...

... With levels.

What on Earth did you just show me?

I know. It's so strange to look at. But trust me, it does begin to make sense. I'm not qualified to teach this whole new language, but this lady here is. CLICK HERE FOR LABAN LESSONS!

So, do you actually understand Labanotation?

I understand what Labanotation is for. I don't actually know, however, how to follow and learn from Labanotation. I'd like to, though. It's pretty interesting stuff and, who knows, maybe one day all dance lessons will be taught with abstract shapes and shadings.


So, what are your thoughts so far?

I'm looking forward to finding out how to piece together all of the Labanotation theories. I can understands the basics, if the amount of times I've spoken about abstract shapes indicates anything. Although the initial concept looks horrid, I have been assured by C that in reality, it isn't actually all that bad. Whether she's lying or not, we'll just have to wait and find.

I'd also go and give his wiki page a quick read if you're interested in Nazi Propaganda. His personal life was pretty interesting, despite being possibly the most scientific dance practitioner I've ever heard of.

My kind of dance practitioner is Matthew Bourne, but you can't knock it until you try it.

Bye!