Rudolf Laban: An Introduction to His Work and Influence (Hodgson, John, and Valerie Preston-Dunlop, 1990)

2. Laban's ideas on movement (P.15 - 20)

• P.15 Laban observed and experienced. He questioned, he thought, and he examined the nature and the causes of all he saw and went through....'Heaven and earth are mother and father of man, I thought, and rejoiced to be a human being,' he wrote in his autobiography.
• P.16 Men and women showed great skill in carrying out their working movements in a definite rhythm, and took a pride in the way they carried themselves. 'It was,' he said, 'impossible to miss the great importance of movement in life'.
• {elements are from daily life, nature}
• p.17 Laban insisted that in the human body there is a three-fold unity: body, mind and spirit. Each of these is movement-related and interdependent and throughout there is a two-way process in operation: we feel, we think and that affects and effects body movement; we move in a certain way and that affects and effects outlook and thought.
• Understanding movements and their functions can therefore be a means of understanding people....For movement, Laban pointed out, is both conscious and unconscious....To the knowledgeable observer these communicate information.
• P.18 'The source whence perfection and final mastery of movement must flow is the understanding of that part of the inner life of man where movement and action originate.' The body itself is the base reference point for making sense of the world...It is in and through his body that each individual relates to size, to texture and to time.

Laban's 3 Rs (P.18)

• Research: Through study that deeper analysis and understand can be brought about.
• Recreation
• Rehabilitation (復興): It is needed to restore the equilibrium.....Laban's realisation was that all human beings need a balance of movement, and need to learn to use space, time and differing qualities in order to be able to redress the imbalances.

• Laban maintained that harmony with the outer world and within oneself comes through the use of contrasts and opposites. The practice of such activities as gathering and scattering, travelling directly and indirectly, moving with lightness of touch and with strength, quickening and sustaining, all help to re-establish the essential balance of the individual.
• P.19 Perhaps most important of all, Laban believed, is man's neglect of rhythm. Without a feeling for and awareness of the use and function of rhythm in the body. 'Every harmony or disharmony has an individual characteristic as has every rhythm. To explore the world of rhythm and harmony we need to enter it fully, participating both bodily and mentally.
• {important ideas: contrasts and opposites, rhythm}
• He maintained that movement is 'an art of experience' which expresses the otherwise inexpressible. 'Dance movement,' he asserted, 'goes much further than words'.
• P.20 His summary of his own contribution was simply to declare that he had devoted his own life to 'a search into the nature, meaning and ramifications (分派) of movement'.

Hodgson, John and Preston-Dunlop, Valerie. Rudolf Laban: An Introduction to His Work and Influence. Plymouth, UK: Northcote House Publishers, 1990.